Kucinich: Attacking Syria is Act of War

[Shiranu]

So basically what we're saying is, "we don't care who did it, we're going to attack the Syrian government".  Sounds like using 9-11 as the reason to attack Iraq.  (Aside from being totally stupid - we're attacking the government that's keeping an enemy of ours tied up?)

I'm SO disappointed by Obama.

I've been disappointed with him for 5 years now, so this one isn't shocking me too much.

[The Whit]

I can't say I'm disappointed because to do so would imply that I expected him to do anything right in the first place, and I didn't.

[Smartmarzipan]

Has any evidence that Assad did this to his own people been released, yet? Or are they just saying they have proof, like Bush/Cheney did with Iraq?

Nope.

No evidence what-so-ever except anecdote and "Well, Assad has the capablity, it must have been him".

Whilst that might be true, nobody is saying "Wait...isn't the coaliation (The Free Syrian Army) fighting against Assad mainly run by Islamist extremists who are being funded and armed by other extremists that operate outside of Syria in the hope of extending a vision of Caliphate?"

The secular Syrian voice, a voice I would have supported 100%, died off long ago. It was shelled to death by the regime, and any who survived were beheaded by their 'allies' in the rebel factions.

I know, right?!?! A bunch of UN chemical weapons inspectors just happen to be there when a shit ton of chemical weapons are used? Are we really thinking that Assad and/or his military would be so stupid? Maybe they are, but that's pretty fucking shocking. Who gains from this? The rebels. I'm still trying to figure out what Assad would have gained from gassing civilians. Striking fear into people, I guess? Did he even need that?

Either Assad or someone in his military is the biggest moron EVER, or someone else was setting off those weapons in an attempt to start some serious shit. Whichever it may be, I wish Obama would back the fuck off and let the UN handle it instead of trying to go in there guns blazing.  :roll:

[baronvonrort]

I don't think this is even remotely close to WW3, but otherwise I agree with him on it that it is both illegal and stupid.

Yeah, I thought that was a bit of hyperbole, but he's right when he says this is nothing to trifle with. How many Middle Eastern countries are we going to piss off now?

Im not quite sure about that. This could grow to include quite a few countries, ranging from the US to Egypt, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and even China might get involved. If thats not a World War, its fairly close to one.

At least some people had the decency to resign when Yasser Arafat won his nobel prize claiming it had become a farce.

The only ones you piss off will be the shia Islam  which is Iran and the Hassan Nasrallah led shia from Lebanon who are already fighting with Assad, these guys are considered deviant heretics by the sunni side of Islam who the USA is aligned with.

The Saudis,Qatar,Turkey are all with the sunni rebels against the shia-alawite Assad, this lot are probably not very happy with China and Russia.
The Saudis hate Iran,wikileaks showed they were prepared to let Israel fly over them to bomb Iran,they could take care of their shia enemy and blame it on the jews.

A good chart in this article, it has a few missing lines that i can see yet you should get the idea.
//http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/08/26/the-middle-east-explained-in-one-sort-of-terrifying-chart/

IMO stay the fuck out and dont even waste Raytheon stock on these guys,What did Reagan do when Assad's father was whacking 20,000+ members of the Muslim brotherhood around 30 years ago?

There has never been any unity in Islam since the battle of the Camel around 1400 years ago,i think it is better to have some shia so they can always fight with the sunni instead of hassling the infidels.
We cannot stop these sectarian battles between rival sects of Islam, they will only stop when muslims realise Islam is bullshit.

[DunkleSeele]

Has any evidence that Assad did this to his own people been released, yet? Or are they just saying they have proof, like Bush/Cheney did with Iraq?

Nope.

No evidence what-so-ever except anecdote and "Well, Assad has the capablity, it must have been him".

Whilst that might be true, nobody is saying "Wait...isn't the coaliation (The Free Syrian Army) fighting against Assad mainly run by Islamist extremists who are being funded and armed by other extremists that operate outside of Syria in the hope of extending a vision of Caliphate?"

The secular Syrian voice, a voice I would have supported 100%, died off long ago. It was shelled to death by the regime, and any who survived were beheaded by their 'allies' in the rebel factions.

I know, right?!?! A bunch of UN chemical weapons inspectors just happen to be there when a shit ton of chemical weapons are used? Are we really thinking that Assad and/or his military would be so stupid? Maybe they are, but that's pretty fucking shocking. Who gains from this? The rebels. I'm still trying to figure out what Assad would have gained from gassing civilians. Striking fear into people, I guess? Did he even need that?

Either Assad or someone in his military is the biggest moron EVER, or someone else was setting off those weapons in an attempt to start some serious shit. Whichever it may be, I wish Obama would back the fuck off and let the UN handle it instead of trying to go in there guns blazing.  :roll:

Just playing devil's advocate, but it could actually be a calculated move from Assad. Think about it: having the UN chemical weapon inspectors right there could be in fact the best moment to use those weapons on your people and then proclaim that it's the rebels trying to set you up because, you know, you wouldn't be so stupid to use gas while the inspectors are there. I'm not saying that that's what happened, but I think it's a possibility. Assad is a shrew, merciless dictator.

That said, a victory of the rebels would probably be an even worse scenario. Right now, the rebel factions are controlled by Muslim fundamentalists who would turn Syria into another religious shithole and create even more problems in the area.

