This isn't exactly a new thing on the left.

that somehow, some way, if we just try hard enough and really, really, really believe, war can produce progressive and humane outcomes after all.

And they won't stop demanding the killing of black, brown and yellow people globally until they've found a way to do that.

I must have missed that briefing.

It's time to stop acting as if those two places somehow morally rehabilitated U.S. intervention. It's not even clear that Milosevic was brought down due to the NATO bombing. That could equally be put down to the people of Serbia just getting sick of the fascist dickwad.

See how easy an argument is when you can just dismiss what actually happened?

There is no unchallengeable proof that things only got better in Kosovo and Bosnia(and it's not clear they really got that much better)because of Western bombing.

It's time to retire the Kosovo thing as a vindication of war. Even if it did some good in that situation, it's not applicable to much of any possible future situation.

Given that war always turns this country further and further right, why on earth would anyone with even liberal values still see it as something worth trying to rehabilitate.

Intervention is always people from outside a country coming in and blowing that country to shit. Given how seldom anything good comes of that, why even bother trying to defend it? The odds are always deeply against war making anything better for the vast majority of the children of the earth.

Furthermore, can we even be sure that U.S. bombing would have HELPED anything in Rwanda? Isn't it just as likely that outside intervention would have made all the Hutus "rally 'round the flag" and possibly kept the regime that was murdering the Tutsis in power?

I mean, your post comes off as about as substantial as "your MOM is a one-off!"

If you would like, I can reference the reasons why the balkan situation was unique, the most obvious one being the outcome. I think Ken Burch is doing a decent job so far explaining it.

The US commits its forces overseas for myriad reasons that are generally idiosyncratic to the war in question. When you look at US history, for that matter, Iraq is very much the outlier.

reasons:

1) To install a friendly regime for geopolitical reasons
2) and/or in order to secure access to resources or trade (on terms favorable to the US.)

Note that we're talking about interventionist actions here, not existential crises like the revolution/war of 1812 or the civil war. The world wars are not comparable to the kind of action we're talking about either.

There are lots of specifics that you can delve into for each case but usually the US intervenes when its finances, access to resources, or ability to project power are threatened (or if it sees a really juicy opportunity to grab more power, like the Spanish American war.)

and how many countries are we at war with now? I believe we are at war with the world because you know 'terra' is everywhere and we 'have the right to invade any country that is 'harboring terrorists'.

Why does the US have so many enemies? Does it ever occur to anyone that maybe it's not everyone else, maybe it has to do with the fact when you kill and torture people in other countries, they aren't going to think too kindly of you?

I wonder what would happen if we used all that money spent on killing people, we spent it here and spent some of it helping other countries, rather than rearranging their governments to our liking, and supporting their Dictators, like Karamov and the Bahrain Rulers and Saudi oppressors and our history isn't great either, supporting Dictators like Pinochet et al.

Sometimes you have to fact the fact that when are the one punching people in the face, someone is going to punch back sooner or later.

It is tough to hear about people being killed in Syria, but intervention isn't in our best interests, none of them. We must stay the hell out. If Israel wants to enter into the conflict in Syria, let it, but Israel should fight the ensuing battle on it's own.

See Here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023529599

your paternalism is showing.

My argument was that the people of those countries made things better on their own...isn't that the OPPOSITE of paternalism?

Some were killed accidentally, and some were killed because the Serbian forces we attacked were trying to use them as human shields. There is little doubt the same atrocities would accompany any intervention by us in Syria.

It just never stops

Responsibility to Protect is an internationalist concept designed to protect innocents from evil. It has been called upon use twice, once in Burma, where it failed (and tens of thousands died, without the media making a big fuss over it) and Libya, where it deposed a dictator and likely stopped a protracted civil war that may still be ongoing were it not for R2P.

R2P is decidedly leftist.

The main thing U.S. intervention in Libya was used to impose was privatization of the Libyan economy...once you've gone Thatcherite/Reaganite on that, there's nothing else you can be progressive on.

A couple of sham "demostration elections" weren't a progressive result.

And you can assume nothing the Left wants would ever be an objective of U.S. bombardment or troop deployment in Syria. We're going to be fighting for the oil(just like Iraq)and all else will be forgotten(just like Iraq, a country where the "free" government banned trade unions and imposed sharia, thus ending the workers' and womens' struggles there for all time).

Its production is comparable to Germany's, for God's sake. It's not a petro-state, and there's not enough oil for us to even go in for.

