Trump Demands Inaction In Syria, Then Blames Obama For Inaction In Syria

[Nickdfresh]

The problem is the eternal Powell conundrum of "you break it, you buy it." Who the fuck wants to buy North Korea? The South is terrified of actually winning a war and having to sacrifice their economy to run a unified poverty stricken failed state. China is more worried about potentially millions of refugees that would precipitate a DPRK collapse. Of course they don't want U.S. troops there or a strong, unified Korea either...

[Nickdfresh]

I do believe that lil' Kim is on China's last nerve, though...

[FORD]

The Chinese probably wouldn't even notice if a few million spilled over from NK to the neighboring provinces, as those areas are culturally more "Korean" than Chinese as it is. Right down to having dog on the menu at some of the restaurants in that region. They don't eat puppies because they have to, but because it's "traditional".

I'm thinking a unified Korea is the most likely outcome eventually. Yeah, it's going to be tough on Seoul to manage this, but they just need to find themselves a "Franklin Delano Park" who can bring the north into the 21st century.

[vandeleur]

By leapfrogging the previous two centuries.
We have no idea how shit a condition North Korea is in , the real north Korea not the cities we are shown but a totally uneducated comment is its probably worse than we could even guess at.

[FORD]

The most reasonable assumption is that there hasn't been much advancement there since 1945, when the "divorce" happened between the north & south. So that wouldn't take them back two centuries, but a damn good chunk of one. At least Cuba was fairly modernized for the time before the post Castro blockades left them frozen in a 1958 time warp.

[vandeleur]

The most reasonable assumption is that there hasn't been much advancement there since 1945, when the "divorce" happened between the north & south. So that wouldn't take them back two centuries, but a damn good chunk of one. At least Cuba was fairly modernized for the time before the post Castro blockades left them frozen in a 1958 time warp.

I have a friend who works in China building foundaries .... away from the cities it's like monty pythons the holy grail . Bet a country that thinks it's god like leader was the first person to Land on the sun .... although to be fair he went at night. Has parts of it that still think u2 were good . Just saying

[Terry]

Terry, this is what happened next. While Nick, FORD, and sesh demand Trump step down, this has been going on for years.

Get rid of Assad.

I absolutely agree that Assad should go.

My concern is the details of the mechanism for his removal, and having a plan in place for what happens after he is removed.

The military aspect of Assad's removal is the easy part. I'm not someone who fetishizes our military (or anyone else's), but even having said that I have no doubt our military would be up to the job of removal.

It's the aftermath that concerns me: would the cure eventually prove to be worse than the disease?

I understand all about the best laid plans of mice and men, and no solutions or outcomes are perfect, and inaction within strictly humanitarian terms is not an option.

Rashness is what concerns me, here. That and the fact that seemingly none of the other geopolitical major players are displaying near to the amount of concern that we are: a unilateral action would be a mistake.

With North Korea, we may end up having to do something in a unilateral manner. Particularly if Lil Kim gets desperate and makes a desperate gesture. We're not at that point with Syria, yet.

[jacksmar]

I absolutely agree that Assad should go.

My concern is the details of the mechanism for his removal, and having a plan in place for what happens after he is removed.

The military aspect of Assad's removal is the easy part. I'm not someone who fetishizes our military (or anyone else's), but even having said that I have no doubt our military would be up to the job of removal.

It's the aftermath that concerns me: would the cure eventually prove to be worse than the disease?

I understand all about the best laid plans of mice and men, and no solutions or outcomes are perfect, and inaction within strictly humanitarian terms is not an option.

Rashness is what concerns me, here. That and the fact that seemingly none of the other geopolitical major players are displaying near to the amount of concern that we are: a unilateral action would be a mistake.

With North Korea, we may end up having to do something in a unilateral manner. Particularly if Lil Kim gets desperate and makes a desperate gesture. We're not at that point with Syria, yet.

I agree with you. Assad is my concern. Make an example out of the guy and be done with him. ISIS will try build from that and probably get more power.

