Syria: Iraq Redux? Guess Again

[QuickHitCurepon]

The United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan, Turkey, Kuwait, Caspian Sea region, France & Most of the EU want a pipeline through Syria. This pipeline will greatly reduce energy profits of & demand from Russia & Iran. Also Iraq, Turkey & Jordan want the over 4.5 million refugees driven out of Syria by chemical weapons to return. Aljazeera also says Syrian refugees & rebels also want the USA to attack.[/IMG]

Somali refugee death rate at 15 times norm: UNHCR ? TalkVietnam

Death rates greatly multiply in refugee camps. Is it any surprise some of them want to get it over with now?

That is why we need to overthrow Assad now. Waiting is costing money & lives. The majority of Syrians are behind regime change.

Except that, Syrians have nowhere to go now. A U.S. bombing will make that worse. The only recourse now is to stop our meddling and allow things to settle down

UN Says Syria Refugees Top 2 Million Mark - ABC News

If the conflict continues 3.5 million people Syrian refugees are expected by the end of the year, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said. ...

Guterres told reporters in Geneva that the U.N. refugee agency has now counted more than 2 million refugees who have fled Syria's violence. Another 4.25 million people have been displaced within Syria, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

However, the UNCHR representative in Syria, Tarik Kurdi, said on Monday that around 5 million people were displaced inside Syria. Asked about the discrepancy, Guterres said the 4.25 million figure is the official U.N. count; the Syrian government has estimated there are 5.1 million people displaced within the country. ...

 

[JakeStarkey]

The refugees are obviously going "somewhere".

 

[QuickHitCurepon]

The refugees are obviously going "somewhere".

They cannot return to their homes.

 

[JakeStarkey]

The refugees are obviously going "somewhere".

They cannot return to their homes.

Not now or for some time.

 

[QuickHitCurepon]

The refugees are obviously going "somewhere".

They cannot return to their homes.

Not now or for some time.

Where did the refugees in Iraq go or don't you understand the concept of being dispossessed?

 

[g5000]

In an attempt to amalgamate this issue, I will list off some key similarities and differences between the proposed use of military force against Syria, and President George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq in 2003. Feel free to debate them as you see fit.

Hmmmmm...I wonder what the difference is between an EIGHT YEAR war that COST OVER THREE TRILLION DOLLARS and involved HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF US TROOPS and a MASSIVE INVASION and... the proposed action in Syria which will fire LESS MISSILES THAN WERE FIRED IN THE FIRST MINUTE OF THE IRAQ WAR and will NOT INVOLVE AN INVASION.

Gosh. I'm totally stumped! I can't tell the difference.




The Russians and the faux right wing piss pourers leading you idiots around are counting on you not having have any sense of proportion or any critical thinking abilities of any kind.

 

[JakeStarkey]

They cannot return to their homes.

Not now or for some time.

Where did the refugees in Iraq go or don't you understand the concept of being dispossessed?

I will forget more about refugees and the debris and aftermath of war than you will ever know.

You have no point is the point, because the fault rests with Assad not with the US.

 

[TemplarKormac]

In an attempt to amalgamate this issue, I will list off some key similarities and differences between the proposed use of military force against Syria, and President George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq in 2003. Feel free to debate them as you see fit.

Hmmmmm...I wonder what the difference is between an EIGHT YEAR war that COST OVER THREE TRILLION DOLLARS and involved HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF US TROOPS and a MASSIVE INVASION and... the proposed action in Syria which will fire LESS MISSILES THAN WERE FIRED IN THE FIRST MINUTE OF THE IRAQ WAR and will NOT INVOLVE AN INVASION.

Gosh. I'm totally stumped! I can't tell the difference.




The Russians and the faux right wing piss pourers leading you idiots around are counting on you not having have any sense of proportion or any critical thinking abilities of any kind.

Big difference. Bush did it the right way, Obama the wrong way. It's elementary, my dear Clayton. People around the world feared Bush, none of them fear Obama. And why all the shouting? Are you okay?

 

[JakeStarkey]

Yet Iraq grows closer to Iran daily.

Bush was wrong, in his estimate to the outcome and the cost to the country that led to an Obama presidency.

 

[QuickHitCurepon]

Not now or for some time.

Where did the refugees in Iraq go or don't you understand the concept of being dispossessed?

I will forget more about refugees and the debris and aftermath of war than you will ever know.

