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The plural of Vanilla Ice would be pronounced ….. Vanilla Ice’s (or ISIS)…
They ran out of Vanilla in the Syrian desert….
Tough group, aren’t they? If they walked down my street like this, I too would hide….
Throw this in Cheney’s face next time he or anyone associated with the word neocons opens their mouth….
Beside Biden’s this is one of the best predictions ever made of the Mid East……
We are a tired generation… We grew up with ‘Nam. Which ever side we were on during the battle here in America over that police action, or war, looking back after it was done, …. we all knew it was wrong….
After that we thought all war was wrong, and unfortunately took some of that angst out on those who least deserved it: those coming back from the steamy jungles of hell…..
Against our will a certain president soon sent Marines into Beirut; what happened then reinforced our belief that an American war was unjustifiable and that all other means must be utilized to prevent American war from ever happening again…. Against our will, we propped up a Nicaragua dictator against some rebels. Against our will, we sold arms to Iran to use for paying for our support for that Nicaragua dictator, since a Congress elected by the American people, flatly said no to supporting him in Nicaragua… We found a way to do it anyway….
I remember Senator Rudman, (R-NH) saying at the hearing while addressing Oliver North,… “The American people have the RIGHT to be wrong.”
Oliver North had been insisting that even when Americans flatly say NO, one still must do what one deems is necessary, that whatever one deems necessary, is the highest moral truth. “Sometimes one has to go above the law!” was actually said by the defense at this hearing. Only one good thing came out of those hearings: we all were introduced to Fawn Hall.
But then… The Brits quickly regained the Faulklands. Then came Grenada, which went off without a hitch. Then Panama, which was successful and almost painless. Then came General Schwartzkopf. The 4th largest army in the world, was routed in hours, and in days, had been completely mopped up. Then came the Balkans. We were on a roll. We’d finally nailed down the successful formula of how to win in battle.
Today we say Iraq is a failure. But that was so not so just after the invasion. Inside Baghdad, the pulling down of Saddam’s statue, the victory of capturing Saddam, the ability of us to hand out billions of American dollars, initially gave this campaign the luster of looking like another success story…
Until we tried to steal their oil. The standard global rate of dividing oil revenues is that the US gets a 20% cut for the development, and Iraq would get to keep 80% because it is after all, their resource. That is how we deal with Nigeria.
But Brenner announced that we’d flip that to pay for the war, and that Iraq would be allowed to keep 20% because we liked them so much, and we’d only, by our good graces, take 80% of the revenues. 24 hours after letting that cat out of the bag, the first IED went off under a US military vehicle… Before week was out, the total was in the hundreds.
The luster was gone. We were an invading army, something we have not called ourselves since WWII. We always saw ourselves as the policeman who leaves as soon as order is restored…
Afghanistan likewise, got worse. Then Pakistan. Then Yemen. On the diplomatic front instead of doing no harm, .. we could do no good. Then Libya costs us an ambassador who was running guns through Turkey. He shouldn’t have been there; it should have been a low level staffer with security clearance.
This baby boomer generation knows that war is wrong. We know from experience. The only time it can be employed successfully, is a) when the whole world is united behind you, b) you go in and get out, and c) you have a structure that stays in place long after you are gone.
The only time it goes badly… is every other scenario.
Which brings us to Syria. Syria has no importance to anyone. (They couldn’t even defend the militarily advantageous Golan Heights in ’67!) Which is why we let the Russians have them.
People are going to die in Syria if a): Assad wins, b): the rebels win, or c): no one wins. The only thing changing upon this wars outcome, is which side will be massacred at war’s end. Hence the battle for survival over there now.
So by having the US intervene or not, we are choosing which side gets to kill the other after the hostilities die down.
The weakest argument for going in still left with standing, is that they used chemical weapons. In WWI, the British, French, and Germans all used chemical weapons. Are chemical weapons really worse than being burned alive? Or asphyxiated as a bomb blast sucks all the oxygen out of your lungs and the room? Or a milk jug sized piece of jagged metal shrapnel ripping and leaving a hole through your body? Or a mine being stepped on? I’m trying to think why chemical weapons are so much worse, except for the fact that we’ve been told” they are so much worse”?
