General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsUh, chemical negotiations notwithstanding, we are at war with Syria. Let's not forget that.
We are not a disinterested "honest broker."
We are supplying training, funds, and arms to kill people in Syria and wage war against the Syrian government. It's official now, but who know how long the CIA has been doing it (Benghazi, anyone?).
Your tax dollars are going to kill people in Syria, which, Obama's tortured logic notwithstanding, is in no way a threat to us.
We ARE intervening military in another country's civil war. We don't have a good record when it comes to that.
Junkdrawer
(27,993 posts)Anyone who thinks the Syrian Drama is over is fooling themselves.
DirkGently
(12,151 posts)We're already in it as we were at the beginning of the Vietnam conflict. Advisors and weapons. And there's not signal from the WH that such will change if an agreement on CW is reached.
Maybe someone -- I don't know, a journalist? -- should ask that question.
If the CW go, are we going to stop arming and training rebels who are fighting with Al Quaeda and other radical groups?
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)However there are plenty of posters here beating the war drums for actually going to war, to get that war going that just got postponed.
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)-von Clausewitz
Fills the bill.
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)However as far as international laws and our treaty obligations are concerned we can pursue our objectives in Syria via proxies in their civil war without violating our treaty obligations. We cannot directly attack Syria, as was recently proposed, without committing a war crime at least as heinous as the alleged chemical weapons attack that allegedly was motivating such an act of war.
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)Not as far as international treaties are concerned. Proxy wars were conducted throughout the last half of the 20th century using forces within countries without technically violating the UN charter. Of course it helps if you are a nuclear armed power conducting the proxy war, because for sure the target of your affections is going to be massively upset.
If hezbollah militias literally were sent from for example Lebanon or Syria, into Jordan, that would be an act of war, just as our sending missiles into Syria would be.
Again, it is a minor point. I only bring it up because We Stopped Complying With Our Treaty Obligations to not conduct overt war against other nations outside of a explicit UN authorization to do so.
Aiding the sunni jihadists in Syria is, to me a separate issue from overtly attacking Syria. I'm against both of them, but from different reasons.
bvar22
(39,909 posts)DURec for the OP.
Taitertots
(7,745 posts)Arming opposition forces is an act of war. I think it means we are currently at war.
If they did it to us would we call it war? Yes, so we are at war with them.
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)Jester Messiah
(4,711 posts)There's no reason why this should be any of our business at all. Wish Obama would just pull the plug on our involvement in the whole mess, but I suppose that wouldn't play well with the Military-Industrial Complex.