1. We really do not want the opposition to win. It’s true that we don’t want Assad to win either, but giving the opposition the keys to the chemical weapons is asking for disaster. As the New York Times recently pointed out, the opposition is brutal. Both McCain and Kerry seem to take comfort in the apparently large numbers of moderates in the opposition, but the most effective forces among the opposition are not moderate. The Nusra Front, in particular, is extremely disciplined and militarily effective. Like many Islamists, it also has a strong charity wing that wins public opinion. The moderates have noticed. Reuters:
But a second official, who also asked not to be named, said moderate rebels may have lost strength rather than gained it in recent months. Due to their relative lack of weapons and organization, they are beginning to make alliances with better-armed Islamic radicals, whom they see pursuing more effective actions against Assad’s forces, the official said.
2. This will not be a short involvement. Let’s think a bit about the Iraqi Civil War and the bombing campaign we are anticipating here. First off, Syrian air defenses are going to be much superior to Iraq’s or Libya’s. Even after they are overcome, bombing alone does not end civil wars. It took how many forces on the ground in Iraq to end its civil war? How many are still in Afghanistan?
Ezra Klein quoted a paper (see previous diary) that points out that many times an external intervention causes the regime being attacked to increase in brutality, to kill even more civilians. Cornered, Assad is not going to fight more nicely. So what happens? U.S. bombs Syria. The regime commits more not fewer atrocities. U.S. bombs more. The regime commits still more atrocities. When does this end?
3. “Military” and “humanitarian” are incompatible Thus far, we’ve seen very few cases in which a military intervention has reduced casualties. The word “surgical” as applied to bombing appears constitutes a sort of false advertising. All bombing has killed civilians and a lot of civilians. Even the intervention in the former Yugoslavia, as jconway has pointed out, had a large element of excessive and gratuitous force.
Clausewitz got it right: war is meant to achieve political aims, but there is no political aim we mean to achieve here. We’re not trying to replace the Syrian government. One doesn’t fight wars to make people “feel sorry” because the use of the military is lethal.
4. The norm against poison gas has actually been pretty effective. The previous use of poison gas was by Iraq during the time of the Reagan Administration. Saddam Hussein was not sanctioned internationally for that. The next use of them is, what, 30 years later. So clearly, the world has no crowd of tyrants clamoring to drop canisters of nerve gas. It’s doubtful that North Korea would take very many things as a disincentive.
Consequently, there is no hurry to enforce the red line. We can wait for the World Court to catch the perpetrators.
Ross Douthat in the New York Times argued that enforcing the norm, for the sake of the future, was very important. By his view, we have to recognize that the U.S. is the world’s only super-power and the only force capable of enforcing this norm. Reading his column, though, we find much more concern for norms than for Syrians. He doesn’t seem to think a military intervention will be good for the people who live there.
This seems like a morally suspect argument then. We are going to kill — or cause to be killed — extra Syrians in order to save some future group of people from being gassed to death in a world where militaries rarely use poison gas. This doesn’t sound like the “greatest good for greatest number” to me.
5. This is a diplomatic mess. Iran has lots of men who survived Iraq’s gas attack. Iran finds the whole use of poison gas quite abhorrent, because they lived through it. With a new leader in Iran making some somewhat promising noises, now is a productive time for diplomacy.
Further, the best outcome of the Syrian conflict would be a national unity government. This would have to be a negotiated settlement where the participation of external actors will be crucial. An intervention by the U.S. makes the rebels more intransigent since they can always angle for a greater U.S. involvement. It hardens Russian and Iranian resolve. By increasing the level of violence, it makes a national unity government harder to attain.
UPDATE.
6. It would violate international law. We really do not want a world in which every nation is a law unto itself. International law is quite clear: force is only permitted for self-defense or with U.N. approval. This intervention is neither. We are not intervening to stop the killing: if so why wait until a specific kind of weapon is being used. We are not intervening for self-defense: we do not border Syria. We certainly lack U.N. approval.
Even though I am of the Rand Paul wing on foreign policy, Republicans in Congress must support Pres. Obama on this issue.
1. We defer these type of decisions to the president. Reagan struck Lybia with cruise missiles and liberated Greneda when Americans were in danger. Granted, Reagan executed those military actions without consulting congress (thank God), but still, this is why we have one president.
2. Every time Republicans oppose Obama, the usual crowd yell “racist”. So as not to be called a racist, Republicans should vote yes.
3. If the resolution fails and Obama still strikes Syria and the mission ends up being protracted or a failure, Republicans will get the blame for not supporting the Commander in Chief at the onset.
4. Obama has promised no ground troops.
5. Obama may not even strike Syria, even with congressional authority.
As with most of your posts, I can’t tell if it is pure trolling, but this seemed somewhat legit, so I want to respond.
1. Republicans (and Democrats) generally defer actions to Presidents from their own party. Republicans may lean toward executive power more, but they also lean toward screwing over the Dems more.
2. I don’t think that will apply here. Some will say they are just doing it because they oppose Obama generally, which is probably true for many Repubs who vote against a resolution, but this issue won’t bring up those (often very legitimate) charges of racism.
3. If Republicans don’t vote for it and Obama does it anyway and it is a failure, the Republicans win 100%. I can’t imagine anyone could argue otherwise. All of this failure would go to Obama and secondarily the Dems.
4. Why would anyone believe a promise like this from any President, especially one from the opposing party?
5. LOL. Yeah right. If he gets authorization, it’s on like Donkey Kong.
1) Thank you KBusch, I think that’s the best crystallization I’ve seen this far and may copy and paste it (with your permission) in my emails to the IL and MA delegations. Just the facts alone presented in that style make it are to find the war logical to support.
2) On Republicans
I don’t celebrate their divisions or cheer their intraparty squabbles. I welcome growing conservative skepticism about the national security state and interventions. This is good news not bad news. There is a lot not to like about Rand Paul, but Alan Grayson (a Belmont resident now and easy guy to talk to) would’ve been another neocon while being just as bad as Paul on other issues. Ditto Amash in the House. If gerrymandering means a Republican house at least let it be one that stops dumb wars. Had Dick Armey and the 25 or so Republicans who were reluctant about Iraq had the courage to vote against their President we may have avoided that costly mistake. Looks like we will this time at least.