[Hydra009]

First of all the 'phrase' 'World War III' is a joke used to rise the usual 5 seconds attention span of an avarage American or a European

It's obvious hyperbole designed to rile up the emotions of the audience.  It's surprisingly effective and taken seriously more often than it should.

Officially war has never been declared in cases of Afghanistan and Iraq, so it's not a war?

The U.S. hasn't officially declared war since WWII.  Afghanistan, Iraq and a host of others are considered undeclared wars.  And while obviously, what we call it makes little difference to the people being attacked, I think it should be clearly understood that there's a pretty big difference between a series of airstrikes and a full-fledged war of the sort where both sides have boots on the ground.  For example, U.S. military intervention in Libya compared to Iraq.

People tend to think of war as massive battles and invasions, so using the term is technically correct but somewhat misleading, but only because people are idiots.

[Colanth]

Regardless of what we end up doing or not doing, I'm afraid that the result is going to be the same, as far as we're concerned - a nation in the Middle East that hates the US.  The very best we can do in Syria is lose with not too many lives (on any side) lost.

[The Whit]

The last war the US declared was Korea.  That war was never technically ended, so we're still at war with North Korea.

[Colanth]

North Korea was officially a police action of the UN.  The US merely provided soldiers and equipment in support of the UNSC resolution, and Congress approved the funding.  Truman never requested a declaration of war, and therefore Congress never declared war on North Korea.

[Hydra009]

The last war the US declared was Korea.  That war was never technically ended, so we're still at war with North Korea.

No and no.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaratio ... ons_of_war

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Wrap a great big lie around a grain of truth and you get wars that destroy lives and the scale seems unimportant, but makes for political theater that news organizations and movie makers gobble up to entertain the masses. Trouble is government is all to good at controlling the story line and images so the news and movie makers only portray 'the bad guys' dying leaving intact all the civillian neighborhoods and a handful of 'hero's' get 'flesh wounds' and go home hero's welcome. Isn't this what they refer to as 'hiSTORY'? We're feed a story and feel good about killing 'bad guys' like Nazi's, Japs, Indians and so on and on and on. One great big lie wrapped around a grain of truth..

[DigitalBot]

I initially laughed off the idea of WWIII. see my other post in the other thread on this.


the more I think about it the less crazy it sounds.

we hit Syria. Syria and/or Iran take revenge by hitting israel, who then responds with great force. which in turn causes Iran and Syria to respond in kind. Plus they ask for Russia and China their allies to help. Israel asks for our help.

nobody plans for WWIII it just happens from a chain reaction.

Russia is already sending their own navy down there.

Obama is playing with fire.

Russia will never participate in war on Syrian side. Here are huge amount of people who hate US, but most of them also are racists. They hate muslims too.  They can not decide who do they hate more, muslims or americans. They say "we want they to kill each other". Why I am talking about that kind of people? Because other russians will not support a war of any kind.

Moreover, war in Syria is good for Russia economicaly. War will increase oil prises and therefore will increase money income for Russia. Now, there is not enough money in Russian budget. If war in Syria did not start, Russia would face an economic crisis.

There is civil war in Syria. Bloody dictator figths against radical islamists. Why does US need to intervene in there?

[AllPurposeAtheist]

I'm not currently pro war nor anti war as the implications here can go in several directions at once, but the truth is I don't have privy to the 'classified' reports on Syria nor the long range reasons for war from our side. Without that information I cannot make an informed decision, but must rely on what little information our governments hand out.
If I say no and nothing happens from our government does this war drag on and on eventually dragging millions more in? If I agree with war do we have a repeat of Iraq with hundreds of thousands more needlessly slaughtered?
I have no choice but to be an outside observer from afar and the only real information I'm given is whatever my government says.
What if it's for reasons none of us know about, but can indeed shorten a war?
We're not given sufficient information to base rational decisions on so we're left either trusting or mistrusting leaders who for the largest part have given us little or no reason to believe them. Yet, even though I don't believe them there is a big part of me that wants to believe it's all for the right reasons which when you boil it down seems suspiciously like religion.

[aileron]

Yet, even though I don't believe them there is a big part of me that wants to believe it's all for the right reasons which when you boil it down seems suspiciously like religion.

Except when a nation is defending itself from invasion, the reasons for wars are never "for the right reasons" -- or at least never for the reasons their governments claim.  Even though the world may emerge from the carnage of a war and make progress in human rights, political stability, etc., the reasons for waging wars are always much less noble than stated.

It's an old trick governments have been using on their populations for thousands of years.  The Romans wanted to eliminate trade competition, but told their people they fought Carthage because they were barbaric people who angered the gods by practicing child sacrifice.  The war did bring about the end of the horrific practice of child sacrifice in that part of the world.  It also happened to make rich Romans richer and was the real motivation for the war.  

When I served in the US military, I suffered no illusion that any good resulting from military involvements was a side-effect rather than an intent.  Even so, there were a hell of a lot of side effects.  Who would rather have lived under the East German government than the West German government, or North Korea's than South Korea's?

[Hydra009]

This is why any kind of attack launch against US and all its fucking lapdogs from EU to Israil, Turkiye to Canada, from France to fuck or to that by any of those countries is perfectly justifie, actually legitimate at this point.