How much does abandoning the population to cower between the loyalists and the rebels cost in anger against all the nations that did not help?

And how much of the cost of a no fly zone will be borne by other NATO nations? Will the Russians help enforce it as a humanitarian mission?

Dempsey needs to ask himself these questions and more.

which is something my post said.

don't want us there.

Every hot zone. We can't force the nations of the world to stop killing their citizens. The UN is too weak to stop it, so we should look at that. But are other countries willing to commit billions of dollars and the lives of soldiers to the cause? Where is France or Germany in this? Might as well call in Japan too.

I was just pointing out there were costs no matter what we did.

Or didn't do.

These estimates were demanded by McCain and Levin. He gave them - and unlike Bush Cheney saying that the war in Iraq would pay for itself, he gives these very high costs.

As to Russia - they obviously would not WANT a no fly zone, They support Assad and the rebels have no planes - and no ally is using them. A no fly zone is both humanitarian and an attempt to shift the balance 9in the rebels favor. It is not clear that it ends up with fewer innocents dead as Assad is - for the most part - not using air power.

I do understand that people who supported the rebels or who were caught in between feel they were let down and possibly betrayed. The concern expressed here is that even spending this huge amount of money and risking an incident with Russia could STILL leave the war going on indefinitely or chaos rather than a functioning country.

I doubt there is ANY interest in the US using ground troops - even Mccain has not asked for that.

The solution may be the peace conference - even with the rebels entering at a disadvantage.

is a very good General and not political from what I can see. He is right in tune with a General Grant or General Sherman. He tells it like it is.

It is not just Russia supporting Assad, but he has people supporting him too, unlike what the U.S. and rebels are claiming. That Alawites, Christians and even some Sunnis support Assad.

I just wish the U.S. Government would quit lying about why they want to overthrow Assad. It is becauise of the Netanyahu government and Israel. And why don't they just quit lying about Hezbullah because the Shite population in Lebanon supports them. They are fighting against people resisting against them dictating in the Middle East. As long as people resist, this will never end. All the U.S. is doing is making more amd more people of that region hate this country because they think might is right. The person thay need to be putting a leash on is Netanyahu. I don't see why this country has to keep suffering for another country? This Government suppose to belong to the American people and not for a few people's pet projects. I listened to a crowd of people in Jordan crying for the U.S. Government to help them overthrow Assad. Kerry took his visit there. They weren't asking for food or weapons but U.S. military support. They want us to kill people for them.

Saudia Arabia and Jordan has an Air Force. You didn't hear them crying for the Saudi Air Force or Jordan Air Force. You didn't hear them crying for any military forces but the U.S. They want us to do their killing for them, so they can kill people once they take power. They are not in Syria fighting themselves. I think the politicians in our Government should resign and give up their citizenship, and go represent those people, instead of robbing us. They need to go beg their Emirs,sheiks or kings for protection.

To my reading, he makes a very strong case for NOT doing it. Little benefit, high costs. Then note this was an analysis asked for by McCain and Levin.

Oh, I forgot. That's already been done.

and...and...and....He's a brutal dictator who is killing his own people,

so [font size=3]LET'S ROLL!!!![/font]

I'm sure we have some Freedom Bombs left over from Libya!




[font size=3 color=firebrick]
They are evil dictators who kill their own people !
Trust Us.
We would NEVER Lie you into WAR!
If you're not FOR the WAR in
Vietnam
Afghanistan
Iraq
Libya
[font size=5] Syria,[/font]

you're WITH
The Communists
AlQaeda
The Terrorists
Saddam
Qaddafi
[font size=5] Assad!!![/font]

Terror! Terror! Terror!
Evil Dictators! Booga...Booga
USA....USA...USA
[/font]


Same Shit
Different Bag

Read his explanation of the costs - which are enormous - and the risks - losing US planes. Then look at the benefit - which is not that great as Assad is mostly using things other than air power. To me, this REQUESTED cost/benefit leads to almost anyone rejecting the idea.

My reply was a prediction of the response by the Drum Beaters,
which was implied by the "But" preface to my post.

I thought it was equating this to the Cheney it will pay for itself. Sorry I misunderstood you.

that response. It want stop with Syria, but Iran will be next and probably North Korea. It is all the neocon agenda. If it isn't WMD, then it will be they are killing their own people. If you really look at it going back to their U.N. wars starting with the Korean War, the Neocons have kiiled more people than the Dictators. They just carpet bomb the hell out of them and now it is called surgical strikes. The Nazis use to do that.