Actually, I could imagine a joint effort to refine the above text for exactly the purpose you suggest.
That I knew the author before even reading the post? If a well-researched cogent post was made on this site stating that water is a good thing, dfw would write a comment about how god-fearing true Americans like him now that water is bad.
I’ll respond to a smart argument made for the point at hand, not for attention.
I caught bits and pieces of Pres. Obama’s press conference, all about Syria. His answers sounded as if I was in a time warp, and Pres. W. was at the helm.
Obama mentioned failing to act will embolden other nations and terrorists groups. Spoke about the children killed by the chemical attacks in Syria, much like the Kurds gassed by Sadaam. Obama mocked issuing just statements condemning the Syrian government, and if the international community does act, would trigger a domino effect. Obama said attacking Syria is in the national interest of the USA.
Obama said if the international community does NOT act, then that would trigger a domino effect, something about emboldens terrorists, etc.
I must say, Obama seems determined and undeterred by critics or Putin. I just hope, if and when the missiles strike, we get behind Obama and support him. Lets not embolden Assad and that butcher, by having massive protests, like those who protested Pres. W. when the insurgents took foothold in Iraq.
We all should stay together on this, if it happens. He is our president.
Syria. I start with, what will it accomplish?
The Very Serious Person answer is that we need to show the world that we won’t allow use of chemical weapons. The (not-so) sad fact is that we have little control over what other countries do in war. Syria, as well as any other country with WMDs, already knows the potential result of using them. We’re not sending a new message. Any actors who use them will weigh the costs and benefits as I’m sure Assad did and do what they think best. There are only deeply superficial reasons to bomb Syria.
What’s interesting is the Republicans. The Democrats are predictably sort of split, but the GOP is really split. The Tea Partiers are against Obama and are increasingly isolationist. They heckled John McCain last night. This is not the same GOP.
As he has done for most of his Presidency, Obama has played the whole issue for maximum disadvantage. Much of this comes from his lack of deep-held beliefs and ideological superficiality. First he drew a line in the sand, not knowing what was on the other side. He never brought the fractious and politically obnoxious Congress in for the ride. He should have asked Dems to hold hearings on actions a long time ago. This would have been both principled and politically effective, exposing the GOP for its nuttiness. When hearings were done, he could say that as President, he reserved the right to take the action he is already authorized to take. If he didn’t do anything, he could then blame Congress’s lack of support. That way, he looks both democratic and strong.
Now it looks like Congress made him ask them and then granted him permission. If he goes ahead and bombs, he’ll get lambasted by the GOP and the majority of people who don’t want any action.
Of course we never heard from Gaddafi from that point on, until recently. If Obama wants to strike Lybia, he should just do it, it’s in his authority, hence the title Commander in Chief.
The only difference today is Obama wasn’t wearing a WWII leather bomber jacket that W liked to wear.
…handing over the keys to chemical weapons to the opposition? They should not be using them either, but right now who they are hardly matters as people are getting hurt. I’m less convinced than you of your assertions that it won’t be short and that military and humanitarian are incompatable. See the former Yugoslavia. Sometimes you have to make the peace (yes, paradoxically by force sometimes) and then keep the peace and provide humanitarian solutions, though stopping this is the most humanitarian thing we can do in the short term. As for diplomacy, by all means keep that up as well, though I’m not sure why you brought in Iran which I agree with you on since we are talking about Syria.
who, pray God, is going to keep chemical weapons out of the hands of the opposition, the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny?
obviously.
I have conflicting views on this issue. There are many good reasons for doing nothing, and yet doing nothing doesn’t seem an appropriate option either.
Let’s think a bit about this is going to be a “short” campaign. First off, when have we achieved our objectives? It’s not clear. Possibilities:
1. When Assad stops using chemical weapons. Well he appears to have stopped for now, so that can’t be it.
2. When Assad says he’s sorry. Well, when we drop bombs on Syria, no leader in his or her right mind is going to say he’s sorry.
3. When Assad submits to some kind of inspections? By whom? We’re planning to act without a U.N. mandate.
4. When Assad is less brutal. But that’s the relevance of the study Klein cites! Bombing is likely to make him more brutal not less.
The fourth point you should really think about, assuming you’re not feeling “lazy” again. We bomb. Assad gets more brutal. What do we do? I’ll tell you what we do given the history of these things: we bomb some more. And Assad gets brutal so more. The end result is an extended engagement and way, way more casualties than if we minded our own business.
I suppose we should just “trust” Obama’s magical super powers to keep that from happening. But wait! The Obama Administration is increasing the number of possible targets in Syria. That must be a very happy day for the Syrians.
5. When Assad has had to pay a price for using the weapons.
At this point, we cannot expect Assad to even admit he used the weapons that he clearly used much less apologize. All we can really hope for is for him and others like him to think twice before doing so again.
If that is the goal, I would expect us to do something like target the command headquarters of the division responsible for this latest attack. Something like this is probably what Obama had in mind.
And what constitutes a price? That’s just a weasel word.
*
Let’s think of it a bit like something from game theory. The U.S. and her allies don’t want the norm of using chemical weapons violated; we’re willing to punish others to enforce that norm. Now turn the board around and play the other pieces. Assad — and the Russians in Chechnya and the Chinese in Tibet — don’t want other countries dictating how to manage internal revolts. If the U.S. violates that norm, you can expect Assad to try to punish the violator so that it doesn’t recur.
Let’s throw in what happens if we do weaken Assad. From this article by three political scientists, we get some precedent:
Note please the line We test these arguments using data on civilian casualties and armed intervention in intrastate conflicts from 1989 to 2005. Stated differently this is not a “mere assertion” for you to rail against mindlessly with your own unconvincing counter-assertions.
You still haven’t responded to jconway’s point. More laziness perhaps?
In any case, the shortness and relative success of the Yugoslav example only works in Syria if you want the opposition to win.
But you, christopher, seem completely innocent of any concept of who the opposition is! Might you want to investigate that before you happily sign up to for liberal hawk duty?
