DescentBB

US house and senate approve aid the Syrian rebels with arms and training. Could this not be consider an act of war against the Syrian government or will the Syrian government declare war against the US.

IMHO I don't see why we should always get involve in other people's civil war.

Not only that but now it will seem that we will be arming Al Qaeda who are assisting the Syrian rebels.

According to our laws we don't see ourselves as having declared war.
According to radical Islam we are constantly waging war against all Muslims for all sorts of offenses such as allying with Israel, banking, bikinis and rock&roll....
So what the Assad regime, who is at odds with Islam, thinks, is sort of irrelevant.

Should we morally consider ourselves as, at the very least, taking part in overthrowing what we had recognized as a sovereign nation? Yea, I think so but no one in the elite club cares what I think. And maybe it is just as well since my solution is selectively murder people like Assad and the Ayatollahs, etc without openly overthrowing their whole governments. I think it leads to more stable transitions as their subsequent replacements modify behavior to avoid assassination....and it saves hundreds of thousands of lives among theirs and our military and their civilian population.

It bothers me that our President still thinks he can win the hearts and minds of radicals because he postures as a friendly-to-Islam kind of leader. Lol, they stab actual bonafide fellow Islamic leaders in the back and he thinks he can buy street cred in the Middle East the way he bought street cred among black Americans by attending Rev Wrights church in Chicago?!!?!

We suck for all the reasons he was able to become president! And, yes, that sentiment applies to G W Bush et al as well.

I heard on the radio that they estimate a $1 billion /day price tag for manning a no fly zone over Syria.

That alone should be a deterrent.

I know the whole "stabilize the East" mantra is popular now, but really? Which bad guy are we going to support? How many times are we going to allow ourselves to be bit in the butt by the whole "enemy of my enemy" thing?

Give someone a blank check and they probably won't do something important and worthwhile with it.

I would imagine if the Syrian government/law considers it an act of war…then it’s an act of war.

There’s a difference between an act of war and declaring war, or being at war.

Duper wrote:I heard on the radio that they estimate a $1 billion /day price tag for manning a no fly zone over Syria.

That alone should be a deterrent.

I know the whole "stabilize the East" mantra is popular now, but really? Which bad guy are we going to support? How many times are we going to allow ourselves to be bit in the butt by the whole "enemy of my enemy" thing?

Give someone a blank check and they probably won't do something important and worthwhile with it.

Oooh! Spendy. Now if we could just apply some of that valuable taxpayer money to OUR sagging infrastructure in our OWN country, that would be money better spent.

I appreciate what Will's saying, but I think Spidey's about got it right. An action is an act of war if it puts a sovereign country in a position where they are obliged to defend themselves in order to avoid suffering intolerable damage to their authority, security or prosperity. If we are undermining the authority of a government, then it is most certainly an act of war.

what is shows is that many of our elected representatives refuse to learn from recent history.

WOW I agree

callmeslick wrote:what is shows is that many of our elected representatives refuse to learn from recent history.

I especially liked one of the options that the military gave Obama to help Syria, send in "advisers" to help "train" the opposition in safe areas. We all know how well that went during the Vietnam War. It got us fully involved in the whole mess. If Obama hasn't learned from history, he's set to repeat it all over again. But this time, those we help would just as soon stab us in the back once they win.

actually, what I've been somewhat impressed by is the restraint shown by the administration in this whole mess, and I have been extremely impressed at how strongly the military brass have been trying to calm down the hawkish elements in the Congress. For the life of me, I cannot understand, specifically, how John McCain can, given his life experiences, be so very willing to put American young people into harms way with no clear outcome plan. Shame on him.

Maybe McCain is now senile and has long forgotten the whole plethora of asinine and trumped up reasons for why we went into Vietnam in the first place. I sure hope Obama keeps a modicum of restraint against the Congressional and Military warmongers pushing him. The Syrian mess may end up destabilizing the whole Middle East, but we need to be very careful who we "friend" over there. Most Muslims hate the West, no matter how much we "help" some of them.

I think America needs to keep it's nose out of other countries business. I really doubt the USA would appreciate another foreign country meddling in their affairs.

I agree completely.

callmeslick wrote:actually, what I've been somewhat impressed by is the restraint shown by the administration in this whole mess....

My opinion is that is has less to do with restraint and more to do with "what the frack do we do?" It's a pretty messed up situation. We lose no matter which side we help. When this whole thing first started I was like "damn, Assad needs to gtfo." But after looking into the complexities of it I seriously have no idea what is the right course of action other than keeping everyone in dialogue and see if we can come to a consensus as a global community (fat chance).

One thing is for sure, we don't need to send any guns or troops there. I would consider it an act of war.

CDN_Merlin wrote:I think America needs to keep it's nose out of other countries business. I really doubt the USA would appreciate another foreign country meddling in their affairs.

What the hell do you know? You're a Canadian!

vision, I think what I meant when I said 'restraint', was a conscious decision to back away so long as 'what the feck do we do now' is being uttered. Far too often in the recent decades the US has blundered into situations with no clue of the limitations, the end result, the possible side consequences, etc. Also, to echo a sentiment you expressed, the sending of troops or even institution of a blockade of the air space IS an Act of War, no matter how some folks would like to parse it.

Yes Obama has shown great restraint, but he was also the one who drew that “red line” so if killing almost 100 thousand (or more) of your own people doesn’t cross that line, then Obama should just take a broom and sweep it away.

Republicans can barely get a bill into conference in the Senate, but of course they will be responsible if Obama makes a decision to act in Syria.

Preemptive spinamundo…

Edited...

Well, should we be the world's police then? Do we have the money and fortitude to get into another war? I don't think Americans have the stomach after 2 of Bush's bankrupting follies. Obama said he would act if a red line was crossed. Should he go ahead and do it? I think he will, just to protect Israel from the results of a destabilized Middle East. Personally, we should stay the hell out of the whole mess. We've already waited too long to win hearts and minds in that country, if that was at all possible in the first place.

I think we should stay the hell out of there, my point was in response to people trying to set up the Republicans when something goes wrong with something Obama decides to do.

The US have been the Globocops for a lot longer than I like.

Edit Removed World

Spidey wrote:I think we should stay the hell out of there, my point was in response to people trying to set up the Republicans when something goes wrong with something Obama decides to do.

sorry if you misread my words as parsing blame onto a party. My view is that there are people in Congress from either party who are showing poor judgement. I will also suggest that, were there a chance to do-over, that Red Line business wouldn't have come out the way it did. In this case, my hope for restraint will come from the military leadership.