UN says Syrian rebels used sarin gas. What color line does that cross?
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ETpro (
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May 6th, 2013
The usual neocon crowd are back crowing for yet another war in the Middle East. They aren’t quite sure whether we should invade Syria, Iraq version-3, or Iran. What the hey? Why not all of the above and throw in North Korea for good measure?
Now the UN says the Syrian rebels have used sarin gas in an attack. So if it’s the rebels using nerve gas and not the Syrian army, does that change the color of the line that’s been crossed? What if, as is likely, both sides are guilty as sin? What if the rebel forces are full of Islamic extremists and members of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula? Who do we intervene in favor of? Or is this one supposed to be yet another war just like Afghanistan and Iraq—worry about the details later, just get the hell into some war ASAP?
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49 Answers
I just heard about that this morning.
Are “the neocons” really using this as a pretext for war talk? Who are these neocons exactly?
Does anyone in the U.S. military truly think we should get “involved” ?
Not sure how you’re getting the conservatives into this. Obama said chemical weapons were a Red Line. Maybe you should be asking him. That guy should not be making empty threats. Where were the Liberals when he drew that line? If you’re going to complain, that would have been the time. Only an idiot would bluff and not think about what happens if his bluff is called.
I actually agree with @Jaxk on this one.
Yep, I agree with @Jaxk about the line. It does throw a kink into things though doesn’t it? The side we are arming and supporting is doing the nasty things the side we were told were the bad guys would be doing. Now what? If we were truly concerned about human rights and not the pocketbooks of the wealthy we would come down with both boots on the rebs like we threatened to do to Assad if he used them but that would pretty much guarantee an Assad victory. Would that be such a bad thing?
This is when it becomes apparent that maybe the Ron Paul “none of your business, stay the f#ck out of it” philosophy of foreign affairs is the way to go after all.
Has there been anyone the US helped in these situations who we didn’t need to kill later down the road? If they both have bio weapons, they don’t need any more help from us then.
Wasn’t that an old special forces motto? “Kill ‘em all, let God sort ‘em out”.
@bookish1 The usual suspects are out front in the charge for some form of military intervention; Rep. Mike Rogers, John McCain, Bill Kriston, Lindsay Graham.
@Jaxk I had my concerns about the red line talk when it began. But it does seem to me that it matters whether it was Assad or the rebels who first crossed that line.
@woodcutter That’s exactly why I have reservations. Sure I care the 75,000 people have died in Syria’s civil war. But we killed over 100,000 Iraquis and for no good reason. That nation now appears to be headed for years of sectarian violence. I have every expectation that Afghanistan will prove to be as bad or worse once we withdraw. Why risk all the blood, treasure and Muslim hatred of America just to make a bad situation worse?
@ETpro
Frankly I haven’t heard anyone calling for war, either Republican nor Democrat. Both Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) and Sen Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) Have introduced legislation to arm the rebels. Those are the only direct involvement I know of and both Democrats. The rest are merely supporting what Obama said “the Red Line has been crossed”. Your attempts to make this a republican thing are sorely lacking.
The only national security issue we have, is that these weapons could fall into the hands of terrorist groups. If the rebels used them, I say that has happened. Of course the only evidence we have for that, is this UN report with no facts to back it up. A group with no credibility and no facts, shouldn’t cause much uproar.
The peaceful Syrians are threatened by both Assad and the Al-Nusra Front. It’s a bit like choosing between Stalin and Hitler.
There is no reason for the U.S. to butt into a civil war. Nothing good will come of our interference in their domestic affairs. It seems that these Arab revolts end up giving power to religious fundamentalists. Look at what happened when we armed Afghanistan!
Never get into a battle on either side with religious fundamentalists.
@ETpro
Wow, are we short on our medication today? You have the same report multiple times just from different outlets there. Is that how you reinforce your arguments. What is really funny is they put up a Headline, ‘Republicans Call for Action’ and then in the text say both sides call for action. Liberal outlets I guess.
This is not a Republican-Democrat thing. I know you want to further divide everything along party lines but that’s not the case here. Obama has thrown down the Gauntlet in Syria, Iran, and N.Korea. Right or wrong, the world is watching. Democrats have gone beyond simple rhetoric and actually introduced legislation to take action in Syria. Both in the House and the Senate. Republicans didn’t make them do that. Stop trying to blame Bush for what your donkey is doing.
