Strike On Syria?

[4588686]

The only instance of military intervention which has been an unambiguously good idea that I can think of was Bosnia.  Which was also possible the only decent (if belated) thing Clinton did in his Presidency.  

[Aloysius]

thank God he came to his senses on the point of congressional approval, I have a feeling if it weren't for the UK Parliament and if there hadn't been such public backlash and a lot of campaigning from various members of congress he was about to pull a Libya and ignore congress again.  John Kerry was speaking with such certainty about attacking without any sign that they would go to congress for approval, it was irresponsible to be talking that way without calling an emergency session of congress while doing so.  But credit to Obama for actually deciding to follow the War Powers Act on that point.  Now I just hope Congress will decide against what I think is a disastrous course of action that will serve to do nothing but prolong the war.

 

as to what we can do, my previous advice was to contact John Boehner and Harry Reid to hold an emergency session of congress, but since Obama will be waiting until Congress's normal session now, the only thing you can do is contact your own congressmen and ask them to vote against war.  I think there are various petitions circling around that will be delivered to congress also... Ron Paul has one, but I think there are others, perhaps we could collect a list here for people interested in doing something about this.  And of course there have been protests planned, myself being outside of the United States at the moment I won't be able to participate in any such things, but that's the other thing you can do if you disagree with a strike against Syria.  how much impact will any of this have?  who knows, but it's the only thing you can do if you want to try.

 

Anyway I also have a feeling he's hoping with a couple weeks of war propaganda by the media maybe the public and the UK parliament will change its mind too.

 

I think all the comparisons to Rwanda are rather misplaced.  you can make a broad general comparison, but just because you have two scenarios in which we don't know which side to support and it turned out in Rwanda that there may have been a legitimate intervention option does NOT mean that the same is true in Syria.

 

but no, of course, we have to attack Syria because Rwanda, except we shouldn't invade Syria because Iraq and Vietnam, except we had to invade Iraq because Hitler.  these kinds of broad historical comparisons completely fail to account for the uniqueness of each situation.  Syria is NOT Rwanda, even though both are civil wars where we were unsure about both sides.

[CrossCuT]

thank God he came to his senses on the point of congressional approval

 

Yeah I read about it this morning. Happy to hear about it although who knows what will still happen.

[add]

In Syria, stories continue to develop of Churches destroyed not by indiscriminate bombing and shelling not by Assad's forces, but by jihadist rebels. Rebels are burning churches, icons, and on several occasions have martyred Christians there.

 

The cold hard fact is Jihadists rebels are attempting to cleanse the region of Christians. 

 

I’m not entirely convinced that the chemical weapons came from Assad, it wouldn’t be the first time things have been staged to provoke sympathy and/or to mislead public opinion.

[BG45]

I was happy to see President Obama will go to Congress also.  I was afraid it would end up like this photo that's been floating around (poor Kerry, he's actually quite brilliant, but that "voted for it, before I voted against it" mis-speech is always going to haunt him.  It was even technically correct, he'd voted for that legislation in draft form, then it changed too much so he voted against it):

 

[4588686]

Actually, neither Boehner nor McConnell asked for congressional approval

[Aloysius]

Yeah, 119 Republicans and 21 Democrats sent a letter to Obama demanding he seek approval, Boehner was not among them to my knowledge... there were 56 democrats who sent a less strongly worded letter (8 Democrats signed both)... 

 

Moreover, if Boehner had been so concerned, he would have listened to the calls for him to call an emergency session of congress, which he has the right to do as Speaker of the House.  he's as late to the bandwagon of Obama needing congressional approval as Obama himself is, I think.

[Apotheoun]

Someone needs to take Obama's red pen away so he can't draw any more red lines.

[BG45]

(Second attempt to post this...remembered to copy first, just in case, unlike last time. Darn Bad Gateways.)

Actually, neither Boehner nor McConnell asked for congressional approval

 

Posted more for the sentiment than anything, but I'm unsurprised, as Boehner and McConnell like wars and the profit war brings to their geographic areas they represent, with defense industry jobs in them.  I was aiming more for the fact that the President was going to act unilaterally, until his mind was changed on a walk, where his aides talked him into seeking Congressional approval.  

