Syria - hype or war?

[suthdj]

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/12/politics/ ... ng-rebels/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[The Annoyed Man]

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/12/politics/ ... ng-rebels/

Gee..... I wonder if some of the weapons they are transferring are the same weapons the State Department would not allow to be re-imported to the U.S........

[Fangs]

They're running "common sense" background checks on those rebels they're arming, right?

[VMI77]

Its got to be more than just oil.

:-)
The largest foreign supplier of oil to America is Canada:

http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=8950" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It is something more, it's controlling the ability of China and India to get oil from the ME. it's about hegemony.

[VMI77]

Haven't you heard, it's not going to be a war . . . just a quick bombardment from the air and no boots on the ground. You know, like Pearl Harbor.

Yes, meme's are fun aren't they, I've seen that on facebook too. Too bad it's an inaccurate simile. Pearl Harbor was an unprovoked attack. It was done as a pre-emptive strike in order to pull us into the war. It was no doubt an act of war. The kind of strike that is being considered by us now is a punitive strike. It is in response to an internationally recognized illegal action. They are not the same.

So, if China, with international approval, struck the US in the same way, as a punitive action, it wouldn't be an act of war against the US? Baloney. We have no special international rights to punish other countries. Furthermore, the Japanese attacked after a long oil embargo, and to push us and the British out of Asia, so the US was not some innocent bystander. Roosevelt had been using the US Navy in support of Britain before the Japanese attack and before we declared war on Germany. While I think WW2 was a war we needed to fight, the fact is there was virtually no public support for the US to enter another war in Europe until after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor...which FDR deliberately left vulnerable to attack for that very reason. Back in those days, the Republican party still contained a few men with integrity who stood up in the Senate and said so.

[VMI77]

A Fox news commentator made an error on their broadcast this morning. He said Assad was the only person to kill people with nerve gas since Hitler.

I found no method to contact Fox news so they could set the record straight.

Terrible that they would allow such a factual error to be made on their network. Maybe its part of being balanced, they have to promote lies with the truth.

Saddam Hussein (remember him) used nerve gas repeatedly in Iraq against his own people the Kurds and in the Iraq/Iran war. He piled up a much higher body count than 1400. I believe Assad or the rebels got all of his nerve gas from Saddam just before we invaded.

Oh and yeah and our current president was against taking any action against him.

AND he did it with our full knowledge, and even some intel support. It was ok then, because we wanted him to defeat Iran. It only became bad later on when we were looking for pretexts to attack iraq.

[philip964]

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/09/17/2 ... jm70D9JaKY" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Case you had any doubts on which side the rebels were on.

[The Annoyed Man]

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/09/17/2 ... jm70D9JaKY

Case you had any doubts on which side the rebels were on.

Beat me to it. I was going to post this story this morning....

[Dadtodabone]

but only a fool would discount 100% of what he says, just because we don't like him.

and he who would allow the accrual of any positive perception of Mr. Putin in western society due to a regurgitation of views, that emanate from said society, to its detriment?

I don't think Putin is some kind of elder statesman, but neither does someone get to his office without being very intelligent.

No, Mr. Putin is cunning, devious and brutal. That's how he attained his "office". Had he exhibited true intelligence under the Soviet regime, he would have entered a scientific studies track. That he didn't and instead was trained as a KGB officer, where said cunning and brutality are an asset, demonstrates that to me and anyone who has studied the Soviet era in Russia.

But there is one thing that I will give Putin, he absolutely advances Russia's interests at all times.....unlike Obama and the U.S.'s interests.

No, Mr. Putin advances his own interests, to the detriment of the Russian people, Exactly like Mr. Obama. That inexperienced Western observers conflate Mr. Putin’s interests with those of Russia provides him with the cover he needs to exploit public opinion in the West via his PR firm Ketchum*.
Mr. Putin’s prestige is at an all time low with the Russian people and his cronies. He is no longer able to dispense largess from Gazprom(estimated market value declined from .5 Trillion USD to 79 Billion USD since 2007)or other Russian energy resources.
As the U.S. continues to move electrical generation into natural gas fired plants, American coal has found its way to Europe. These U.S. coal exports have undermined 30% of Russia’s export coal market. Remember Mr. Putin turning off the natural gas to Ukraine, during the winter a few years past, in order to extort increased revenue? How do you think the development of shale gas resources in Poland, Ukraine and Belarus(due to this type of economic terrorism)in partnership with U.S. companies using the same tech that has caused the marked reduction of market oil prices is viewed in Russia? Hydrocarbons are near 50% of Russian gdp. Gazprom alone was 14%.
The loss of the final Soviet era Middle Eastern client state, Syria, and with it, the only extra-territorial Russian naval base, would be a tremendous blow to his prestige and could be devastating to his ability to maintain his power.

And sometimes, Russia's interests ought to be our own.

Here we can agree, as long as it’s understood that Mr. Putin’s interests are not the same as Russia’s.

I can think of other examples where their interests and ours cross, if you'd like, but I think I've made my point.

No , you made the point that Russia and the U.S. have mutual interests, with that I agree. Mr. Putin does not equate Russia.

There isn't a single thing that Putin wrote in those two paragraphs that isn't absolutely true.

If we’re speaking truth better to shade your statement thus “There isn’t a single thing that is attributed to Putin in those two paragraphs that isn’t absolutely true.” Do a little research on Ketchum.
I’ll grant that the every snarky jab at the US, references to the UN and the sovereignty of nations, probably came from Mr. Putin’s pen. Ironic to see the same man use arguments that had absolutely no impact during his excursion into Georgia and the subsequent military annexation of Ossetia, isn’t it?

Finally, I’ll also state that I am an un-repentant cold warrior. I spent a portion of my young adulthood observing Sov Bloc tank armies. My, and my fellows, task was to contain said tank armies, should they attack, long enough that Stateside manpower could mate with pre-positioned equipment sets in Europe. The study of everything Soviet, culture, command doctrine, logistic capabilities, morale, armaments, training and education was not just part of the job. It was, hopefully, the edge that would allow some of us to survive. I can assure you that most of us studied diligently.
I see nothing in Mr. Putin of the "Sovki", he’s just another in a long line of tyrants and should be opposed at every turn.


*Ketchum, the PR firm Putin used to place his op-ed in the NYT, was the same company that the Bush administration used to produce what the GAO later called illegal covert propaganda.
Under contract from the Department of Education, Ketchum paid conservative pundit Armstrong Williams $241,000 in taxpayer money to tout No Child Left Behind in appearances on CNN and CNBC, and to interview Education Secretary Rod Paige for TV and radio ads. Falsified news stories, payoffs to writers and bloggers, the list goes on and on.
But Mr. Bush and Mr. Putin are not alone. In 2010, Mr. Obama's Department of Health and Human Services used stimulus funds to hire Ketchum to promote the department's policy on electronic medical records. Obama is also the single largest recipient of donations from Ketchum employees.