@Jaxk My whole concern is we don’t really know who used chemical weapons in Syria and we don’t really know who will end up with arms we ship there.
Yeah, the whole world is watching. Does that mean we should do something incredibly stupid yet again, even after the drubbings we’ve taken in Afghanistan and Iraq, not to mention Korea, Vietnam and Beirut, Lebanon before those debacles? What are we trying to prove to the world? That we’re a bunch of mindless meat-heads?
@ETpro
Actually, I think we’ve already proven that. I don’t know what you think anyone wants to happen in Syria but no one wants a war. Unfortunately we’re in a mess but it wasn’t the Republicans that got us here. That is my only point on this. What ever action or inaction we take will affect our credibility in the world. I don’t want Iran to get nuclear weapons nor do I want N.Korea to try a nuclear strike. Both are realistic possibilities and will only be exascerbated if we are perceived to be a paper tiger. I’ve already lived through the ‘Cold War’ and I’m not ready to go down that path again.
Obama got us into this mess and he needs to figure a way out. Simply saying nevermind, won’t do it. Maybe he could blow up an empty building like Clinton did or some other creative response but he needs a response. Yelling at Republicans won’t solve anyhting, they have no power to make anything happen. If you’re upset, yell at the democrats. They’re the only ones that can take action or simply do nothing.
Not a democrat but I choose do nothing. I don’t have an ego that needs massaging.
@ETpro Not to stray too far but I need clarification on something. You wrote: ”But we killed over 100,000 Iraquis and for no good reason” In this statement who are the “we”? The US? The other members of the coalition present at the time, or are those numbers reflecting a staggering amount of sectarian violence where Iraqis slaughtered each other and it was the US’s fault it wasn’t stopped fast enough?
Does this make any difference?
Shit No! OBAMMIE said we would go to war if “someone” used chemical weapons in Syria. He didn’t specify who; and someone did so lets go in there and kick some ass!!! Waste some more bucks! Lose some more young men and women! We have a fuckin’ image to maintain! To hell with details!.
Obama needs to shut up sometimes. This was one of those times. So now what? We make another red line and this time we mean it?
Somehow I don’t think Powell would have done this. Why is that?
@woodcutter so, who do we go to war with? We don’t even know which side is responsible. do we just go in there and kill ‘em all? I think the prudent thing to do is to at least find out who used it before we go off half cocked (regardless of what I said in the earlier post).
@rojo You misunderstood me there I think. We don’t go to war period. That was my point. This red line BS was an ultimatum and now if we don’t do something we look weak…meaning we are fucked. If we do go in we will get sucked into this like we tend to always do and…we are fucked. A president needs to watch their mouths when they do stuff like that. I mean think it, or keep it between a few trusted confidants ,but for fuck sake don’t blurt that shit out loud.
Plus it’s about time the Europeans step up more and handle these conflicts. The French, of all people stepped up in Mali and I thought we at least dodged a bullet there even though we can be sure there were some US involvement, but damn there are plenty of other countries with the muscle to do these. It’s on their side of the world. Thats a good enough excuse for me right now.
@Jaxk We can’t claim that nobody is calling for boots on the ground in Syria. I personally think that Zalmay Khalilzad is delusional if he thinks Russia would, under the UN banner, join the US in taking away Assad’s WMDs. After all, they helped him get them. But the guy’s not a nobody. He was appointed by Bush in 2007 as the US Ambassador to the UN.
@woodcutter You are correct, if we go in, we’re fucked. If we don’t we’re fucked, but fewer Americans die. And we have egg on our nationalistic faces. Egg won’t kill you. Will it embolden others to try to change their country? Maybe. What if it does? Should we be sticking our heavily armed noses into their national business in the first place?
My feelings on the Europeans stepping in is that it isn’t their fight either, they are just smart enough to stay out of it these days. We, on the other hand…..
@ETpro
I don’t see anything in your link that advocates ‘Boots on the Ground’. In fact what he says is that a UN Resolution with the help of Russia would open the door for a political resolution.