The Snowden thing has driven some people HERE crazy enough to start wishing some Freedom Bombs on Venezuela.


The one unintended consequence of the Bush Administration I'm actually GLAD about is that they were Soooooo obsessed with Iraq,
they took their eyes off of South Latin America long enough for actual DEMOCRACY broke out all over.
The Neos (NeoCons & NeoLiberals) won't be able to tolerate something like THAT for too much longer.

There was a no-fly zone in Libya. But once there was a tool, when a problem presented itself--hyperbole directed toward Benghazi, with Qaddhafi's folk advancing in that direction--the tool found another use.

The no-fly zone became a defensive "no go" to protect the cowering rebel alliance from air, sea, or land attack. That included missiles, so missile bases were bombed.

Then, as the defenders advanced from their home base, they unjustly ran into more attacks, this time as they defensively attempted to overrun aggressor positions.

The no-fly zone continued to adapt and expand and advance to protect them, preparing the battlefield for their purely defensive retreat to behind where the enemy's lines were.

Sometimes there was pre-emptive defense--after all, stopping the aggressor from mustering a counterattack is a kind of defense. Isn't the best defense a good offense? Wouldn't want to offer anything less than the best defense.

This paused briefly in the humanitarian "seege" of Tripoli, in which for purely humanitarian purposes food, medical supplies, fuel were cut off from the city. The spelling "seege" is used to avoid confusion with the anti-human-rights "seige" that only Zionists and Capitalist Running Sharks of Canine Imperialism would engage in.

Mission creep. Can't leave base without it.

person ever since I graduated from high school. A No Fly zone is really military intervention with our Air Force to give the rebels Air Superiority. McCain and others are trying to be slick when they used those terms about trying to save lives to non military people. That is when you can tell lying from honesty.

The Syrian Army is beating the shit out of the rebels and they are whining. It has embarrassed the supporters of the rebels because they can't stand losing to Assad. When I take off the blinders, and listen to Assad's interviews and listen to John McCain or John Kerry, his answers seems to be more intellectually put. In blunt terms, McCain and Kerry sound like the idiots.

The rebels they are supporting sound like religious fanatics and terrorists by using car bombs and assassinations of people that don't agree with their cause. They don't want to use the political processes because they can't win in Syria. Just what support do the leaders of the opposition have on the ground in Syria politically?

In Assad's cabinet, he has Alawites, Christians, and Sunnis in important Posts from different tribal villages and towns. His wife is a Sunni whose family comes from Homs.

The Kurds are not fighting the Assad regime now, because he gave them citizenship and more autonomy over their own region after the uprising. That was one of the demands he gave into, but everybody dismissed it. It was a very smart move by him and now the Kurds seem to be helping him. They seem to be battling the rebels and Turkey more than Assad.
This General Idriss has no political support in Syria. He is just a paid puppet as a figure head to legitimize the FSA. How many politicl leaders have they had now, and they are promoted by Saudi Arabia or Qatar. So they are puppets too.

Even speaking to the people in Jordan begging him for a no fly zone, Kerry was saying that it was not as easy as they thought and was pushing back. You could argue that he should have bluntly said no, but that would be ignoring that many were ordinary people, driven out of their cities who lost loved ones. That his response was both honest - in not committing what we may not do - and gentle in reacting to their true hardship was likely as good as you can expect. Note that not one statement raised false hopes - even as he used the words "that it is not that simple" vs words you might have used that are more judgmental.

As to more intellectual, I have listened to many many serious Kerry interviews and he is most certainly not an idiot. As to Assad, he is obviously well educated and spoken, but I would not say that he was especially intellectual. Charlie Rose interviewed both of them in 2009 or 2010, Kerry was by far the one more able to answer complex what if questions.

You have constantly attributed to Kerry positions that McCain has had - ignoring their exchange at Kerry's confirmation. The main role Kerry has had with Syria is that he and the Russian foreign minister tried to revive the peace conference that no one worked on for 2 years. The rebels made this harder once they were losing ground and I assume the Snowden issue has greatly impaired the possibility of a diplomatic solution.

BushCheneyCorp didn't listen but hopefully these senators are listening now.

This is a very good sign.. imo.