…that I don’t care who the opposition is right now? I want the chemical attacks to not only stop, but to assure that it will never happen again. I’m not sure what jconway point you refer to. I just can’t for the life of me figure out why after a generation of congratulating ourselves on being the world’s sole remaining superpower some people feel we can’t handle Syria. Maybe the Gulf War is a better example. We didn’t accomplish regime change (which I wish we had and may ultimately have to happen here), but we were in and out pretty quickly. For me the goal is to damage him so much, starting with his chemical weapons stores, that not only will he never think to use them again, but anyone else who is thinking about it is put on notice that it is not worth it. To answer your sarcastic question further up you did refer to giving the keys, not simply leave them unprotected. One is commission and the other is omission. My choice is destroy the weapons so neither side has access.
In all of those cases where we were quick there was a clear objective: get the Serbs out of Kosovo, let Bosnia-Herzegovina be independent, get Iraq out of Kuwait.
Here there is no clear objective as I have outlined above.
The military says securing chemical weapons takes 75,000 soldiers on the ground and we are going to have precisely 0 soldiers on the ground. The military, christopher. Not someone idly speculating. This is the military’s estimate. 75,000 troops. Get it?
So I’m happy you “prefer” to destroy the weapons and drop lots of bombs until they’re all gone — which, of course, is a totally safe and harmless undertaking because it will be guided by christopher’s fantasy Obama.
In the real world, there’s no assurance whatever that the weapon stores will be destroyed or that they won’t end up in Nusra’s hands. There’s even less assurance that dropping all the bombs you’d “prefer” to drop because Assad makes you so very angry, won’t end up killing a whole lot of Syrians.
In Vietnam, a lot of thatched houses were burned and a lot of civilians were killed as reprisals for ambushes. Any Syrian intervention is going to be invite Assad to make you and the interventionists even angrier.
And even more Syrians dead.
was that the bombing campaign against Serbia lasted quite a while, seems to have inflicted serious damage against civilians, and was quite possibly unnecessary. He provided a link.
Christopher keeps going back and forth between wanting to engage with the facts and wanting to engage on assertions about what the ‘right’ thing to do is. If the ‘doing something’ option ends up a) not working b) dragging us into a civil war c) dragging us into a regional war d) helping Islamists e) killing more civilians than we save or f) any or all of the above, I would strongly argue that the right thing to do may end up being nothing as sad as that is.
And by nothing I mean nothing militarily. We should really be reaching out to Iran more than we are, their moderate clerics, President and even some generals are making noises about how they didn’t like being gassed and don’t want to gas others. Russia could force Assad to agree to a power sharing which our moderate opposition allies could agree to. I say stop the bleeding and come up with a post-Assad settlement. Most of his regime may have to stay intact (after all look at how awesome debaathification worked in Iraq) but he would be out of power and the war would stop.
I would also add that I’d rather spend the billions here at home, and if we have to spend them on helping Syrians let’s make those refugee camps workable. Right now they are just breeding grounds for the next generation of extremists. Books not bombs, and that’s not me being a hippie that’s me being a long term realist.
…”going back and forth between wanting to engage with the facts and wanting to engage on assertions about what the ‘right’ thing to do is”? Aren’t both important? Your second paragraph looks good, but that’s what I’m skeptical about working. I still say that on balance Serbia yielded a good result.
That’s what’s wrong.
someone from using chemical weapons if they have no compunction about using them.They are going to weigh the risks of a U.S. response and act as they see fit.
I’m sure Assad considered the ramifications of using chemical weapons before using them. I’m sure he’s got plans in the event that the U.S. attacks. It would be nice to think that America can solve every problem in the world, but we can’t. In Kosovo, we made a difference. We could have made a difference in Rwanda. I don’t see how we can make a difference here.
…but I doubt he would be able to execute them.
Assad must have plans to respond to our response to his chemical attack and therefore we must do nothing because we believe that he is far more competent at planning than we are? That really doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
I think it is pretty clear that Assad has made a massive mess of his country and is far from adept at making things come out his way.
after Afghanistan and Iraq, you assert we’d do better? On what evidence?
Additionally, the parameters of this Syria debate are crystal clear: no ground troops. Zero. None. Zilch. Possibly you are asserting that we can rebuild the country from helicopters without ever touching ground?
So really, are you saying anything concrete or practical here that isn’t just some jumble of impractical sentiments? I submit: you are not.
Plus bombs.
I was mostly countering some questionable assertions in Mark’s comment. Namely that it is pointless to try to punish Assad because he already has some sort of secret plan which will make the attack totally ineffective. I think this is a really silly claim. As I said, if Assad were all that competent there never would have been a Civil War in the first place. There are good arguments against launching some sort of attack, but this isn’t one of them.
I don’t know why you are asking me to present evidence for something that I did not say.
Regarding rebuilding the country. I don’t see *anyone* on any side of the debate proposing anything that will rebuild Syria. Nor have I heard Obama claim that was something we should take on. But you are correct, we cannot rebuild from the air, but I don’t think that would be our near-term goal.
At this point, given the proposal to decommission Assad’s chemical weapons, it clearly is best to see if that can be worked out, but with the implicit threat that if not there will be serious consequences. If it comes to an attack, I really wouldn’t expect us to want to do any more than try to take out some of the people involved in the most recent attack. If Syrian commands see that there is a consequence to themselves for using these weapons, they may think twice before using them with or without Assad’s permission. That’s really all I think we can reasonably expect to accomplish.
No that would not end the war; it would not end the Assad regime; but it just might help to take this particular weapon off the table.
I am not strongly advocating for such an action, but I do think it is not an unreasonable response.
The nut of this problem is the Syrian people themselves. Their history is a bit checkered. For years they showed no qualms that their leaders invaded Israel and Lebanon. Their view was ameliorated because Syria is secular and for the most part minorities were protected, education was available, and starvation was not an imminent threat. The world wide recession tipped the balance and brought protest against the Assad regime. The government was not attending to their day to day survival. However too many in Syria still support Assad to affect any change in leadership. In that vein, military action became the method of choice to get rid of the elements that were disagreeing with each other. What we have now is a standoff. Instead of choosing, 25% of the population just moved out of the way. Until they come back in those numbers to oppose the present government and choose a more representative one, outsiders will have no peaceful options to offer. Therefore we should stay out.