“United States should focus on working with Russia to disarm Syria. A U.N. Security Council resolution mandating an inspection and disarmament process for Syria could open the door to wider negotiations on a political resolution.”
Whether that is realistic or not, it is not asking for US troops on the ground.
@Jaxk So exactly how do you take all of Assad’s WMDs away from him by remote control. If you know a way, I’m all ears.
@ETpro
I’m afraid you’d have to ask Zalmay Khalilzad that question. Personally I don’t think a UN resolution ever fixes anything. I would support bombing an Aspirin Factory in the Sudan like Clinton did.
So, it is ok to trust the media if they reported something that suits your agenda but the rest of the time the media lies?
The probable reason the aspirin factory was bombed was as a favor the big pharma – it was producing less expensive knock-offs of their high dollar AIDS drugs and cutting into their market.
Another government lie with coverups following. Good one though and hard to argue with “it was a terrorist bastion. No, sorry our bad, we bombed the wrong thing based on bad intelligence” when in reality they hit exactly what they were aiming for. And, what is that Saudi owner gonna say. Except thanks for the cash.
Actually the media seldom lies but they do distort or print half truths, or spin, etc. The trick is multiple data sources to get to the truth. As for Clinton, He was merely trying to chnage the conversation from Monica Lewinski. I have no doubt he thought it was real but the timing was impeccable. I keep wondering what action we’ll see to change the narrative from Benghazi.
This whole Syria thing is probably going to be spun into a nice distraction from Benghazi. Its a solid guess who will fall for it.
Those that want to fall for it.
Sending troops into a potential poisonous environment to make us forget about that other screw up will be resented by more people than those who believed it was a good idea. I hope they can come up with some other distraction to accomplish this.
You guys do know this whole Benghazi witch hunt it only resonating in the Con Man media. Outside the conservative echo chamber, it’s a non issue. ABC reported it because Republicans holding hearing leaked documents to them that were cherry picked to make it look like something was really amiss when the truth is it’s an unfortunate loss, one we can learn from, but hardly something that’s going to rise to the hysterical coverage right-wing media is giving it. It’s not an impeachable offense or something that precludes Hillary Clinton from ever holding elected office again. The right claiming it is just shows how delusional they have gotten in their hatred.
There’s no question that’s the liberal line on this. Just ignore it and it’ll go away.No Reason to ask if there were really assets that could have made a difference. No reason to ask if the video narative was really part of a political campaign. No reason to ask if the lack of security was the result of political posturing. We had an ambassador killed along with three other Amercans and told a story that was blatantly untrue. No reason to ask questions. Just assume they did thier best. As Hilary said “what difference does it make”.
@Jaxk Yet again, our trot the straw men. I never said there was no reason to ask it there were military assets that could have made a difference, perhaps saved lives. That’s a legitimate line of inquiry. It has been followed, and there were not. It appears we could have helicoptered in 4 special forces CIA guys hours after the consulate staff was dead, and we might have thereby been able to get them killed too. Too bad dealing that question isn’t what Republicans used the committee hearings for.
Unfortunately, actually finding ways to improve security next time has not been the focus of Committee Chairman Darrel Isa has been all about proving that somehow Obama wanted the attack—that it was somehow beneficial to his reelection plans—and that Hillary Clinton personally ordered that no military assets be dispatched to protect the consulate personnel. If Isa was the least bit interested in facts instead of a partisan smear campaign, he would have let Democrats on the committee have access to witnesses and documents before the fact. He refused all such requests. And despite his determined efforts to coach his witnesses into supporting his claims of Obama and Clinton’s malfeasance, he ended up with nothing but partisan innuendos emerging as committee “findings”. This piece by CNN pretty well sums it up.
Interesting. There were questions about almost everything. You seem to want to focus on what you think you can ridicule. Why was there no FEST response when that situation is exactly what they are trained for. They were 4 hours away. No one knew how long the attack would last and it is quite possible that they would have been too late but just as likely that they would not be. Personally, I’d like to know.
There are a lot of questions I’d like answered. I understand that from the democrats, nothing went wrong except they aren’t spending enough money (the CNN opinion). Just for one, if the concerns of an attack and possible death from an ambassador are not enough to get the attention of the Secretary of State, what would be? What would it take to actually get her to read about an issue? Ignorance of the problem seems to be an acceptable answer for the Dems, just not for me.