 

That or he recalled the words of then Senator Joe Biden, when it looked like Bush was going to attack Iran.  Biden was pretty stringent, as this clip from MSNBC shows, about there needing to be a provable danger to the American people, or he would seek to use his influence with members of the House to impeach Bush for unilaterally attacking Iran without Congressional approval:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0xpfpciJzBU#t=330

 

Or perhaps he recalled the words of a younger, more idealistic Senator Obama, who would become the far more cynical President Obama, who in an interview on Bush's foreign policies with the Boston Globe, said:

 

The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.

 

As Commander-in-Chief, the President does have a duty to protect and defend the United States. In instances of self-defense, the President would be within his constitutional authority to act before advising Congress or seeking its consent. 

 

Or maybe he was disturbed that Fox News is on his side.

 

I was against the militaristic excesses of Bush, but other than the drone strikes, spying upon the American people, and assassinations, he at least sought Congressional approval.  I am against the assassinations, drone strikes, and spying upon the American people done by Obama's administration as well, but I'm happy he has been convinced by his aides to seek Congressional approval for another possible military expedition into the Middle East. 

[Aloysius]

yes, the decision to seek congressional approval is a rare instance, I think, of a politician who had ideals at one point but got sucked into the political machine actually re-asserting, for a brief moment, his ideals about how government should run even when it's not in the interest of his agenda, and I give Obama credit for that as regardless of the outcome of the congressional vote (for, as David Axelroad put it quite aptly, congress is suddenly in the position of the dog who caught the car it was chasing and probably won't know what to do with it now), it strikes a blow in favor of the precedent that a president should seek congressional approval for military action.  I think the events in the UK parliament in addition to the public campaigns of many congressmen are in large part to thank for that, but we must give Obama credit for following through here (though of course there was also a political calculus as it appeases his base who was getting a bit upset with him making it less possible for Republicans to capitalize politically on a flip-flop over congressional authority, because Libya can now just be pointed to as an abberation on his record on that point).

 

[add]

Some two million people have already fled Syria. One million of these are children, many younger than five years of age. Human rights groups estimate that 100,000 people have been killed since the war began.

The countryside around Damascus, eastern Aleppo and Deir Ezzor province are the areas that have been the hardest hit in the ongoing civil war. These areas are also suffering from breakdowns of basic services such as water, electricity and garbage collection, the ICRC said in a statement. 

"In large parts of rural Damascus for example, people are dying because they lack medical supplies and because there are not enough medical personnel to attend to them," Barth says. "They also go hungry because aid can't get through to them on a regular basis."

The United Nations says that in the besieged areas of Damascus and its outskirts, 600,000 people are believed to be in a critical situation due to a lack of electricity, lack of water supplies and shortages of basic goods.
 

[Norseman82]

The Godfather, the answer to all questions in life, foreign and domestic.

 

Actually, The Godfather and Star Trek.

 

Michael Corleone: I saw a strange thing today. Some rebels were being arrested. One of them pulled the pin on a grenade. He took himself and the captain of the command with him. Now, soldiers are paid to fight; the rebels aren't.

Hyman Roth: What does that tell you?

Michael Corleone: They could win.

 

 

Pete Clemenza:  You know, you got to stop them at the beginning, like they should have stopped Hitler at Munich.  They should have never let him get away with that.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69IvMs--aKA

Edited September 3, 2013 by Norseman82

[CrossCuT]

 

 

LOL

 

 

 

House GOP Tells President They’ll Worry About Syria After They Come Back From Vacation

Read more: http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/09/01/house-gop-tells-president-theyll-worry-about-syria-after-they-come-back-from-vacation/#ixzz2dr82ajxy

 

And then...

 

[add]

There are so many conflicts in this world which cause me great suffering and worry, but in these days my heart is deeply wounded in particular by what is happening in Syria and anguished by the dramatic developments which are looming," the pope said, an apparent reference to the threatened airstrikes.

“I appeal strongly for peace, an appeal which arises from deep within me. How much suffering, how much devastation, how much pain has the use of arms carried in its wake in that martyred country, especially among civilians and the unarmed!"

The pope said judgments about responsibility for the deaths of innocents shouldn't be made by laymen.

"There is the judgment of God, and also the judgment of history, upon our actions," he said, "from which there is no escaping.”

 

- Pope Francis

[Lilllabettt]

The pope said judgments about responsibility for the deaths of innocents shouldn't be made by laymen.

 

 

 

I think that is a misrepresentation of what he said.