Being docile in a dictatorship doesn’t prove much. When was the last time Syria had an opportunity to choose its leadership by free and fair election?
The people of Egypt did not take a vote. They took to the streets and defied the military. If you are docile, you get what you pay for.
Everyone participating in this post should read the piece by Professor Stephen Walt on the Foreign Policy blog, http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/09/03/applying_the_powell_doctrine_to_syria. Walt looks to the standards of a Very Serious Person (at least at the time), Joint Chiefs Chairman Colin Powell. Powell listed eight criteria to meet before considering an intervention. Walt finds that few have been met. He draws two conclusions: “First, the case for military action in Syria remains weak, and the fact that the United States is barreling headlong toward that outcome anyway is a powerful indictment of its foreign policy and national security establishment. Second, Colin Powell was really onto something when he laid out this framework, and the United States would be in much better shape today had that framework guided U.S. military responses for the past 20 years.” Amen I say to both of them. So if this means even defying a president most of us are deeply invested in, I say go for it. Obama’s proposed intervention, to use the famous Talleyrand line, would be worse than a crime. It would be a mistake.
Let me try to summarize the meat of it: Here are Powell’s 8 criteria or principles and how they would apply to this conflict.
1. Vital national interests at stake?
Obviously not.
2. Clear, obtainable objective?
Obviously not. (Go to link for details.)
3. Costs and risks analyzed fully and frankly?
Maybe
4. Other nonviolent policy options exhausted?
No, see Walt’s diplomacy suggestions.
5. Plausible exit strategy to avoid entanglement?
No
6. Consequences fully considered?
Unlikely (Go to link for details)
7. Popular support?
Definitely not. Walt quotes an older poll showing only 15% approval. That has risen somewhat in more recent polling, but it still stands in the low 20s.
8. Genuine and broad international support?
No. Walt’s article came out on Sept 3 before we got to watch how unmoved the G20 summit was.
…as alleviating mass suffering and victimization by a tyrant? That’s a heavy thumb on the scale in the other direction in my book, though the above factors do also need to be weighed (except maybe number 1 – sometimes there is a human interest which knows no political borders).
.
So I guess we should finally liberate North Koreans from their tyrannical government? The Chinese have been ethnically cleansing Tibet for nearly 60 years, not to mention how the treat Islamic pashtun tribes in the East or political prisoners, shouldn’t they be punished? What about Russia which has killed as many as Assad in its war on Chechnya and is certainly no candy and roses democracy? What about Sudan? What about Egypt where we are still backing a military shooting its own people? Bahrain? What about Iran? What about Belarus? What about Congo or Zimbabwe?
The first part of the Hippocratic Oath is Do No Harm, I wish our foreign policy was the same way.
Maybe some of those places do deserve our greater attention, but I don’t know all the details. As far as I know DPRK hasn’t launched a mass chemical attack on its citizens lately and while regime change would be nice I see them as more insular. As for China I just wish that at very least we wouldn’t buddy up to them and look the other way so much on their abuses of human rights. It still upsets me that there was no effort to isolate them after Tiannamen Square in 1989 at the very same time Communist authorities relaxed in Eastern Europe and even the USSR, but PRC doubled down. We don’t want to march around the world and impose democracy by force, but we should not back and aide tyrannical governments either. We should, however, have active embassies with all nations with which we are not at war. The Syria situation is intensive and immediate. I didn’t advocate intervention there just for the sake of deposing a dictator prior to most recent events either.
Why do the 1300 that died from chemicals deserve more avenging than the 100,000 that died from bullets and bombs? Why does that 1300 matter more than the 6000 executed by the PRC, the 300k toiling in concentration camps in the DROK? Why do the 1300 killed by gas at Assads hands matter more than the nearly 1,000 killed by Sissi’s guns which we bought and paid for?
Let’s utilize the UN, use diplomacy, and help the refugees. Seems far more productive than the amorphous mission you and the President support with little long term thinking or planning and little rationale beyond year old red lines made in an election year*.
*Bush Sr. Is widely regarded 20 years later as a great foreign policy president but was intensely criticized for prudently avoiding going to Bagdhad and for promising the Shias we’d have their back if they rose up. Seeing how poorly his son did I’m glad he broke that promise.
By my reading, pro-interventionists appear to have a variety of motives. Four seem most prominent:
(1) Reinforce the norm against chemical weapons. Do this even if the impact on Syria might be harmful because in the long run this norm is very important to maintain.
(2) Prevent any more use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime by degrading its military ability.
(3) Address the humanitarian crisis in Syria whereby many people have been killed, injured, or made homeless. Intervene to stop the carnage.
(4) Remove Assad the tyrant.
4a. Let the Syrians sort out his replacement
4b. The opposition, which is majority moderate will do just fine.
Christopher like Secretary of State Kerry has not chosen which of the four is our primary motivation. So, if one objects that #2 is impossible without ground troops or that #1 really does risk a massive increase in Syrian casualties, the object slides around to #3 or #4.
Now, one might object, “Can’t I be for all of these motivations? They all sound good to me!” The trouble is figuring out when we can end the intervention depends crucially on the motivation. (1) and (2) risk a significant escalation of the bombing -> Syrian atrocity -> more bombing -> more atrocity vicious circle. What happens if chemical weapons are used again after the bombing campaign?
(3) is simply impossible without a significant presence on the ground. People who are clamoring for a humanitarian should realize that nothing involving ground troops is even being remotely considered. We did not just bomb targets in the former Yugoslavia, for example. We had plenty of people on the ground.
So really, to insist on (3) is to insist on fairy dust and unicorns.
As for (4), we risk the kind of fiasco we just saw in Iraq where there was no replacement for Saddam Hussein, or the troubles into which Libya has lately fallen. The opposition right now is highly disorganized. The Free Syrian Army doesn’t really have much of a command structure; it’s mostly run from outside the country. The much more organized Islamists do have a command structure. So if Assad falls, you have a fractured collection of competing moderates with a loose leadership structure and conflicting goals on one side and the extremely organized Nusra faction on the other with a clear vision, a strong command structure, and a charitable organization too. So, no the moderates won’t do “just fine”. Removing Assad the tyrant replaces the current set of bad choices with a new set of even worse choices.