If this exact thing had happened when Bush was president, the Dems would be wishing to clean house yesterday
And you know it.
@Jaxk No, we now know how long the attack lasted and we know that no help could have gotten there in time. Darrel Issa loves to claim he’s not getting answers, but he’s received over 25,000 pages of documents. If there was a smoking gun somewhere in there, it would be all over the front pages. That’s why the press, with the exception of Faux “News”, is not trumpeting this as a cover up.
@woodcutter That’s an incredible claim if I ever heard one. There was a terrorist attack during Bush’s administration. It happened on Spetember 11, 2001 and resulted in nearly 3000 people losing their lives on American soil, not 4 deaths in a war-torn foreign country. That’s more Americans dead from terrorism on Bush’s watch than all the other presidents in US history combined. Bush got a free pass for his monumental incompetence, and for launching an illegal war of aggression in Iraq with great loss of blood and treasure, and no idea how to bring either of his trillion dollar plus wars to a successful end. On that, he got a free pass from Democrats. Nobody investigated the lies he used to get us into Iraq. His administration issued the stand-down order that allowed Bin Laden and the Taliban leaders to slip out of Torah Borah and cross into Pakistan. On that, he got a free pass from Democrats. So no, I don’t know that Democrats would have behaved like Issa is behaving. I know they did NOT do that. They went so far from grandstanding hearings that it renders your claim fit for the theater of the absurd.
@woodcutter Perhaps you meant that attacks on US soil are perfectly OK and only attacks on our embassies and consulates overseas demand an investigation. If that’s the case, then your claim remains a stunning example of partisanship producing selective memory. I’ll remind you of the Bush Administration record:
• In 2002, the US Consulate in the Karachi, Pakistan, was attacked and 10 were killed.
• In 2004, the US embassy in Uzbekistan was attacked and two were killed and another nine injured.
• In 2004, the US Consulate in Saudi Arabia was stormed and 8 lost their lives.
• In 2006, armed men attacked the US Embassy in Syria and one was murdered.
• In 2007 a grenade was thrown at the US Embassy in Athens.
• In 2008, the US Embassy in Serbia was set on fire.
• In 2008, bombings in the US Embassy in Yemen killed 10.
All that did happen on Bush’s watch. Now your turn. Remind me of the Democratic outrage and accusations that the White House and top officers of the State Department were at fault for all that carnage.
I’m sorry I wasn’t being clear. I meant Dems, you know, the voters. Those in congress don’t count. They are all whores.
Ok I’m back. Those attacks occurred before terrorism was really taken seriously. We should have by now, figured out how to not be caught with our pants down. This Benghazi deal is recent and there was a cover up. It’s still going on. You call it something else but guess what. Most people whether they want to admit it to their friends or not they understand this. Bush took a lot of scrutiny and that’s not what I’m denying. Bush is a shit and never liked him. You apparently think differently. All that vein popping reply was exactly like the smoke screen the administration was blowing up our asses since day one. And you know it. It’s telling you did- by the reply ,man. We don’t give two fucks about what went on before Obama, OK? This is now. All the BS they tried to slap together at the last minute thinking we all are stupid enough to believe it. Well, apparently some of us were. This all coming from the new transparent administration.
I’m sorry but Clinton taking responsibility for this gives me about a fuzzy feeling as Bush doing the same thing right after Katrina. Neither one was sincere and it was stupid to boot.
What difference does it make now? Thats her line? You my friend are easily appeased. The rest of us want all the answers, no BS. I’m not buying “move along nothing to see here.” What I feel like on this, is nothing more than any other reasonably curious person would. People know when some is trying to punk them. A U-tube video, really?
@woodcutter You’re trying to be funny, right. We didn’t take terrorism seriously after 9/11? Never mind. You appear to be utterly blinded by partisan politics.
@woodcutter “The rest of us want all the answers” I submit that answers have been given, but they do not fit the chosen world view. I also firmly believe that no answer will ever be acceptable unless it is the pre-conceived outcome required by these same people. I am not faulting anyone on this, merely pointing it out.
I myself still feel the same way about the Kennedy assasination and the Warren Report.
