News What To Do About Syria?

[Pietro]

Change has to come from within...

A lesson that Egypt is having to learn now as well. Someone once said something like the following: the only way such conflicts end is when the combatants decide that they love their children more than they hate each other. I think this is absolutely true for much of the current Middle East.

 

[anthony]

Very wise words.

 

[cherryblossom]

I honestly think that everyone should stay out if it. Syria needs to sort this out for themselves. No good will come from intervention from any other country. It will only inflame the situation.

 

[Ice_Fire]

I agree with the general consensus that the West need to keep out of it. If we back the rebels then we're giving arms to terrorists and then if that results in those groups over-throwing the government, guess who'll get blamed?

It's not worth the loss of life, the resources and means necessary.

It's their war, as awful as it is to stand by and watch innocents be massacred- us intervening won't change that. They have to realise for themselves that they're all damaging their own country/people and it isn't worth it. We can't always fight fire with fire, it doesn't work.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

I think we should not get involved, the US. We are already involved in things not meant for our intervention. I want to be like Switzerland, neutral. We should be spending our money on helping the vets and others here. It is so very sad.

I feel for all of the people that got killed. The world is messed up. It is so tragic. But we do not have to be the policeman of the world. Our economy is so bad and we have so many poor and homeless people. We need to be taking care of the people here. Just my opinion.

 

[Pietro]

Heard an ex-government official, from the US, say something very interesting today regarding the legality of a military strike. He said that Syria was not a signatory to any treaty preventing the use of chemical weapons within its own borders. Therefore, as heinous as their usage is, there really isn't a legal basis for an attack simply because the weapons were used.

Also, something that seems to get lost in all of the rhetoric every time -- even if a member nation of the UN violates international law in some way, this, alone, does not legally authorize any one nation, or group of nations, to take it upon themselves to exact punishment on the transgressor. Any action to be take is supposed to be approved by the UN Security Council.

However, in the world of politics and, even more importantly, security, protecting one's own interests trumps practical law any day. The US and its allies can make a case on many other means -- their own proof, moral grounds, etc. Not legal, technically, but close enough, which, in international events, may be good enough.

Still, little if any good will come from a limited strike; and it could make things much worse.

If we back the rebels then we're giving arms to terrorists

Not all of the rebel groups in Syria are affiliated with al Quaeda. Some are simply home-grown moderates who want a western-style democratic government. In fact, those are the groups that originally started the insurrection against the Assad government. Unfortunately, al Quaeda took advantage of the situation and supplanted most of the local groups. The local and al Quaeda groups don't get along and rarely cooperate.

The Administration wants to back the local groups without inadvertently back the al Quaeda groups. Much more easily said than done, though.

We should be spending our money on helping the vets and others here.

We treat our returned vets appallingly in the US. There's a lot of government spending I wouldn't mind seeing cut, but, if someone is going to go somewhere and put themselves in harm's way so I can stay at home and continue to tweet every insipid aspect of my life, it's my belief that they should get anything they damn need, no matter what it costs -- especially with regard to physical and mental health care. It's an absolute disgrace and dishonor to us as a nation when this doesn't occur.

Maybe if we had to fork-up the true cost of taking care of our vets, we wouldn't get into so many damned conflicts. ;)

Syria needs to sort this out for themselves.

Agreed. The only issue, however, is if their conflict continues to spread beyond their borders. This a real and very serious concern, right now.

 

[saffy]

Thank god that we have over come Camerons aim in bombing syria. They have finally seen sense and waiting for UN reports. It is said that they now do not think it was assad but terroists.

I am appaulled at being governed by Cameron and his relative and close friend cronies.

This has to be a humanitarian rescue not a arms war. Or at least it should be. However, I believe there is a lot of money involved with those who want war when it comes to arms etc.

Money and religion over lives again. Disgusting.

Rant over, :)

Saffy :)

 

[anthony]

I don't know what either are thinking... the UK and USA are broke. Neither can afford a war of any sort, unless defending themselves, which they aren't in this case. I suspect this will drag out until forgotten about, and the media move on. At most they toss a few bombs in for good measure to show the world someone did something, the bugger off and again, the media find their next story and people forget.

 

[Pietro]

Thank god that we have over come Camerons aim in bombing syria. They have finally seen sense and waiting for UN reports. It is said that they now do not think it was assad but terroists.

Just saw this about Cameron's loss. Interesting. Doesn't appear that things are quite done yet -- they're still going to try to make a case and take another vote early next week. France is, apparently, also now asking to wait until the UN inspectors finish and present a preliminary report at that time. I haven't seen anything, thus far, where terrorists are being blamed for the incident.

This is a big blow for Obama, and a blow for the reputation of the West, in general. Never good to make big claims on the global "playground", only then to back down. What they need is a real, "big picture" strategy for the Middle East as a whole, including a strong, concerted effort to negotiate an end to the Syrian conflict. This means working with the Russians, who will benefit as much as anyone else from seeing the Syrian conflict end. True, they'd prefer to see Assad stay in power, since he is beholden to them, but, truly, there hasn't emerged any entity that is any better than Assad, so there's no sense in continuing to push for his removal. And, with Assad, we can be pretty sure that Israel will be left alone, since he has followed that pattern for his entire tenure.

Of course, human rights in Syria loses, but we never had any control over that in the first place, and we were incredibly arrogant to think we did. It may be that this is actually Assad's new strategy -- terrorize the civilian population into submission. BBC reported that a fighter jet dropped an incendiary bomb on a school full of teenagers today. 10 were killed, many others wounded -- all suffered from severe burn wounds. No matter how many cruise missiles we launch, this will not deter Assad from further attacks of this nature. And even more ironic, we apparently can't even attack the sites that hold his chemical arms supplies, because doing so would cause the chemicals to disperse into the atmosphere, affecting all of those we are supposed to be trying to protect.

In short, the West, and especially the US, really needs to start putting better effort into foreign relations, and doing things with more thought. Our neglect is causing the results we're seeing now.

 

[Pietro]

I don't know what either are thinking... the UK and USA are broke.

In the US, at least, the government refuses to accept that it's broke. No one has the courage to deny their constituents what they want. Instead of being good caretakers of our national treasury, they act instead like immature parents who spoil their children to maintain their favor, while driving themselves towards bankruptcy. So, we keep running-up debt. I really don't know what the answer to this is. I'm not sure there is one, save for the brute-force answer of the system finally collapsing under the weight of its debt, at some point, and having to pick-up the pieces from there -- if that would even be possible.

 

[amethist]

Seems the UK have decided not to get involved. Could be because they are broke as Anthony said.

 

[saffy]

The public and other MPs voted against it and for democracy sake Cameron had to back down.

There are different points of view all over really. But it seems for the majority of UK public we do not want to get into another illegal war like iran. We also seem to want to steer it towards a more diplomatic resolve rather than hitting back with more bombs. This appears what the russian president has been wanting for two years or so. another reason is that we have no idea who the rebels actually are. It is appearing more clear that there are sections of terrorist and al quaeda (sic) followers that are acting in 'rebel' leaad areas.

I agree something has to be done for humanitarian reasons, but that is not why Cameron wanted to hit out. And if it does end up being the actions of extreme terrorist trying to start wars it would be fatal to have been too hasty in seemingly taking sides.

My opinion is that nobody should be above humanitarian law and it is clear already that Asaad has fronted some truely horrific attacks on innocent people. But this has been going on for years, so why has it got this far?

Asaad should be arrested for crimes against humanity and taken off his seat altogether. This is the only way.

Best wishes
Saffy :)