I just wish you would lose the fairy dust/unicorns mockery which does nothing to advance the discussion. To jconway, motive number 1 regarding the norm against chemical or other weapons of MASS destruction probably goes the farthest toward answering your question above comparing casualities in PRC and DPRK, though maybe more fear of WWIII resulting from such action compared to Syria has something to do with as well.
You’ve advocated postures in your exchanges on this issue that I’ve chosen to just keep quiet about because anything I wrote would be more harsh than kbusch’s rather mild humor.
I think she’s pretty much nailed this issue, nailed the futility of any of the contemplated US military actions, and rather gently chided you for pursuing proposals that have been rather thoroughly debunked since the entire Syria dialog got serious some time ago.
There are NO good US military options. None. All of them do far more harm than good, and that’s why I oppose each of them.
Jon Stewart used a similar phrase recently on this very topic.
I’ve been suggesting that there is an appealing rescue fantasy in much thinking about Syria that is more magical than practical. My mockery has been tied to that theme. If we are going to use powerful lethal weapons, we had better engage in highly practical thinking.
So I plead guilty to christopher’s charge of engaging in mockery.
I differ with his claim that it “does nothing to advance the discussion.”
Nothing is completely unacceptable and nonmilitary I don’t see as working, though we could combine military and nonmilitary.
“Nothing is completely unacceptable”? At this stage in the discussion?
Until there are options on the table that at are at least likely to do less harm than good, then “nothing” is more acceptable than some un-named, un-measured, un-targeted, un-directed, and uncontrollable “something”.
Until it is actually proved (with revealed evidence; SoS assertions backed up by unrevealed secrets are not proof) that Assad is responsible for the chemical deaths, doing nothing is entirely appropriate. No one has proved that.
Lets not give in to the dialogue advanced by the media
and interventionists that not involving ourselves militarily in someone else’s civil war is “doing nothing”. On the contrary, there is a whole
lot of something we could be doing that we are not. My debate partner from college who works at the Clinton School has been doing a ton of work
with refugees and is convinced that bombing is about the worst thing we could do and is appalled that this crisis, which Amnesty describes as the worst humanitarian crisis in the world right now, is being unaddressed. I am terrified of another Black September and a similar Jordanian crackdown. Lets send books, doctors, teachers and medicine there.
Lets deploy some medics and engineers and rebuild and assist. The military’s finest hour in the last decade was our Tsunami response-lets repeat that in Syria. It would do a world of good and I’d rather Al Jazeera cover medics helping malnourished children rather than scenes of children pulled out of homes our airforce accidentally bombs.
…I gave you room for nothing or nonmilitary and expressed concerns about both, right? I am absolutely not suggesting that doing nothing is the only alternative, but concerned about the effectiveness of other alternatives.
I thought you should be a citizen of the country if you are to be a “rebel”. Is a foreign mercenary a “rebel”? The foreign press is full of the stories of “rebels” beheading Christians and Muslim Shi’ia, canabalism and execution of children. Are “rebels”, looking to win the hearts and minds of their people, likely to do this? Or foreigners bent on sating a blood lust? I’ll keep an open mind on who gasses who and doubt that the Whitehouse gives a rat’s buttock if people die of gas or any other cause except as how to use (mis?)information.
Why Tuesday? Will we have a Tonkin Gulf moment by then?
“Politics is the entertainment division of the military industrial complex.” –Frank Zappa
I’m not sure that these folks are mercenaries, but they are foreigners.
Were the Marquis de la Fayette and Baron von Steueben rebels?
One doesn’t just go from one’s own country to another to fight a foe. One needs an infrastructure to provide organization, weapons, quarters, food and the necessities of life. That’s why we built Al -Qaeda.
Neither the Marquis nor the Baron were rebels. They paid some of their own way. The Marquis was granted US citizenship, died in Paris and is buried there under soil from Bunker Hill. The Baron became and American and died in Rome, New York.
why dying from gas is worse than being beheaded? All bloodlust and cruelty should be banned. There are hundreds of clips on youtube and elsewhere on the net which graphically show the “rebels” torturing, beheading and executing prisoners. Certainly, beheading a person and parading around with that person’s head on a stick deserves some sort of red line, too.
…for weapons of mass destruction. Thus biological, chemical, or nuclear weapons which indiscriminately kill everyone in a given vicinity are seen as worse than those methods which require victims to be selected, though your points are certainly valid.
We poison land forever with depleted uranium. Untold generations facing birth defects and cancers. Our ally spreads white phosphorus on the civilian men, women and children and seeds fields with cluster bombs provided by the US of A.
Are our hands not as bloody as those that would use poison gasses?
“Many of us believe that wrongs aren’t wrong if it’s done by nice people like ourselves.” –Author Unknown
chemical weapons are very untargeted, whereas beheading is very targeted. Only the individual who you want is killed, not their entire family + community.
War is a horrible thing. Death is a horrible thing. But while guns and swords and even bombs can kill 1 person or 10s of people at a time, chemical weapons can kill 100s or even 1000s. There’s a good reason to prevent their use. Not to mention that we have treaty obligations, and international law is an important ideal for us to strive for.
I don’t know if bombing is the way to do it or not. (I’ll leave that call to people who know the full, classified intel to make the best decision.) But there is good reason to uphold international law. We shouldn’t be the policeman of the world, but who else will be? Not the UN, not NATO. The ICC will only be effective 10+ years from now, far too late to do anything.
I’m reminded of the famous quote from Rabbi Hillel, ‘If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, who am I? If not now, when?’
The aerial bombing of Japan and Germany killed as many civilians as we killed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
War is about killing people. I think the objection to chemical weapons is mostly show — I think the main reason they aren’t used is that they actually aren’t all that effective, in comparison to the alternatives.
If the world’s military wanted to use them, it would do so.
…a bombing like Hiroshoma/Nagasaki or even Dresden. Targeted strikes, which granted may not be perfect either, are what I have in mind. For those who mock unrealistic thinking I say it’s also unrealistic to think we will never need a forceful response. Believe me, I’d love to never have a need to go to war. In a perfect world all nations could get rid of their militaries and join in a rousing chorus of kum ba yah. However, that perfect world would also have to include democracy in every nation and nobody attacking his own people, or anyone else.