What happened in Benghazi is pretty clear. If your point is that we have the answers to what happened, I would agree. We know that the Comsulate was vunerable. The wall had been breached previously. We know that the UK had pulled it’s diplomatic presence due to the terrorist activity and likelyhood of an attack. We know that additional security was requested, several times. We don’t know why Stevens was allowed to go to this hotbed on 9/11. We don’t know why the security was denied. We don’t know why the requests for additional security never got to Clinton. This whole what vs why goes all the way through this issue.
Why was help denied during the attack? Even if you think it would have arrived too late, there was no way to know that when the stand down order was given. And why were the talking points changed from what was accurate to something that everyone knew was wrong. I keep hearing that they changed them to keep from publishing erroneous information but the change did exactly that. Who ordered that change and why. Clinton says that she takes full responsibility out of one side of her mouth and then denies any knowledge of events out the other side. A distinctly unsatisfying response.
I know that Bush had his problems as well. And once again we want to use Bush as the ‘Gold Standard’. If Bush had a problem then I guess no one could do better whether it’s related or not. Bush has been gone for more than 4 years now, maybe it’s time to stop beating that horse and look to what the jackass is doing.
@ETpro I may have mistakenly confused you about “those” attacks. “Those attacks” I was referring to were from your 2 posts before mine. Way up there^^ Not Benghazi. I simply didnt feel like doing the copy and paste of your entire two very long and rambling posts. It would have been selfish of me to expect the collective to wade through all that a second time. Let me be clear. By the time Benghazi happened, the US should have figured out by then, how not to be caught with our pants down. Libya was barely an organized country when this “outpost” was set up. It wouldn’t have taken a smart intern to understand it was going to be potentially dangerous. It seems to have snowballed from some people made a few bad judgement calls, to a full on cover up. It’s the cover up to save face that is the crime, hell everyone fucks up but come clean don’t dig the hole deeper. It might surprise you that in the last election I voted for Obama. Yes thats right. So, as a hesitant supporter I feel the man OWES ME the fucking truth even if it hurts just a little. But its too late now. The come clean clock has expired. so don’t you fucking dare, ever accuse me of being blinded by partisan politics again, you are no authority here.
@woodcutter Oh, apologies, then. I thought you meant the list of attacks I provided that happened under the Bush administration. But the emails covered today show that the White House has come clean on the Benghazi affair. There really is “no there there” regarding the White House. It is just as Gen. David Petraeus testified, the C.I.A. signed off on the final version of the talking points used by Ambassador Rice, the one with all 12 sets of revisions to it.
At the risk of repeating myself, there is no compelling reason for the U.S. to become involved in Syria. The track record for middle eastern countries revolutions is that they trade the old dictator for a new one with the possibility of a little theocratic authority to add zest. The absolute best we can do is to watch the revolution and deal with the paper tigers that end up running the country. Supplying weapons to the revolutionaries will have the same effect as we have seen in Afghanistan. It is expensive and gains us nothing.
As for Benghazi, why should it be a surprise that the CIA goofed again. I have seen their operations in Vietnam and it is amazing that the organizations still makes the same mistakes and knows little about the countries in which they are involved. I don’t believe that their performance rates the “black budget” they draw from Congress. The CIA is made up of demagogues, drug dealers, liars, and thieves. If I was president, I’d clean out that nest of vipers.
@Ron_C I wasn’t telling @woodcutter about the CIA endorsement of the talking points as some sort of proof they were correct. We all now know they were a crock of BS. The point is that Darrel Issa’s committee was trying to establish in their “hearing” that President Obama and Hillary Clinton were behind the marked up changes to the talking points. That’s not true. And Issa’s committee had the emails in their possession while they were out making such false allegations. They knew at the time what they were claiming was baloney. They were not the lest bit interested in getting to any facts, they were interested in any weapon they could craft to destroy Obama and cut the legs out from any possible Clinton for President run in 2016. Somebody on the committee or working for them leaked a summary version of the emails to ABC’s Johnathan Alter and he fell for it, going public with a story that the White House was directly involved in editing the talking points. That’s when Obama released the emails in question directly to the press, so they could see that the summary version the leaker sent out was BS deliberately edited by Republicans to create an impression of something that is not true.
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