Where that leads is the U.S. accepting whoever claims to be the most "pro-American" as the new Syrian government and then looking the other way at whatever THAT group does...which would probably include looking the other way at THAT government gassing even more people.

This is always what happens when we meddle in this region.

Syria’s proven oil reserves, amounting to 2.5 billion barrels, are greater than those of all neighboring countries except Iraq: according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s estimation of its oil reserves. This makes Syria one of the largest producers and exporters of crude oil in the Middle East.

The country also has large reserves of natural gas, hitherto used for domestic consumption, especially for conversion to gas-fired power plants. But there is a problem, the U.S agency reported that since 1964 the license for the exploration and exploitation of mineral deposits has been reserved for Syrian government agencies. Until 201O an annual income of more than $ 4 billion was procured from the export of oil, particularly to Europe. But things are changing with the war.

The ‘”Free Syrian Army” has taken control of important oil fields in Deir Ezzor. Other fields, in the Rumeilan, are controlled by the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, who are also hostile to the “rebels” with whom they have repeatedly clashed.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/oil-and-pipeline-geopolitics-the-us-nato-race-for-syrias-black-gold/533021

Suffice to say the oil was already massively privatized as the Wikileaks cables showed and old boy Gaddafi was doing rendition for the CIA. Had Libya still been at war as Syria is now, I'm sure you'd be fine with that outcome. No compassionate leftist would.

All we did, by joining in, was to guarantee that postwar Libya would be permanently right-wing and subservient to Western corporations.
I don't like Gaddafi any more than you do, but the die was already cast for him. The Libyan people got him out on their own. They owe nothing to us. And yet, they are now doomed to permanent poverty because that's the only thing that can happen when a country like that goes "free market".

won't be giving the Western Oil Cartels any problems to go about their business as usual.

It's a tragedy for the Libyan people, especially for anyone left there from other African nations who were murdered and tortured by the so-called rebels.

That whole 'revolution' was a lie.

So was Iraq, so is Iran and so is Syria.

Funny that we don't 'support the rebels, who are actually REAL rebels in Bahrain, or in Uzbekistan?

Which is how we know we are once again being lied to, same as Iraq.

So.....Libyan rebels....fake........Syrian rebels....fake

Bahrain, Uzebek, real rebels..

What metrics are we using to establish this exactly?

will fight our wars in the future'. Our 'allies, dictators most of them, from Bahrain were willing to supply 'rebels' for Libya, Qatar also, they sure looked different from the original, unarmed, peaceful Libyan protesters, who themselves were shocked and frightened by all the 'foreign, armed 'rebels' who flooded the country.

It's not difficult at all if you follow the stories from the beginning and read something other than the US Corporate media which NO ONE trusts anymore. The African press are better sources for what is happening in Africa eg and they have some great journalists there. I know, WE are the only country in the world who is 'civilized'. It's such a shame how insulated and uniformed we are here in this country.

Citing the "proxy army" when that simply means that we don't support those who we don't think can win, really. The support of the Libyan revolutionaries was because it was clear that they would win if they had support, it was three cities, and from three different directions.

In Syria, unfortunately, there are no lines, the desperate groups are many, and the FSA has never become a distinct group. It has been dissolved and recreated a half dozen times through different groups, a good deal of whom were expats who want to be involved but know nothing about what's happening on the ground. Expats were involved in Libya but none were elected and it was entirely internal.

The Libya bashing is of course unsurprising and expected when Libya is the only country in the Arab Spring to be doing pretty well. Even Tunisia is having protests recently against their islamist government. You don't see that in Libya because Libya is mostly secular.

Yet the revolutionaries are called "fake." So out of touch.

...and the Global Resource Extraction Corporations.
Gaddafi was the last roadblock to their looting of North Africa.

I am simply stating the facts as I see them.

But it's unsurprising you can't go a day without insulting me hatefully.

it's rather hypocritical of you to cry out in feigned emotional angst.

It's instructive.

for western interest.

MQ was ousted for the countries oil wealth.

Until the western sponsored uprising show where Libya had internal warfare.

They don't want the east and west to share the oil they want the west to have complete control over it, with right wing extremists in charge. Fortunately Libya's secularists / non-tribalists are pushing back against that. It will be some time yet. I just hope Egypt and Syria's extremists don't flow into Libya since Libya's security is precarious right now.