Nobody said “we will never need a forceful response”. Your reference to “kum ba yah” is the stuff of the Limbaugh crowd — have you been listening to talk radio or something? Instead of singing kum ba yah, you are beating a war-drum — while deluding yourself about the likely consequences of what you propose.
Assad killed about 1,500 civilians, apparently with chemical weapons. The US killed more than 100,000 civilians in Iraq, with purely conventional means — most from “targeted strikes”. Don’t you dare to presume to lecture me about what “anyone is proposing”, I’ve lived through sixty years of your “targeted strike” “limited war” nonsense.
If you feel so passionately about this, then please — get your war-drumming butt over to Syria, sign up for some rebel outfit, and chase your fairy dust and unicorn fantasies yourself. Leave the rest of us out of it.
Your chicken-hawk demands for somebody else to go start killing somebody else are the stuff of Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin.
I understand that you feel very passionately on this matter. Having read your posts and comments for years, I would expect nothing less. But as someone who came to this discussion undecided (though leaning toward supporting military intervention) and who has been convinced against intervention by kbusch (and others), I appreciate christopher’s opposing arguments. I think you might want to take a deep breath before continuing down the path of demonizing christopher for “dar[ing]” to argue in good faith for a position you happen to disagree on. Though I’ve come to believe that christopher is on the wrong side of this one, I think that he (like the rest of us) is owed a certain degree of respect here on BlueMassGroup.
I don’t think I’m “demonizing” Christopher, and I don’t thing my impatience has to do with a good-faith disagreement with me. I never said anything about never needing a “forceful response”. I found the kum ba yah reference particularly abrasive — that’s hardly a “good-faith disagreement”.
Christopher agreed, several times in different threads, that no military intervention that caused more harm than good was acceptable. Yet ALL of the proposals on the table have precisely that character, and still Christopher argues that we should do one of them (though he won’t say which one).
Now that the Russians have advanced a non-military proposal, I hope that this exchange becomes moot.
…which suggests to me you want to shut down debate. If you are not arguing that we would never need a forceful response to this please enlighten me, because so far it sounds like you are very much against that kind of response.
When you or anyone else proposes a “forceful response” that accomplishes more good than harm, or less harm than good, then I am eager to consider it. I think I’ve written that numerous times here in the past week or more.
If you want to continue a discussion with me, then don’t go down the “kum ba yah” rathole. I said you were becoming a troll on this because:
1. You are using increasingly offensive rhetoric (such as the “kum ba yah” rubbish)
2. You flagrantly mis-state what I write (I never said “we will never need a forceful response”)
3. You repeat the same arguments over and over (“We need to do something”, while simultaneously agreeing that nothing on the table meets the do-less-harm-than-good criteria).
I did not intend it as mockery. I said I would love to live in a world where that could happen. I meant it in all seriousness and not sarcasticly or anything like that. Also, I have NOT agreed that nothing on the table meets the less hard than good criteria. What I have said is that is a valid factor to consider. I don’t like the repetition either, but I keep getting asked questions I try my best to answer. Please at least assume that I am having this discussion in good faith.
“I did not intend it as mockery.”
Well, that would be the first time I’ve seen it used that it was not mockery. But I think it was, just as “fairy dust and unicorns” was, but with a much longer history.
Not to put words in christopher’s mouth, but my sense is that he is perceiving the opposition expressed herein to be based on pacifism or thinly-veiled pacifism alone.
I don’t think that this perception is accurate– the arguments here are mostly pragmatic, rather than based on the idealism and naivete of pure pacifism. In fairness, I think that it is probably the case that many of those who have opposed this action on pragmatic grounds would oppose it anyway, even if the pragmatics were more favorable, and have expressed pragmatic arguments simply because they work this time.
In any event, the pragmatic problems with an action now are indeed formidable, and should be addressed with something other than “well, we need to do SOMETHING.” At the same time, standing idly by cuts strongly against the perception that Americans have of their own nation since December 8, 1941.
There is a reason that President Clinton counts Rwanda as a regret, and there is also a reason that standing aside was probably the right thing to do. But standing aside requires the tacit acknowledgement of a degree of indifference to present human suffering that is and should be uncomfortable.
In my case, I plead innocent: consequences are generally important for me.
one needs two sides. Even if I occasionally thought christopher was being a doodyhead by not agreeing with me 100%, I have to admire his persistence in maintaining the other side of the argument.
I think this differs substantially from actual trolls who don’t follow the thread of the argument, repeat disproved points insistently, lower the level of the discussion, or provide mockery without content.
Syria, like Iraq and possibly Egypt, is becoming a battlground in a broader ethnic and religious civil war in the region, dressed in the guise of a “rebellion” against an existing regime. Foreign extremists are streaming in not to liberate Syrians, but to further their ethnic and religious war against Shi’ites in the form of the regime, and who are protected by the regime. That type of conflict doesn’t produce moderation: it produces genocidal hyper-violence and “ethnic cleansing.”
I think the sticking point for christopher is the real implication of doing nothing: it really amounts to a statement that the use of WMD in what is increasingly looking like a hyper-violent religious war is none of our business, and if that means a sudden large decline in the number of Sunni moslems in the region, well then so be it.
Doing nothing, even if there really is nothing to do, conveys a certain callousness that is hard to swallow. Hence the calls to just do something, anything.
As I have said before, there are very few good solutions. Let us hope that something comes of the Russian proposal, and that the administration has more wisdom than they have shown thus far on this matter.
But I take issue with this post:
The pragmatics were a lot more favorable in Libya which is way I backed that.
This is the implication I kept getting from Christopher that I didn’t like. I do care, but in the real world caring sometimes isn’t enough to solve a problem. I am a progressive and a liberal, and part of that means recognizing that government can and should care and help where it can. There will always be problems that government can’t solve. What angers me about the political right is that they do not believe government should solve any problem, even where it can. And what angers me about interventionists of left and right stripe, is they feel, in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that the military can and should solve problems all over the world without major reprecussions.
