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kapkomet
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If we went into Libya, why not Syria?

 

Wondered what y'alls take is on this one.

 

As for me, I'm pretty torn about this one. However, why justify Libya if not Syria? I mean we all know the (black gold) answer, right?

 

Anyway, carry on, just wondered what some of you thought (Soxbadger, Balta, in particular).

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In my opinion its a more difficult situation and less likely for clear quick results. Libya presented an opportunity for action where it was possible that a small involvement could potentially result in large gains.

 

That being said, do I want the US to stop the killing of civilians, of course. But at what cost, Syria (imo) will be messy and do you think that Obama will get bipartisan support for this? Do you think Democrats will want to risk losing elections over the people of Syria?

 

The answer is no, so barring Syria doing something blatantly stupid that the whole world condemns (and even then im not sure Obama could get Republican support, only if it was an attack on the US), it just really is unlikely that any politician is going to take such a risk.

 

Maybe someone else will pick up the slack (or maybe try and force our hand with a NATO resolution), but unfortunately the people of Syria will suffer because we are to busy feuding with ourselves.

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QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Mar 5, 2012 -> 10:22 PM)
In my opinion its a more difficult situation and less likely for clear quick results. Libya presented an opportunity for action where it was possible that a small involvement could potentially result in large gains.

 

That being said, do I want the US to stop the killing of civilians, of course. But at what cost, Syria (imo) will be messy and do you think that Obama will get bipartisan support for this? Do you think Democrats will want to risk losing elections over the people of Syria?

 

The answer is no, so barring Syria doing something blatantly stupid that the whole world condemns (and even then im not sure Obama could get Republican support, only if it was an attack on the US), it just really is unlikely that any politician is going to take such a risk.

 

Maybe someone else will pick up the slack (or maybe try and force our hand with a NATO resolution), but unfortunately the people of Syria will suffer because we are to busy feuding with ourselves.

One big difference in this case is that the Syrians have a long standing history of being a Russian customer and Russian means of exerting influence in that region, and thus Russia has already proven to be much more willing to step up and prevent coordinated international action against this regime.

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Client states of other powers make it harder for us to intervene. Not only is Syria a client state of Russia, but it also enjoys relatively close ties with Iran, if I'm not mistaken.

 

Ghaddafi's biggest friends were Castro, Chavez and Farrakhan. A lot less influential than Putin, China and Iran.

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If there is sufficient international programming for it, I would not be against the US providing air power or other assets to assist in getting it done. But I do not want to see the US be part of an occupying force, or have any large part of a peacekeeping effort there. We have too many problems at home, and as has been stated, this is a much more complicated and difficult scenario than Libya was.

 

 

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Eh, not sure you can say good or bad either way. History is filled with unintended consequences. If only the US was more willing to accept Mao and less willing to support Chiang, and so on and so forth.

 

The problem is that we look at things through a Westerners view. Our belief is that once the despots are overthrown, the people will want more peaceful relations. But there is no guarantee. These revolutions could spur worse, the despots could turn out to be the ones who were keeping some semblance of society, its just impossible to tell.

 

That is the real risk, we are stepping into the unknown. For the better part of the last thousand years, Western society has been moving towards separation of religion and govt. We are now faced with civilizations that want to integrate religion more into govt. This causes a problem because religion is based on belief, not on rationality. Therefore normal dialogue and normal settlement can often not be reached. At the end of the day, when people have common problems (money, food, etc) you can try and fix them. When one sides problem is that you dont believe in Allah/Jesus, there just is no diplomatic solution.

 

Part of this is because Islam is the newest of the most established religions. It used to be Christianity was the new guy on the block and back in those days, Christian nations were far more violent towards non-believers. Now it is Islam's turn.

 

In my opinion there is likely no good answer.

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Fair enough.

 

It's definitely not black and white, and the power brokers are different. I do have an issue, though, if you start saying "human rights" and everyone was hip to go into Libya based on that, then you have to do the same in Syria.

 

Except it won't work that way.

 

Interesting, though, that Israel bombed the nuclear site 4 years ago ... with not a whimper from Russia. It's probably what pissed off Putin to where he hates us again.

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Kap,

 

Just so Im clear. I dont think that the situation in Syria is so different that we should be doing nothing. The problem is that I dont believe it will be quick and easy like Libya. The reason this matters is because the US will end up tearing itself apart over this. In my opinion you need something around 75%+ domestic support to really start a war. The reason being that the longer the war goes on (especially on foreign soil) the more support starts to wane.

 

I just dont believe there are enough Americans to support this. But if it was put to a vote, Id vote for intervention (not sure how much would depend on the strategy and collateral damage etc).

Edited by Soxbadger
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QUOTE (Rex Kicka** @ Mar 8, 2012 -> 02:47 PM)
We're also taking more risks here. Syria has five times the air defenses that Libya had at one fifth of the size of the country. It also has a better organized military.

 

All of that could be taken out in a matter of minutes by long range missiles.

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QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 8, 2012 -> 05:15 PM)
All of that could be taken out in a matter of minutes by long range missiles.

A decent air defense system would more likely take a period of a week or two to legitimately wear down, and that's with a fairly intense effort.

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QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 8, 2012 -> 04:15 PM)
All of that could be taken out in a matter of minutes by long range missiles.

This isn't Libya. Syria has relatively advanced systems and air defenses, and a lot of them. Libya's air defenses took days, you think Libya will take hours?

 

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OK minutes was a bit of a stretch, but yes, I think any legitimate threat to air superiority would be wiped out rather "quickly." Call it a matter of days or weeks, but the end result is that it could be done with "minimal" US losses.

 

The bigger concern is that Syria still has a stockpile of chemical and biological weapons. Who knows what they'd do if the regime felt threatened and on the edge of being ousted from power.

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QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Mar 9, 2012 -> 01:16 AM)
American pilots have a harder time avoiding bombing Pensacola from Eglin than they would getting through Syrian air defenses. We could bomb them with impunity if we wanted to, get a grip guys.

But it would take a fairly sustained effort, and fairly sustained efforts to dismantle air defenses inevitably start piling up civilian casualties and dollar signs.

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  • 6 months later...
QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Oct 3, 2012 -> 08:21 PM)
Turkey struck back at Syria today. Could be an indication of further escalation.

 

I like how one country can bomb another country (purposefully in retaliation) but then go public and say "yeah, that whole us sending bombs into your country and killing your citizens....NOT an act of war. We cool?"

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QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Oct 4, 2012 -> 09:45 AM)
I like how one country can bomb another country (purposefully in retaliation) but then go public and say "yeah, that whole us sending bombs into your country and killing your citizens....NOT an act of war. We cool?"

 

 

You sure you want to go there? I mean, really?

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QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Oct 5, 2012 -> 06:04 AM)
Eg Pakistan, Yemen

 

If I were those countries I'd consider it an act of war unless you were targeting a specific target. My understanding is that Turkey basically just blasted off some rockets in retaliation.

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Sounds like things are going to get dicey.

 

Turkey hit Syrian military bases. The problem is that unlike rogue elements in Afghanistan, Palestine, etc, this is the actual Syrian military hitting Turkey. It also is different because Turkey has the superior military support (part of Nato) so they can do whatever they want.

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