I was saying the failure to implement it likely led to deaths. R2P is supposed to stop this kind of shit, but there are those who don't believe in internationalism and protecting civilians. War crimes, they don't care about them, unless the US is committing them.

Bush belongs in the Hague.

But so does Assad.

(Note: I am not advocating intervention, I am stating facts.)

It would have been a much better reason than all the other faked up Bush bullshit.

All I know is I saw a video on you tube last night that was supposed to be from the gassing and it was pretty horrific. War is certainly not a good choice but i dont know that I am comfortable just doing nothing.

Sometimes war is necessary. It isn't always. Sometimes it is. And I refuse to cede the argument for war to the bloodthirsty ignoramuses in the Republican Party.

That's really the only morally acceptable possible war for me...and it would defend who we were defending the soil from...if it was a global people army of the 99%, it would be kind of immoral to stop that, since it would only harm the rich.

The days of "righteous" intervention in other countries are gone now, and gone forever. The insistence on fighting for "our interests"
rather than for democratic and progressive universalist values make a "good war" permanently impossible now.

Once you're there for the resources, you can't liberate the people. Or give a damn about them.

I do appreciate the respectful and thoughtful tone of your post, however, and thank you for making it.

Actually, it hasn't been what any U.S. war has been about since VE Day. Usually, the wars that are dressed in those colors(such as Iraq and such as some are trying now to do with Assad)are simply about eliminating a formerly "friendly" dictator-client that has now outlived his usefulness. The people that get called Hitler-types" were already Hitlerian when we were sending them billions of dollars in aid money(most of which they were lining their own pockets with).

The real change we need to make is to get out of the habit of allying ourselves with thuggish leaders in the first place. Doing so never really helps us.

That, and we need to redefine our "global interests" away from the forcing open of foreign markets to U.S. corporations by any means necessary and toward, instead, the creation of a humane, respectful, and sustainable life for all.

I think that was the gist of Al Gore's argument in favor of intervention in Rwanda.

The only thing I've heard about is a punitive cruise missile strike, no troops, no boots on the ground, no warfighting.

The idea is "You think you wanna use chemical weapons against innocent people, old ladies, little kids? And you think you can get away with that shit? Let's watch your arsenals go BOOM and see how much of that kind of thing you'll do in future..."

And even that needs a UN up check before it goes down.

I don't know anyone who's motivated to "go to war" against Syria. Since we're drawing down the military, we'd have to ramp it back up again, and between the sequester and the force-shaping protocols in effect, we wouldn't be turning on a dime. Already most of the FY losses are gone, and the ones for the remaining quarter of the FY are on their way out the door, when you figure the FY ends 30 Sep. Anyone with a family wants to be settled so they can put their kids in school, most people have a little leave they wanna burn, and there's a whole slew of outprocessing/PCS-arrangements, and transition assistance hoops to jump through. And in the outyears, this drawdown will continue--the services, Army most notably, are contracting.

"Isn't it pretty to think so?"

Beats the hell out of sitting on one's sanctimonious ass and watching kids get gassed.

If a cruise missile or two can destroy the stockpiles of the poison used to murder children, I'm all for it, and I think anyone who finger-wags about that does not have their priorities straight.

"Another liberal," eh? You're pretty liberal with the lives of foreign kids, aren't ya?

A child killed by one of our missiles hitting the wrong target is just as dead as one poisoned by nerve gas. There is no safe way to wage war, and make no mistake, that is what we will be doing if we attack Syria.

Innocent civilians will lose their lives in our attacks. If we have learned anything in the last dozen years of our wars, it should be that.

Ok....we'll put you down as Pro-Kid Gassing, then....?

Unless there are "children" in the bunkers where chemical weapons are stockpiled, no children are going to be harmed in this exercise, but nice job conflating!

Let's let children keep getting gassed in Syria, we can do nothing...yeah, that's the ticket...

would you be ok with Americans wearing blue helmets and serving under German or French or Turkish commanders?

Here are the July/2013 deployed assets: http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/contributors/2013/jul13_1.pdf

Good grief--you know this happens with service personnel assigned to NATO commands, too?

I want the United States to start another practically endless Middle Eastern war. In this case, one which could easily become a region wide conflagration. That's what I want, because I'd rather see little children from Yemen to Turkey, from Iran to Egypt killed, maimed and incinerated in their tens of thousands by a really full-blown catastrophe of barely imaginable proportions. I'm one of those people who wants my country to spend its last nickel on killing as many Muslims as possible anywhere we can devise a reason to become involved, while our schools fall apart, our highways crumble and our poor live in dirt and eat scraps. Let's get this war started now! Yes Sir! Get them missiles flying!