I dislike that a President I voted for twice, exposing myself to cold and worse, Iowans to campaign in Iowa for, who promised to be honest and forthright with the American people is being dishonest. He is cooking the intelligence and editing it to meet his foregone conclusions. They are downplaying the risks and the costs.
Had Obama said, you know what, we will lost x # of Americans, spend # amount of $, and this will take X amount of time, but by God, it is worth it since this is a moral outrage. Than thats one thing. But to pretend, as Obama has, as Christopher has, as other interventionists in both parties have, that this would be some kind of a cakewalk, is to either be willfully ignorant or just ignorant. Either way its an awful war to run a foreign policy, let alone begin a war.
Do you have any evidence of that? You’re making him sound like Cheney! As for me, I don’t know if cakewalk would be the term, but I do think we can manage this and I certainly do not pretend on matters this serious.
I absolutely agree with that sentiment, which is why when people were asking “Why are we invading Libya but not Syria?” I thought the answer was self-evident: the situation in Libya was within our ability to make significant difference towards the goal of turning back Qaddafi’s forces, while in Syria there was no clear way that the US could make any practical difference through military action as the civil war escalated.
But, on August 21, the situation changed radically: we had blatant use of chemical weapons, weapon inspectors in place who were able to go to the site to test (and we will be hearing from in the next weeks, likely to give third party confirmation to the US assessment that sarin gas was used), we had US intelligence showing where the weapons were launched from and launched to.
And most importantly, we had two new things: a clear violation of international law that required an international response, and a clear, narrow, and achievable mission to degrade the ability of these weapons to be used again and deter any further use. We cannot and should not try to achieve regime change through military force, but we can and should stop those chemical weapons from being used again. If we can achieve that, whether through diplomacy or air strikes, we should do so.
If Obama was really interest in “cooking the intelligence and editing it to meet his foregone conclusions”, wouldn’t he have done so when we had the mixed reports about CW use in April? But he didn’t, because it should be clear to you and everyone that this president does not want to use military force except as a last resort.
I do not believe that the President is deliberately lying to members of Congress and the public about the general information regarding Assad. Unlike Iraq, we know for sure he has these stockpiles and we know for sure he is willing to use them and may have already. But, according to Juan Cole and Alan Grayson the specific evidence of this specific attack given to the public is a 4 page memo selectively summarizing another document that is more skeptical that is fully classified. If they were serious about making their awe they would present all the evidence, own up to it being inconclusive but argue morally better to err on the side that it is.
The casualty and time edtimates are low, and the promise that this would be quicker and cheaper than Kosovo that Obama made is either false (Syria’s military is far more sophisticated than war weary Serbia’s) or the actual strike is purely to look good and won’t really demean any capabilities. Evidence as shown time and time again that air wars fail to achieve any of their political or military goals. Period.
Then I went overseas to a war. I learned we don’t war for democracy or peace or love or human rights or dignity. We war for the gain of powerful people to be more powerful. We are the pawns in the game, as are the people we aim at.
Interestingly, the country I was in later fell to the communists. In the long run the people seem to be doing as well, if not better, than the regimes we supported.
“Targeted strikes…”, yeah.
Chemical weapons have been viewed as different– more sinister, more terrible, and more savage– since the end of the First World War nearly 100 years ago. Nuclear and biological weapons have been similarly treated differently. That’s why these have been subject to treaty restrictions, while other weapons have not.
A position that “welp, war is war, and it doesn’t matter if it was an artillery shell or a nerve gas attack,” while deceptively simple, would effect an absolute reversal of 50+ years of American foreign policy.
Maybe that is a necessary reversal. Maybe the distinction is artificial and cannot be maintained. Maybe we decide that we cannot be the world’s policeman, and that it is no business of ours who uses what weapons and how, so long as they don’t bother us personally.
I am increasingly thinking that this change may be necessary, because the reality of being the world policeman is impossible. But at the same time, it is hard to credibly pretend that this is some sort of moral high ground: rather it seems like a craven admission that American lives, and American wealth, are simply more valuable than the many that are thus abandoned to their fate.
Perhaps the middle ground is somewhere in between.
We treat nuclear weapons “differently” — but we remain the only nation that has used them in war, and we remain slow to dismantle our own even while taking strong stances against their possession by others. It might be easier to persuade Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions if Israel did not already possess nuclear weapons (whether or not we or they publicly admit it).
The US military worked aggressively on both chemical and biological weapons during the post-WWII period. There have been rumors of US use of both in Korea and again in Vietnam. I suggest, as I wrote above, the receptiveness of the Pentagon to restricting chemical and biological weapons is that the military found them difficult to handle — hard to produce, hard to manage in combat, and not particularly effective as other choices.
The US stance against WMDS is NOT that we reject the loss of civilian life — it is, instead, that we have chosen nuclear weapons as our WMD of choice. We are reasonably clear that we will respond with nuclear weapons against a chemical or biological attack. It is no accident that we so aggressively seek to halt the nuclear capability of our potential enemies — it only makes sense to preserve the large strategic advantage we now hold.
In my view, against the backdrop of our clear willingness to use nuclear weapons if needed, our public rejection of chemical and biological weapons on “moral” grounds rings hollow.
Let’s not pretend that intervention has followed every use of chemical weapons. The Reagan administration looked the other way while Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against the Kurds within Iraq, and in fact continued to supply his military, including permitting the sale of the actual chemicals. Only 15 years later, when George W. Bush wanted a bullshit war, did “he used chemical weapons against his own people” become a problem.
Maybe it is right that the USA should withdraw from its self-appointed role as internationalist policeman. That is certainly a debateable point. It is my view that conflicts during the era that the US has adopted this role, even at their worst have been local and destructive, in contrast to the time before the US adopted this role, when conflicts were global and catastrophic– and that the adoption of this role, warts and all, has been an overall positive development globally.
Second, I am not sure where “let’s not pretend we’re perfect” leads. So what? Who said we were? Does that absolve us from obligation, moral or otherwise, to try to prevent the use of these weapons against civilian populations? “Cause it sort of seems like a cop-out response designed to preserve our own complacency– the neighbors of Kitty Genovese on an international scale.
