Enough is enough — the US' 'moral bankruptcy' on Syria must come to an end

[bemildred]

The War Party pulls out all the stops.

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The conventional wisdom is that nothing can be done in Syria, but the conventional wisdom is wrong. There is a path toward ending the horror in Aleppo — a perfectly realistic path that will honor our highest ideals, a way to recover our moral standing as well as our strategic position.

Operating under a NATO umbrella, the United States could use its naval and air assets in the region to establish a no-fly zone from Aleppo to the Turkish border and make clear that it will prevent the continued bombardment of civilians and refugees by any party, including the Russians. It could use the no-fly zone to keep open the corridor with Turkey and use its assets to resupply the city and internally displaced people in the region with humanitarian assistance.

If the Russians and Syrians seek to prevent humanitarian protection and resupply of the city, they would face the military consequences. The U.S. military is already in hourly contact with the Russian military about de-conflicting their aircraft over Syria, and the administration can be in constant contact with the Russian leadership to ensure that a humanitarian protection mission need not escalate into a great-power confrontation.

But risk is no excuse for doing nothing. The Russians and the Syrians will immediately understand the consequences of U.S. and NATO action: They will learn, in the only language they seem to understand, that they cannot win the Syrian war on their repulsive terms. The use of force to protect civilians, and to establish a new configuration of power in which the skies will no longer be owned by the Syrian tyrant and the Russian tyrant, may set the stage for a tough and serious negotiation to bring an end to the slaughter.

http://www.businessinsider.com/us-syria-abdication-aleppo-2016-2

1.) You will note he assumes NATO is going to protect us, not the other way around.
2.) He inadvertently admits things: "a way to recover our moral standing as well as our strategic position".
3.) He still assumes he is going to bluff Putin.
4.) He says obviously stupid things like: "But risk is no excuse for doing nothing."

[guillaumeb]

1. "....a way to recover our moral standing..."? Is this satire?

A country that was founded on genocide and slavery started out with a severe moral standing deficit.

A country that has invaded nearly every country in this hemisphere increased its moral standing deficit.

A country that stood by during the Nazi genocide, that incinerated German cities and nuclear bombed Japanese civilians erased any moral standing that it had.

US policy can be characterized as do whatever is necessary to advance the interests of the empire. There is no moral standing, only shared delusion.

[jakeXT]

2. It worked in Libya, now Isis is enforcing the no-fly zone

Libyan warplane crashes after attacking Daesh

http://m.gulfnews.com/news/mena/libya/libyan-warplane-crashes-after-attacking-daesh-1.1668911

[Jefferson23]

3. I think you'll find this interesting and amusing..the source is interesting too from a paleocon:

A “No-Fly Zone” in Syria Is Still Insane



Michael Ignatieff and Leon Wieseltier make a predictably horrible plea for more military intervention in Syria:

Operating under a NATO umbrella, the United States could use its naval and air assets in the region to establish a no-fly zone from Aleppo to the Turkish border and make clear that it will prevent the continued bombardment of civilians and refugees by any party, including the Russians. It could use the no-fly zone to keep open the corridor with Turkey and use its assets to resupply the city and internally displaced people in the region with humanitarian assistance.

If the Russians and Syrians seek to prevent humanitarian protection and resupply of the city, they would face the military consequences [bold mine-DL].

Ignatieff and Wieseltier are at least honest enough to acknowledge that they want to risk war with Russia. Some advocates for a “no-fly zone” in Syria try to deny that the risk exists. Fanatical interventionists that they are, the authors are not concerned about the risk of war with a nuclear-armed major power, and so they dismiss the dangers of their preferred course of action by saying, “risk is no excuse for doing nothing.” That’s insane. If the choice is between “doing nothing” and potentially starting a war with Russia, the risk that such a war would necessarily entail is an outstanding excuse. Avoiding an even larger, more destructive conflict with one of the world’s major powers is as good a reason for rejecting military intervention as one is likely to find.

It is important to understand that a “no-fly zone” would first require the U.S. (and it would be primarily U.S. planes that would be involved) to destroy Syrian air defenses and the Russian air defenses that have been moved into the country in the last few months. That would mean initiating open hostilities against the Syrian government and Russia, and it would mean killing Syrian and Russian military personnel. It’s also possible that some Iranian personnel on the ground would be killed along with them. Just like that, the U.S. would be at war with two states and risking war with one more. We don’t know exactly how Russia and Iran would retaliate, but we have to assume that they would seek to do harm to U.S. allies and clients in response, and we would also have to assume that U.S. forces elsewhere in the region could come under attack. Absurdly, the “solution” they offer wouldn’t even remedy the problem at hand, since a “no-fly zone” by itself wouldn’t keep Syrian forces on the ground from killing civilians with artillery.

It goes without saying that Ignatieff and Wieseltier don’t consider any of the likely consequences of the military action they demand, and they don’t even pay lip service to all the ways this could go horribly wrong. Interventionists like them never do. They are very vocal about denouncing the immorality of existing Syria policy, but they don’t even try to reckon with the far more destructive war they have no problem with starting.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/a-no-fly-zone-in-syria-is-still-insane/

[bemildred]

4. Yeah, exactly:

Ignatieff and Wieseltier are at least honest enough to acknowledge that they want to risk war with Russia. Some advocates for a “no-fly zone” in Syria try to deny that the risk exists. Fanatical interventionists that they are, the authors are not concerned about the risk of war with a nuclear-armed major power, and so they dismiss the dangers of their preferred course of action by saying, “risk is no excuse for doing nothing.” That’s insane. If the choice is between “doing nothing” and potentially starting a war with Russia, the risk that such a war would necessarily entail is an outstanding excuse. Avoiding an even larger, more destructive conflict with one of the world’s major powers is as good a reason for rejecting military intervention as one is likely to find.

[Jefferson23]

5. Smart guy. How many of his kind are represented in DC I wonder.

They seem to be a dying breed.

[Jefferson23]

6. For anyone passing through,friendly reminder: Clinton joins some Republicans in breaking with Obama

This story has been updated.

In breaking with the White House by calling for military action to protect civilians in Syria, former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton is siding with at least two of her Republican opponents in the 2016 presidential election.

Clinton adopted the opposite position from the White House she used to serve on Thursday by advocating additional international air power to protect civilians in the multi-front war.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/10/02/in-break-with-white-house-clinton-advocates-syria-no-fly-zone/