Happy now?

I think that the UN can take the lead on this, and we can serve as an instrument of UN will, should it come to that, without "boots on the ground" in Syria.

That doesn't make me a cheerleader for war, a warmonger or any other pejorative.

Don't fling it if you don't want it flung back at you. And don't gin up phony constructs and expect people to go along with you on your tortured and invented journeys.

I sincerely want to believe that, under the guise of acting as part of a United Nations' mandate, we could use our armed forces to kill all of the bad guys, spare all of the innocents and not be blamed as a nation for doing so. I would like it if doing so would not be seen as an act of war by the Syrian government and its several allies, however, I know that is not possible. It would be so nice if it were otherwise, but if we attack Syrian targets with our military, it will be seen as the United States attacking yet another Muslim nation in the Middle East. The repercussions of that decision could be terrible for the people of our country and for many others as well.

We need to sit this one out. Let the neighboring nations, such as Turkey, Jordan and Saudi Arabia do the heavy lifting this time. We can cheer them on and offer material assistance.

who is doing the gassing and are able to take out any bunkers of chemical weapons, AND we have UN concurrence, I really don't care what people think.

Sometimes you have to do the right thing. I think chemical weapons are a uniquely brutal weapon, and I learned this at my uncle's knee (he survived being gassed in WW1, many of his compatriots were not so lucky).

The other nations do not have the ability to put ordinance sufficiently powerful to destroy CW materials on target within ten inches of the intended impact point with absolute confidence. We do.

If precision is called for, as it might be in this scenario, that's our forte.

I don't think we should attack with our military--I think they should stay home and put their combat boots up on the coffee table. We can do what needs doing with a USN asset well offshore and a cruise missile.

There simply is no other option but to destroy ourselves in a new crusade against the evil Muslim Syrians and their evil Muslim supporters. They've used weapons of mass destruction, don't you know, just like Saddam did.

Let me remind you one more time: The Syrian children who die as a result of our purposed intervention, and there will be such (along with many other innocents) are going to be just as dead and will make for just as ugly of photographs as those who died from chemical weapons. The blame for those deaths, however, will be on us.

Did Colin Powell have anything but a vial and a few drawings? He had no video of children gasping for air, their skin waxy, their eyes glazed, with uncontrollable tremors? None of that, eh? He didn't have the Secretary General of the UN leading the charge, pounding the desk, HORRIFIED, either, did he? He didn't have the full throated outcry, without prompting, of dozens of nations either, did he?

So why bring him up? For drama? To get all shitty and shirty and misrepresenting of my POV? Because you got NOTHING to bring to the table by way of a real argument? "Ooooooh, nooooooo....we might get....BLAMED!!!! Run away!!!!"

Let me remind YOU one more time--if the UN determines that there's a bunker of CW stashed somewhere that's being used to gas people, there isn't a kindergarten in that bunker.

Your solution is "Fuck it--let those war criminals GAS the kids! We don't wanna get involved!!! Heaven forbid we should do the right thing, worry about some amorphous BLAME that some idiot, some where, just might place on us!"

I'm glad you're on record for saying that. It says a great deal about both your integrity and fortitude.

Sometimes the right thing to do is entirely clear. Astounding that you worry FIRST about "blame."

I believe these are not easily destroyed by simply being blown up. It may end up releasing a huge toxic cloud that would spread who knows where. This from defenseone.com:

http://www.defenseone.com/threats/2013/07/seizing-chemical-weapons-syria-really-hard-do/67454/

Bombing the stockpiles could worsen the situation. Air power alone appears to be off the table, according to the plans described by Dempsey and analysts. “I know that they have looked at chemical defeat munitions that would incinerate weapons stockpiles,” GlobalSecurity.org director John Pike said, adding, “I have not heard a great deal of enthusiasm on that topic.” The oft-expressed fear is that bombs could also wind up dispersing chemical weapons or agents in the air. “It’s a nasty business,” noted one congressional expert. “You could end up spreading the chemicals.” Civilian populations could be affected. “You’re not going to do it by blowing it up because you can’t assure the consequences,” Wald said.

If they are stored in a remote bunker, a bunker buster could incinerate them before any CWs are dispersed.

If they're stored under Primary School Number 20, then that's a different issue and a different tack would have to be employed--like taking out airfields, one by one, until the UN is allowed in to monitor a disposal program.

