Current Affairs Syria...

[roydo]

I’d say it’s become more layered , more complex which you’d have thought at the time wasn’t possible . The loss of ‘strongman’ before/during/after the Arab spring was hailed as the spread of democracy but even if you wanted to be optimistic you’d struggle to weigh good against bad . As a supporter of democracy , like much of the Middle East , you find yourself in a quandary .

Oh totally mate. We think we do something to "solve" a problem, and bingo, that turns into another, usually unforeseen, one. I clearly recall Sadam Hussain being an ally of the West, or at least, The Good Guy, in the Iraq/Iran war.

That turned out well.

 

[JimmyJeffers]

Sound. Make a disgusting allegation, provably wrong and won't put your hands up about it. Says a lot about you.

I'll repeat - tit.

Reread your posts. Honestly. You tried making a point to back up your argument in a very clumsy manner using ridiculous hyperbolic language. If you can’t see how what you said could be construed as being arrogant and insulting then We’ll have to disagree.
If you don’t like what I’m saying report my posts and let a mod decide instead of calling me a ‘tit’

 

[dholliday]

I feel doing something about babies being gassed to death is better than doing nothing about babies getting gassed to death.

But maybe I'm just old fashioned.

The West getting out of Dodge would prevent more innocent deaths. Russia & Assad would quickly tidy up and there'll once again be peace.

The West either being suckered in by false-flag attacks or even orchestrating them is the big problem here: for they follow up with air strikes which kill...you guessed it...innocent babies.

 

[Tubey]

Oh totally mate. We think we do something to "solve" a problem, and bingo, that turns into another, usually unforeseen, one. I clearly recall Sadam Hussain being an ally of the West, or at least, The Good Guy, in the Iraq/Iran war.

That turned out well.

Further back again, support of the Mujahideen in Afghanistan against the Soviets resulted in the development of Osama bin Laden and Al'Qaeda of course.

Nobody is saying intervention isn't risky. My view is that it isn't automatically bad either.

 

[MrPerfectNot]

Indeed. And by by whom.

Trouble is here is that no side, (if we take the easy Russia/US West division), have clean hands, ergo, no real moral high ground in the area. Or at a least moral high ground that cant be dismantled by the other side.

I studied the ME "crisis" for History A Level, many years ago. It was labelled the Arab Israeli issue back then, but to this young VI Former back then, it looked an absolute mess and unsolvable. Not much has changed, other than the names of the participants since.

Agreed with much of this.

So, if no one can act from the moral high ground, we have to accept that each country has to make an evaluation of what they can do, what might be achieved and what it will cost (in resources and lives/injuries to those charged with acting). This is an extremely complex calculus with just some of the factors being
- the personalities of national leaders,
- national history with interventions (in that region and elsewhere)
- media portrayals of the conflict,
- non-state actors/groups,
- formal and informal alliances
- calculated effects on other international relationships, such as US/Russia.

And don't get me started on the qualities of our (US) national leadership at the moment.

 

[roydo]

Further back again, support of the Mujahideen in Afghanistan against the Soviets resulted in the development of Osama bin Laden and Al'Qaeda of course.

Nobody is saying intervention isn't risky. My view is that it isn't automatically bad either.

Nor me mate. Just making the observation that the whole place has been a basket case for decades. This spat is the latest in a long, long line of them.

 

[Tubey]

Reread your posts. Honestly. You tried making a point to back up your argument in a very clumsy manner using ridiculous hyperbolic language. If you can’t see how what you said could be construed as being arrogant and insulting then We’ll have to disagree.
If you don’t like what I’m saying report my posts and let a mod decide instead of calling me a ‘tit’

Do you know what the words "is better than" means?

You read it as a zero sum game - where if you don't want bombs dropped means you definitely don't care.

No. I said action "is better than" inaction in this case. That doesn't mean those advocating inaction "don't care about babies being gassed."

Complete lack of tact and the ability to understand context and you should have apologised immediately. Simple as that.

 

[roydo]

Agreed with much of this.

So, if no one can act from the moral high ground, we have to accept that each country has to make an evaluation of what they can do, what might be achieved and what it will cost (in resources and lives/injuries to those charged with acting). This is an extremely complex calculus with just some of the factors being
- the personalities of national leaders,
- national history with interventions (in that region and elsewhere)
- media portrayals of the conflict,
- non-state actors/groups,
- formal and informal alliances
- calculated effects on other international relationships, such as US/Russia.

And don't get me started on the qualities of our (US) national leadership at the moment.

Or just crack on with leccy cars. That will teach them. And a few football clubs.

 

[MrPerfectNot]

The West getting out of Dodge would prevent more innocent deaths. Russia & Assad would quickly tidy up and there'll once again be peace.

The West either being suckered in by false-flag attacks or even orchestrating them is the big problem here: for they follow up with air strikes which kill...you guessed it...innocent babies.

Got your tin hat on? false-flag attacks?

Thinking that the West "getting out of Dodge" would make this better? How so? Peace? really?

 

[Tubey]

The West getting out of Dodge would prevent more innocent deaths. Russia & Assad would quickly tidy up and there'll once again be peace.

The West either being suckered in by false-flag attacks or even orchestrating them is the big problem here: for they follow up with air strikes which kill...you guessed it...innocent babies.

Which is what I call "mistakes". I am not saying we haven't screwed up in the past - Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan (twice), hell, as far back as the Balfour Declaration could be deemed a modern regional intervention that went disastrously wrong.

Yes, they have terrible consequences if done wrong. However, I take umbrage with the belief that the definitely will go wrong. It takes an option off the table if you think that way when you should have all options on the table to tackle a problem.

How far does something have to go for intervention to be the answer? That's the question.

 

[dholliday]

Thinking that the West "getting out of Dodge" would make this better? How so? Peace? really?

Yes. Remember how Syria was before the West got involved? Remember how Lybia & Iraq were? Afghanistan?

 

[dholliday]

How far does something have to go for intervention to be the answer? That's the question.

Russia are intervening. Leave them to it. We don't need another Cold War. We don't need to cause thousands of Arab deaths through drone bombs which then create millions of refugees and a few dozen killer terrorists.

Arab countries are a few hundred years behind us culturally. We have to let them develop, otherwise they'll never have their much-needed cultural Enlightenment which we had 300 years ago or so.

 

[Jib in lad]

The Americans helped flatten Mosul and Raqqa not so long ago killing thousands in the process where was the outrage then.

 

[Tubey]

Yes. Remember how Syria was before the West got involved? Remember how Lybia & Iraq were? Afghanistan?

Well, to be honest, the Iraq/Kurdish conflict has been going on since WW1. So unless you count that as a western intervention, the Middle East has been a turbulent place throughout modern history and the west has merely exacerbated what was pre-existent.

Point taken though, but I think it's beyond idealistic to say if we left them alone then they'd all be happy. The problem is they'd drag the west in to regional disputes when they became genocides anyway, because of the way the modern world is.

 

[Ruairi77]

I'm not sure what a token bombing of Syria will achieve, the only reason Trump is doing it is because Obama didn't.
The US is in a tricky position here, trying to fight a proxy war with Iran and an ideological war with ISIS, the sworn enemy of Iran. In the process, the US have teamed up with sworn enemies of NATO allies. There is no clear path for any sort of peace here and dropping bombs on pre-agreed sites to appease your base and stroke your ego isn't going to change anything or scare anyone.
It's a waste of money and an exercise in futility.
That said, I've no idea what the solution is.