I am not even sure where I land on this. I am simply trying to convey the bases of my own ambivalence.
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A week ago, I thought the President had f–ked up pretty royally on this. I have no idea if the Kerry “gaffe” was real, or by design, but they seem to be playing it well to extract their chestnust from the fire.
One, you get to give Putin a big bone (and boner) and in so doing (perhaps) placate some of the insecurity that is driving his anti-Westernism of the last few years– the more he basks in his international glory on this, the better. Russian governments that feel insecure tend to be very bad, historically, for smaller countries near Russia.
Two, the more he basks in his glory, the more that Russia’s prestige is committed to securing the weapons. And Russia has a far more direct interest in securing them (because they may go off in Moscow if rebels get them), and have a far better relationship with the regime, so you have vastly increased the chances that they will actually be secured, and vastly decreased the chances of further use, because further use will embarass the hell out of Russia, Assad’s only real patron and ally other than Iran. Who the hell wants to “own” the Syria problem? That’s like owning mortgage securities in 2007. Russia? Why sure, step right up and here you go!
Three, you have what appears to be a big concession out of Assad, which bolsters the international convention on chemical weapons.
And in return for all this, you suffer the right wing to piss all over Obama for “weakening” the US in the middle east, which they would have done anyway. A little political black eye for a guy who no longer has any reason to give a damn, and what could be a very good long term benefit for the nation and world.
That may all be far to optimistic, but for the moment, there is a potential for a major success of the sort that is not even widely recognized for many years.
Monday is mobilization day for hundreds of lobbyists to button-hole and palm grease our duly elected for war. Will reason carry the day, or will blood be bought and paid for through our elected representatives?
“As a lobbyist, I was completely against term limits, and I know a lot of people are against term limits, and I was one of the leaders, because why? As a lobbyist, once you buy a congressional office, you don’t have to re-buy that office in six years, right?” –Jack Abramoff
So how well will that norm against using chemical weapons work when it turns out that it is possible to use them on a massive level and get away totally with it?
At least this post does not simply encourage us to think positive thoughts and treat that as a real response.
The comments that trivialize the use of chemical weapons but noting that other weapons can kill do not recognize how long and hard a road it has been to get to the point where there are international laws against using chemical weapons and committing genocide. But rather then build on those norms to make still other forms of indiscriminate killing illegal, we are counseled to give up.
How many of the supporters of ‘peace’ would use exactly the same arguments if we were discussing an actual case of genocide. Would they tell us to just let the killing continue without doing anything because genocide has occurred in the past and some perpetrators were not punished? What other international laws should we discard?
Could you be more specific? To what are you responding? What are you advocating?
Please summarize the action(s) you would have us take.
The “surgical strike” airwar being proposed by the current administration is likely to cause Mr. Assad to double-down on both his killing of civilians and his use of chemical weapons.
Please explain how this, or any other proposal you advocate, actually helps discourage the use of chemical weapons.
I am getting a little bit tired of reading these assertions that any attack is guaranteed to make things worse. You may well believe that, but there really isn’t any clear evidence that is the case. Why don’t you first present your detailed evidence proving that Assad will in fact “double-down”?
I think that it is equally likely that Assad will ‘double down’ if the international community doesn’t take a stand against the use of chemical weapons. I’m not saying he will or he won’t, just that it’s as likely either way.
I’m fairly certain that, yeah, if we bomb or whatever, things next month will be worse than they are right now…. but not bombing isn’t a guarantee that things won’t worsen on their own. Such is the nature of a terrible choice.
The pragmatic issue in a nutshell is that “success” in this adventure might be worse than failure.
1. The regime is in possession of chemical weapons, and appears to be prepared to use them in order to defeat a “rebellion” and stay in power.
2. By turning American military power against the regime, we make it more likely that the regime will NOT be able to defeat the rebellion and stay in power. Otherwise, what is the point of the exercise, exactly? If the goal is to make a disincentive for the regime to use those chemical weapons, there has to be a cost to the regime, right?
3. The most cohesive, most effective, and most competent components of the “rebellion” are religious extremists, many of whom are non-local and are not fighting a “rebellion” so much as a religious war. By turning American military power against the regime, we effectively deploy American military power in favor of Islamist extremists– a mistake that should not be made at any time of year, much less in early September.
4. In order to secure and/or destroy the chemical weapons, we would need to mount an invasion, which is already ruled out.
So your options are (i) support a regime that will use chemical weapons– locally– on its own subjects in order to crush a rebellion; (ii) support a “rebellion” that will likely be willing to use those same weapons globally in support of its extremist agenda; or (iii) there is no third option.
I haven’t seen anything to suggest that a military response is likely to make anything better, even if it is not “guaranteed to make things worse.”
To me, the primary argument in favor is “well, we have to do something!” one, which, while carrying a certain force, is not sufficient to justify the deployment of American military power.
but what about just killing Assad?
How hard could it be if he’s still doing interviews and making speeches and such?
Assassination might not be the kind of international norm we’d like to see encouraged. YMMV.
And is there really a “norm” against assassination? The hundreds of targeted drone strikes over the past several years suggests that the US has already thrown that particular norm out the window. And some norms are worthy pf mpre respect han others. A gentleman’s agreement among the ruling class not to assassinate eachother, but to allow slaughter of civilians, commands very little respect from lowly people like me and my ilk. Tyrants who slaughter thei own people, or innocent civilians from other countries, should enjoy the protection of no such norm, neither on a moral or a pragmatic level.
If you kill Assad, who is going to replace him? If you don’t have a good idea of the answer to that question, you probably don’t want to be considering taking out Assad. I would also be skeptical that we would have the capability to kill Assad without also killing civilians. An attack directed against a military target has a much better chance of avoiding killing civilians.
the third option is what has been outlined by the President.
From the resolution with regard to changing the momentum on the battlefield.
“It is the policy of the United States to change the momentum on the battlefield in Syria so as to create favorable conditions for a negotiated settlement that ends the conflict and leads to a democratic government in Syria”
Link to the resolution:
Here it is – apparently manual html code is required…
the g.d. links
I’m amazed at the lack of Syria debate on lefiy blogs — not just BMG. I checked several and saw nary a word.