When people are bullies, you bully back until they cry UNCLE.

Also, we wouldn't be using "air power" here--we'd be using MISSILE power, assuming we can locate the caches. It's a distinction and a difference.

Dempsey is doing what any CJCS would do--playing the low expectations game. I know that if the UN asked us to TCB, we'd find a way to make it happen, and even if the end result was a team going in to do an orderly destruction of caches as part of a peacekeeping effort, it wouldn't be OUR boots on the ground--it would be blue helmets, and we'd be a very small minority of that force.

do you REALLY think the UN would accomplish anything on the ground if the US wasnt the main force multiplier? Other than us and the British/Australians/Canadians, who would be willing to get involved with Russia screaming about it? And speaking of the Russians, wouldnt they just veto anything the UN brought up for a vote?
And I also agree about force against force. Thats all these types understand. I'm just afraid it would end up being only the US who does the pushing back; with a little help from our friends.

(we're high value targets) we would be essentially paying a fair chunk of the freight for the blue helmets doing the work--which we do a lot of, anyway (and i think it's a good expenditure, myself).

Blue helmets on the ground would be there SOLELY in support of a peacekeeping mission, to destroy CW weapons and nothing more. Their charter would be constrained. They wouldn't get involved in 'civil war' business whatsoever. They would be there to remove and destroy those WMDs, nothing more.

That said, just because they are peacekeepers, that doesn't mean they don't know how to defend themselves. They are, after all, drawn from militaries around the world. If there needs to be overflights to secure their safety while they do their work, there are a LOT of countries--not just us--that can do that. For example, France has some talented pilots, and they haven't dipped in much, though they do have a history with Syria. Right in the neighborhood there are assets aplenty-- Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan--their pilots are US trained, high quality airmen, and they know what to do.

The only way the UN could get there, though, is if the Russians rescind their objections at the UN. It's looking more and more likely that someone in Assad's camp (his brother's unit, is the latest rumor) is involved in this. The Syrians have changed there story from "There was NO release of chemical weapons what-so-EVER!" to "Those rebels over THERE did it!!!"
http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/25/world/meast/syria-civil-war/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

What Putin does will tell the world where his head is at--I'm not hopeful.

in the world. If you think it is, then please don't post ever again about extra-judicial killing with Drones because that is exactly where we will be headed in Syria as we try to kill off some of the radicals that we enable by taking out the Assad regime.

with that "retort?"

I've made it clear that we should act as a UN instrument, with their concurrence, not unilaterally.

So 'please don't ever post again' with a false construct of my position, because that's just not on.

Seriously. I would imagine it spreads poison everywhere.

They've got to be combined to kill people. Like mixing bleach and ammonia.

Incineration is how we destroyed a lot of our old chemical weapons. A big fireball could take care of business.

Of course, the best solution would be if Syria agreed to destroy them under UN supervision...but Syria I don't think is a signatory to any chemical weapons protocols, so this isn't likely to happen.

Considering there is zero proof who did it. Why even rattle the sabre except to "look tough".

There's a UN team IN Syria right now.

It's anticipated that they would figure out "who did it" before any steps were taken. Then the UN would have to vote on the action in response.

And no one is rattling sabres to "look tough." The idea is to enforce the international prohibitions against deployment of chemical weapons. Unless you have a problem with that?

Follow along, or at least try to...

Will there be a note?

As for Iraq. We blew up the stockpile of CW and spread it all over. Including our own troops.

Please keep up.

Chemical weapons have signatures. You can often tell from the residue what the "formula" is and trace the product back to the source. The canisters can have markings on them, for inventory and other purposes, that reveal who manufactured them (and from there you find out who bought them) and who stored them.

Yes, we "blew up" the stockpiles in GW1, using explosives, in a very sloppy way, out in the open, with the wind blowing. We didn't hit bunkers with a cruise missile. It's an entirely different order of magnitude both in terms of firepower and circumstance.

So yeah, please take your own advice, and keep up.

You do know that we destroyed most of our old stockpiles of chemical weapons by incineration? It's an effective method, if deployed properly.

We did not blow them up. Hmm, I wonder why.

As for signatures, how do we find the chain of custody. Did the insurgents pillage then from one the locations they over ran?

How many shells of CW would it take to cause that much damage?
That is a lot of logistics involved. Lots of people.
Cameras everywhere except for the attack. Just some emotional footage of the results.