Look, if you want me to speak frankly it's easy. I really don't care how Syria ends up or how. You have a guy that has no problem using chemical weapons and his next move before removal will be to use them on Israel. When that happens all bets are off. Everyone has to pick a side.

Syria is 69% Sunni and 11% Alawis so I guess you go back to Bush Sr.'s
Iraq plan where you draw some lines and let them figure it out.

But someone in Syria will become responsible for Saddam's stockpile.
That's the problem we need to keep track of.

http://www.nysun.com/foreign/iraqs-wmd-secreted-in-syria-sada-says/26514/

[FORD]

The problem isn't so much Assad going as what comes after Assad.

As in Iraq. As in Libya. As in Egypt, to a slightly lesser degree.

Sure, it's one thing to say that an asshole dictator should go. But what replaces him? And who gets to decide that? And why should it be anybody who doesn't have to live in that country making that decision.

Hell, I spent the first 8 years of this century hoping that the Chimp would be removed from office, but I damn sure wouldn't have been happy about a foreign army coming in to do it. And if somebody toppled Cheeto right now, we would get the same thing most of these Muslim countries get - a theocratic dictatorship. Only difference here is that it would be considered "legal" because Pence is already in office.

[FORD]

And by the way, the "New York Sun" is such a pile of Likudist propaganda bullshit that it makes the Weekly World News look credible by comparison. Not to mention that article is 11 years old and was debunked THEN.

[Terry]

I agree with you. Assad is my concern. Make an example out of the guy and be done with him. ISIS will try build from that and probably get more power.

Look, if you want me to speak frankly it's easy. I really don't care how Syria ends up or how. You have a guy that has no problem using chemical weapons and his next move before removal will be to use them on Israel. When that happens all bets are off. Everyone has to pick a side.

Syria is 69% Sunni and 11% Alawis so I guess you go back to Bush Sr.'s
Iraq plan where you draw some lines and let them figure it out.

But someone in Syria will become responsible for Saddam's stockpile.
That's the problem we need to keep track of.

http://www.nysun.com/foreign/iraqs-w...da-says/26514/

I'll try to be equally frank: I'm not losing any more sleep over what is happening in Syria now than I have been for the last decade, which is to say none. Truth be told, I didn't lose much sleep over what has been happening in Iraq for the last 14 years. Probably because living in America provides me a psychological sense of remove. Yes, what happened in 2001 was terrible, but you 're still far more likely to be killed driving your car...or be shot by a white man born in the United States...than you are from a foreign attack. Will there be a nuclear suitcase bomb attack in the future? Perhaps. Yes, the images of those conflicts were and are horrible. On a basic human level, any decent person would wish none of these things were transpiring...anywhere. Ever.

Tribalism, religious extremism and control over primary global energy resources. For me, that sums up the Middle East: bunch of nations being used as proxy war theaters for larger powers. Al-Qaeda fractures into ISIS/ISIL. Thirty years ago it was Lybian terrorists. Trying to stamp out these small terror cells, even with the technology we have at hand now, still feels like trying to catch a waft of smoke. How many Islamic males are we radicalizing whenever we drone a current Islamic terrorist? Is there an end to this? Ever? Or is it un-American to even think critically about these things, or suggest there may be solutions that don't necessarily involve the use of unilateral military force? I'm not saying that is what you were implying about my comments at all, but when I think aloud like this there is a contingent of people (not even talking about this site specifically) who think anything less than a display of American military force is a pussy-like response.