A causality is a causality.
We understand “why” some say we should go into Syria. Because if we do not respond to chemical weapons in a big way, someone else will become confident and use theirs. There is only one way to keep the genie inside the bottle, and that is to never leave a opening for it to escape….
We also understand “why” one of our beloved School districts had a policy that suspended, and expelled those who brought weapons to school! Not just guns, but knives too. After all, the argument for punishing Syria, applies to soon-to-become high school felons too.
But, there came a time when the response generated by a policy, actually became the crime, You remember the little boy expelled who brought a cake to school, and his grandmother thoughtfully sent a knife knowing teachers usually don’t have utensils in their classrooms. The teacher actually cut the cake, served it, thinking nothing of it.. it was someone higher up, reviewing the situation, who said, “wait, that can be interpreted as a breach of regulations. Let’s make an example out of this little boy”. He was suspended and could have been expelled, except it eventually became news and public outcry was solidly on his side. The policy makers were laughed out of town.
Which is why, if you are making this decision, you need to stall. Acting quickly and decisively is equivalent to acting on rumor and innuendo. So what if Syria lied and shot the gas cannisters off?
Does a military strike create enough excellent good will to neutralize this bad act?
Ironically what is best for the US in this situation, is for Assad to stay in power, to have a zealous change in heart, to work closely with the USA to get his economy working, to becoming a partner in that region with the US, and to signing a treaty with Israel, as did the Egyptians many, many years ago…
What is worse for us, is if the jihadists win, push out the moderates and take over the reform movement (they always do), then go to war with Israel, Jordan and Turkey. Making ourselves into the evil empire will only create more explosions everywhere, flare-ups which would not have occurred had we taken the Jedi way, and used the “Force” in our possession, to make events on the ground turn our way and happen in our favor….
Realistically such a rosy scenario probably can’t happen; but if it did, were this to come about, there would be no doubt: Obama would be lauded as the best president we’d ever see in our lifetimes. The cost of failure is so low that it just might be worth the try.
The second point… which all us Viet-namers will well remember, is that you may win every engagement you participate in Syria, but you won’t win the war at home, and that… will suck all your energy away from all the good you plan to do before 2016.
It broke LBJ. It broke Bush II. Don’t let it break you….
Senator Coons just returned this week from the Middle East. Lindsay Graham, Kelly Ayotte, John McCain, Sheldon Whitehouse, Richard Blumenthal went as well.
Jordan and Turkey have welcomed Syrian refugees with open arms. The camp visited, Zaatari, is at a population of 42,000 and absorbing 2000 a night. They need help before their scarce resources cause tensions within their own country.
This affects the US… Aid is in the United States’ interest. If we can provide aid to the rebels on the ground inside Syria we are preventing a much greater future cost of a full blown jihadist regime sharing a border with Israel….
Currently the aid we actually are providing is going through NGO’s into Damascus, where the Syrian government is distributing it to their supporters and away from the rebel towns who are hardest hit. The American people believe this aid is reaching the population they see on their televisions. Sad thing it isn’t.
The Assad administration is” dug in pretty hard.”
It is clear that air power is needed to protect people from Syria. A no-fly zone would even the odds. Currently the jihadists can stir up unrest. The war gives jihadist opportunity, The jihadists are the better fighters. When you as a people are being tortured and killed, the people fighting alongside of you gain legitimacy. Extremism always thrives inside anarchy. Any money now spent to facilitate the end of Assad is cheaper than what we will be grappling with jihadists at a later date.
It is time to give the Syrian Opposition Council more legitimacy, by recognizing it’s rightful representation of the Syrian people
The window is closing for the US… Either we act now, or get caught inside another Mid East bubble just as it explodes….
Here is how we move forward.
A) Step up Aid to Syrian People
B) Send aid to Turkey and Jordan and direct to refugee camps.
C) Apply to Assad to US to accompany aid into Syria and to those opposition towns inside.
D) When he refuses, enable a No-fly zoned over the Rebel held zones to enable OUR AMERICAN aid to get through.
E) Step up diplomatic pressure on Assad and his supporters to step down…..
F) Invite China to be part of the peace process and send humanitarian troops and infrastructural aid…..
kavips 