Generally speaking, chemical weapons don't cut a wide swathe. They're pretty specific, unless you deploy them via helicopter, like Saddam did. As near as I know, these were canister deployments--there's got to be hard evidence remaining.

If weapons were stolen, there will be a record of that, too-the Syrian Army learned logistics from the French--and they knew what the hell they were doing on that score, what with their Foreign Legion and all.

The UN team will have to take eyewitness testimony along with other factors to arrive at their conclusion.

It wouldn't surprise me if the ones doing the deploying filmed their efforts, but the trick is to find that record. It would probably have to be captured.

It's one reason the left was against invading Iraq. We already knew the WMDs were destroyed because Hans Blix and others said as much.

Not Clusterfuck Two. When Two came around, yes, they had destroyed the weapons.

Do you really think Assad would be reluctant to store his nerve gas near civilian housing. What would a "Big Fireball" do to a block of apartments full of women and children? Can you imagine?

Sometimes I wonder about people who see war as an answer to all of the World's problems.

If he were so stupid as to force children to protect his WMD, how long do you think he'd hang on to power in his own country? This isn't "us agin' them" in Syria, it's a civil war with chemical weapons. Saddam wasn't dealing with insurgency from within.

But -- and this is pretty much a war planning 101 lesson -- no one would go in with a cruise missile to a heavily populated area to blow up a CW cache. So rest easy about "big fireballs" in "apartment blocks." It wouldn't accomplish the intended mission. There are easier ways to bend an adversary to do your bidding.

Example: Take out the airfield where al Assad keeps his presidential plane. Take out the plane, too. Take out his helo, the fuel facility where he fuels his plane, and crater a few runways so they're unusable. Now, it's harder for Bashir to move around.

Then lay down the law--Bashir, you're going to let the Blue Helmets in to do a peacekeeping mission to destroy those weapons, and you're going to do it now. The international community has spoken. He says no? Take out a few more airfields, blow up a few more planes. Maybe hit a couple of those remote bunkers--or those other "facilities" he is building--way out in the desert on that lonely road in the middle of nowhere that snakes towards The Lebanon. Take his ass out of the sky. Reduce the number of available weapons he has to prosecute his little civil war. What does this do? It levels the playing field for the insurgents. He won't want that. Better for him to take the CW piece off the board than upset the balance of power.

Of course, those mendacious Russians (who probably supplied the CW in the first place) will do everything they can to block the UN, so this might be an exercise in futile wishing and hoping. More properly, that mendacious PUTIN--who has been on the wrong side of history on most major issues of late--will do everything he can to thwart international will.... so what's one more affront?

Sometimes I wonder about people who can see kids, poisoned and dying, who say "Eh...it's too hard. Do NOTHING. Look away! Not MY problem--I'm a peacemaker!!! Don't even TRY. It's just a few dozen kids and their families...people we don't KNOW...turn that video OFF!"

I hope you are not so blindly partisan that you can't see doing nothing is far better than adding to the carnage and screwing Syria up worse than it is already?

this, when and where it happened, the more logical thing for us is to make a good faith effort to try and determine who actually carried out this atrocity - not to loudly and unthinkingly accuse the regime and take steps to ramp up military intervention against it.

Why are there no US warships gathering off the coasts of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, when the crime more plainly benefits the opposition and its principal sponsors?

Fachrissake, everyone is so fucking EAGER to slam USA for being the ones who can reliably put the ordinance on target, without even bothering to take note of the protocol and hoops-jumping that needs to happen before anyone pushes the button.

Without the UN up-check, no cruise missile destroys any bunker of weapons.

As for the hyperbolic dramatic strawman, that rounds out your rather sanctimonious post, you should be aware of the following (and I'll bet you are)--no little kids are getting gassed, in violation of Geneva Convention, in Qatar or Saudi Arabia. Really. They aren't tossing the chemical weapons about like candy at Mardi Gras.

Stop playing Big Judge of Your Private Word Court, and address the actual issue in an honest way. Otherwise, it's just an exercise in shitflinging and foolishness.

attacks on the Syrian military and leadership bunkers without also addressing steps that might be readied to destroy the leadership and weapons caches of opposition groups who are obviously the more likely culprit, who stand the most to gain from this atrocity and a response by the US and foreign powers?

You talk about safeguards and protocols for intervention. Why is this measured response, you hint at, just in one direction?