And you know what's funny? Most of the Americans I encounter who are so gung-ho about reflexively sending troops to all these hot spots at the first sign of trouble and "kickin' some motherfucking ass!" AREN'T EVEN IN THE FUCKING MILITARY!!! Myself, I think it's the height of bullshit cowardice for citizens to jingoistically beat their chests and emit war cries as long as it is someone else who is doing the fighting. I can assure you, the people I know (more than a few) who are actively serving in the military don't approach their service like that...at all. Maybe lessening the requirements for service eligibility and putting all these marginally employed citizens who are so enthralled with going to war INTO the military and shipping them overseas would be a solution to these multiple tours our servicemen are getting burned out from. All these rah-rah, shoot 'em up citizens can be deployed to the Middle East with an M-16, all the MRE's they can eat, a keg of Budweiser while chanting "USA, USA, USA!" as they storm and retake Aleppo. Give 'em a taste of what they're cheering for. Call 'em 'Citizen Warriors'...I mean, not to be glib, but what the fuck? Why not? Beats sitting around America jobless, hooked on opioids with no particular purpose in life other than breeding kids they can't afford to have, right?

Spillover from Syria into Israel WOULD be potentially calamitous. Frankly, I don't care much about Israel, no more than Syria, or Iraq. I suppose Israel does think Iran poses an existential threat. More religious, secular nuttiness from my perspective, but from theirs I have no doubt they take it all with grave seriousness.

Let's say every other Middle Eastern country said they would be willing to guarantee peace in the Middle East, but the price would be Israel permitting Palestine to exist hassle-free, and the US would agree to stop favoring Israel after Palestine received their rightful lands. Would we go along with that? Or would we continue to support whatever Benjamin Netanyahu dictates? How many of our troubles as a nation regarding Middle Eastern blowback can be tracked back to our seemingly unconditional support of Israel? Or is it anti-Semitic to even so much as MENTION these thoughts?

I dunno. What's the expression: the more I know, the less I understand. Seems strange as a species that we spend so much time and effort to build ever-more effective weapons in order to annihilate one another, and the remaining time and effort is spent accumulating money so we can buy...stuff. Things. I'm no better than anyone else, but is this all there is?

[FORD]

I don't see any significant chance at peace in the Middle East until NuttyYahoo is gone. Rabin was Israel's version of JFK and ever since he was murdered (and the "official" story of his killing is about as real as the LHO myth in the US) Israel has taken a hard right turn, with NuttyYahoo being in power the bulk of that time, with Sharon in the middle and a couple of short termers who were supposedly "Labour" but only in the same sense that Clinton and Obama were "Democrats", as their policies mirrored those of the Likud more than the Labour party as it was before Rabin was assassinated.

It's actually comparable to the right wing turn the US took after JFK was slaughtered, only it took place much faster in Israel. Supposedly the majority of the Israeli people want a peaceful resolution with the Palestinians, yet they keep allowing these right wing assholes to control their government. And NuttyYahoo had to go even further to the insane fringe nutjob right just to win his last election, promising his fringe "partners" that there would be no Palestinian state on his watch. These fringers are the type who believe that Israel should extend from the Nile to the Euphrates "because God said so" (God actually told Abraham that land would belong to ALL of his descendants, not just the Isaac branch, but that's beside the point when you're talking about a modern state created by a UN mandate)

Israel needs to stop electing these tools before they can resolve this. And they can't even blame it on massive electronic fraud or Koch funded database. They could blame it on Russians, but that wouldn't be Putin's crew, rather the Trotskyite exiles who occupy more real estate in Israel these days than the genetic descendants of Abraham & Isaac do.

[Kristy]

Don't worry, Trump isn't going to fix shit and the North Koreans already have a nuke or three. I'm pretty sure our 4,000 or so warheads will turn them into a parking lot and both South Korea can build nukes on a moment's notice...

Middle-aged white male dick talk, everybody

[FORD]

[Seshmeister]

By leapfrogging the previous two centuries.
We have no idea how shit a condition North Korea is in , the real north Korea not the cities we are shown but a totally uneducated comment is its probably worse than we could even guess at.

It's the Iraq thing all over again x10. You have a country where the leader is pretending to be powerful to scare people and our politicians using that fake propaganda as an excuse for war.
Also even if their shit worked which I seriously doubt, why wouldn't deterrence nuclear and otherwise work?