The job of the different country desks is to plan for war and hope like hell for peace. We have contingency plans for every country in the world, and most of the major countries in the world do likewise. It's why we play war games, not just "table toppers" but real ones, where we practice coordinating with our allies and sometimes have a few folks play the enemy.

You can't be good at the business of war if you don't practice; even as most uniformed personnel would prefer to not put their knowledge to work.

If Obama was serious about wanting to play the regime change game, with the boots on the ground and surrounded by a bunch of asshole factions that are unknowable and unreadable, the time to have done that is BEFORE this drawdown was initiated.

And you seem to just want to gloss over the fact that no surgical strike will happen without a determination as to who did the gassing. That's why the UN needs to get in there and figure that piece out. The US may have intel in that regard, but a UN team is going to have to find a way to confirm it.

A surgical strike on a bunker full of chemical--and maybe other--weapons isn't "going to war." It is a limited response to a violation of the Geneva Conventions, and will only be undertaken with concurrence from the UN. If we act, we won't be acting as "the United States of America," we
will be acting as agents for the UN.

You don't let people use chemical weapons without a response, if you know about it contemporaneously and can prevent continued use. You just don't.

is responsible, even though a false-flag attack appears to be the more likely explanation, under the circumstances.

I fault the entire foreign policy apparatus for having gotten us this deeply involved in Syria that we should have to be making such decisions. It's been a colossal cluster-f-ck from the very beginning in early 2011 when we tried to hop-scotch off the Libya regime change into Syria. Bad judgment shouldn't be rewarded.

The Russians are in there with their "Someone else did it" schtick. I don't know why you think that i "the more likely explanation," though. The inspection team should be able to figure it out, or at least come to a likely conclusion.

Here: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/08/2013821215836835335.html

And what do you mean, "this deeply involved?" Anyone who is a member of the UN needs to be "this deeply involved" when chem weapons are being flung about.

Jesus. This isn't a small thing.

If the US has real-time intelligence (intercepted orders to use chemical weapons) we'd be complicit in their actual use,and probably wouldn't be willing to give away the capability to decypher the Russian communications equipment the regime is using.

Absent such an intercept, or HUMINT (someone coming forward with a credible proof of such an order being given) nobody is going to be able to prove who fired those rounds, or intentionally substituted the ordinance.

Without proof, there can be no finding. The best we can probably hope for is a determination based upon motive and opportunity. In other words - who benefits? On that basis, the odds strongly point to the opposition (or their advisors) as the culprits.

You're right - this is no small thing, but it was carefully thought out.

It would have been insane for the regime to do this. It's a total lose-lose for them.

If we know who used the weapons, we'd be complicit? HOW? WTF?

Even if we knew, or thought we knew--what should we do--launch a missile? Without confirmation?

That's just stupid.

We could know as a consequence of satellite intelliegence or HUMINT, and it's not necessarily contemporaneous. It could be an after the fact report from an on-the-ground resource. Your "proof" can come a day late.

There's a UN team on the ground in Syria--they are in a position to investigate and they should. The Secretary General of the UN is pissed; he wants an answer as much as the rest of us do.

issued Wednesday it would pass down through a (porous) chain of command to whatever unit loaded the shells, and presumably fired them. If we knew about such a thing before the lanyard was pulled, then we would be part of it.

If this was entirely the work of a local commander or some awful mistake, then the regime can't really be held accountable, should it?

On the other hand, if this was a false-flag operation -- which seems more likely under the circumstances -- and we didn't know about that, that tells me we should find some new friends and new enemies. The other end of the spectrum along this line of possibility, I don't even want to talk about that.

you are also assuming that the asset is able to communicate easily when that's not always the case.

And we would not be "part of it" even if we knew what was happening. One can know that a weapon is being deployed but not know where--and there's no way to prevent the weapon from being fired if one doesn't know where the people doing the firing are or when they're planning on doing the firing. Just because a weapon leaves the bunker doesn't mean it's going to be deployed immediately--it could have been staged at an intermediate location for some time.

Again, there is a UN weapons inspection team on the ground. They have experience with this kind of thing. I think we should allow them to dig in and do their work and come up with some conclusions, and if steps need to be taken to prevent this shit from happening again, let's get to work.

Frankly, al Assad is a very cunning person. What better way to play "What, who me?" than to invite a UN team in, do a little gassing, and then say "Well of course it wasn't me....see? See? Someone's trying to make me look bad!"

It'll be interesting to see if those deployed weapon canisters are of Russian manufacture....

Frankly I don't give a shit who "owns" the chemical weapons. My interest is in ensuring they don't get deployed again.

Believe me, if US or "allied" intel agency had intercepts (or some other proof), we would have been told that by now, and the response would be different (much more massive).

It's not about the country of origin of the munitions, it's about who ordered the lanyard to be pulled and what they thought was being done.

Nobody really has experience in this sort of thing, unless you go back to the falsification of intel that preceded the '03 invasion of Iraq. Even that didn't involve the murder of hundreds of people in providing the casus belli - unless, you accept that 9/11 served such a purpose.

There are more than one way to deliver orders to the field. Regional commanders could have standing authority to use weapons as they see fit--then there'd be no "order" transmitted.

And confirmation could come from someone within the unit, who communicates in a convoluted fashion with our HUMINT assets on the ground--we just don't know.

It's not up to "us" to "prove" anything, anyway. That's what the UN weapons inspection team needs to do. We need to be prepared to be an instrument of UN resolve, though, because gassing little kids is fucking WRONG, and anyone who can turn a blind eye to it--no matter who did the deed--is an asshole.

And we can be an instrument of UN resolve without having to put a single combat boot on the ground. Push the button and boom goes the dynamite--and the binary chem weapons.

Even if both sides are full of repulsive murderers.

They need to do their work and report back to BKM, and let the UN hash it out from there.

The Russians will probably squawk if it is overwhelmingly made evident that Assad is involved, and we'll have to cross that bridge IF we come to it.

I think we need to let the UN do their work, and I also think we need to be ready to step up with a cruise missile if need be. I don't think we need to even think about boots on the ground--this isn't that kind of situation.

I totally agree.

and Rummy said we'd have a week long war without any innocents dying, because our bombs were 'smart'.
All of it turned out to be false, no WMD, we carpet bombed. We killed lots of innocents and we went broke. Your reasons for a repeat need to be extremely strong.
To see you accuse others of hyperbole in the same section where you claim 'chemical weapons are tossed about like candy at Mardi Gras' is really a sight to see. Can you support this assertion? You make it sound as if you have access to information the rest of us don't. Where is the citation and why is the entire world not aware of what you claim is massive, casual use of chemical weapons?

chance to bomb, the UN is going to have to figure out who did the gassing and then ask us to push the button and put some ordnance on target and take out a few bunkers.

It's not the same sort of drill--we're not going, all by ourselves, hat in hand, to them and saying, "Golly gee, UN, please-please-please let us bomb." They're the ones who are saying "This shit ain't right, and if we find out that some gassing happened, we need a measured response." A number of nations are quite sensibly APPALLED at this shit, and if the UN determines who did it, then we go from there:

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/08/2013821215836835335.html

No we didn't- other then some front line trenches early in the war.

Not sure you are up to speed on the meaning of carpet bombing.

I'm glad my post didn't go through just now because I was a bit upset by this statement so I'm having to redo this post. The UN actually didn't sign off on Bush's war in Iraq (the Powell speech).

This is a common misconception because of the faux "coalition of the willing."

I outline what really happened to this other DUer who felt that the UN was somehow involved in Bush's illegal war crimes: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002273829

My emotions in that thread are clearly visible and I don't intend that level of emotional response to you.

As far as Syria is concerned, they are not a signatory to the Chemical Weapons Convention and have openly admitted to having chemical weapons (most likely to point the blame at anyone else but the government in the event those chemicals were used): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syria_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction

The Wikipedia page I have cited should be instructed, even the Russians acknowledge Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles.

The team has said themselves that their only task is to determine if weapons were used, not by whom.

They are being constrained from investigating, it's not that they don't want to.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10260187/Syria-chemical-weapons-attacks-could-we-learn-the-truth-QandA.html

"The U.N. team will report on whether chemical weapons were used, and if so which ones, but it will not determine the responsibility for an attack..."

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/08/22/un-urges-investigation-syrian-chemical-attack-claim/

There are many hundreds of articles points this out: https://www.google.com/search?q=un+chemical+team+%22responsibility%22&safe=off&source=lnms&sa=X&ei=cVcZUvC8GsSSiAL5xIGoBA&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAA&biw=1227&bih=589

So there will be determination by the UN team that the government conducted an attack, or that al Qaeda conducted an attack, etc. If they were able to get primary evidence and control the chain of custody, then they might possibly determine that an attack occurred. That's the most that could happen.