Of course, Americans don't really care about the devastation they commit.

You have no point is the point, because the fault rests with Assad not with the US.

I wasn't particularly trying to make a point, so your point that I had no point, I suppose is correct.

By helping Libya, we sparked the rebellion in Syria, since the rebels cry was "How could they help the rebels in Libya and not help us."

I said it before the Libyan war that it was the biggest mistake we'd ever make. And back then, I said this will only create the same thing in Syria, and I was right.

 

[QuickHitCurepon]

Not that I ever supported the Iraq war, but there is no excuse not to learn from that mistake to NEVER repeat it again.

 

[JoeB131]

Congress needs to withdraw the US endorsement for the conventions against the use of chemical weapons if Congress isn't willing to do anything to enforce them.

Well, in what way does it serve us to launch ourselves into a war that has none of our national interests at heart?

Sometimes doing the right thing means there's nothing in it for you..

IN principle, we've stated and the world has stated the use of chemical weapons against civilians is unacceptable.

So did we mean it or not.

And if we don't really mean it, we'd better be ready to say so.

My problem with the airstrike thing is that it isn't going to change anything. It won't weaken the Assad Regime enough to help the Rebels win.

But the Zionists will insist on it because they want to send a message to Iran. Maybe it would be easier to just cut off Assad's head and leave it in the president of Iran's bed.

 

[dilloduck]

Not that I ever supported the Iraq war, but there is no excuse not to learn from that mistake to NEVER repeat it again.

unless you're a sociopath of course. Which is why Obama's rationalization for firing cruise missiles is either a blatant lie or just plain stupid. Sociopaths don't learn anything by being "disciplined" nor do they learn from watching other people being disciplined.
I wonder what school of psychology supports Obama's premise for launching the cruise missiles ?

 

[Sallow]

In an attempt to amalgamate this issue, I will list off some key similarities and differences between the proposed use of military force against Syria, and President George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq in 2003. Feel free to debate them as you see fit.

First, a timeline leading up to the second invasion of Iraq:

February 28, 1991: A ceasefire between The UN Coalition (including the United States) and Iraq was negotiated, thus ending the first Gulf War.

October 1998: It became clear to the Clinton Administration that Saddam Hussein had to be removed from power. It thus passed the Iraq Liberation Act as a response to the expulsion of UN Weapons Inspectors in August of the preceding year.

December 16, 1998: The United States and Great Britain launch a joint bombardment campaign against Iraq, known as Operation Desert Fox; in hopes of weakening Saddam Hussein's grip on power or removing him altogether.

November 7, 2000: President George W. Bush was elected as the 43rd President of The United States. During the campaign, Republicans pushed for a more aggressive stance on Iraq, citing the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 as a starting point to removing Hussein completely from power.

September 11, 2001: Terrorists hijack four airliners, flying two of them into the two World Trade Center Towers causing them to collapse, resulting in the deaths of over 3,000 people. Another was flown into the Pentagon, and another intended for the White House was brought down in Shanksville, Pennsylvania by a brave contingent of passengers.

September 20, 2001: After months of inaction regarding Saddam Hussein and Iraq, President Bush addresses a joint session of Congress in a world simulcast, unveiling a new strategy to combat terrorism, known as the "War on Terror." Accompanying it, was a military action of pre-emptive doctrine known as the "Bush Doctrine."

September 12, 2002: President Bush calls for a UN Security Resolution on Iraq.

October 16, 2002: Congress passes the Iraq Resolution.

November 8, 2002: The UN Security Council adopts Resolution 1441 which authorized the resumption of weapons inspections in Iraq and promised "serious consequences" for non-compliance.

January 28, 2003: President Bush remarks in his State of The Union address that "we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs"

February 5, 2003: US Secretary of State Colin Powell addresses the United Nations General Assembly, continuing U.S. efforts to gain UN authorization for an invasion, citing what later turned out to be allegedly faulty intelligence by an Iraqi immigrant describing a "mobile biological weapons laboratory."

March 17, 2003: President Bush issues a 48-hour deadline for Saddam Hussein and his two sons Uday and Qusay Hussein to leave the country immediately.

March 18, 2003: A day before the deadline was due to expire, the bombing of Iraq by the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Poland, Australia, and Denmark began. (Note here that the US was backed by a coalition of countries in order to accomplish a clear goal)

March 19-20, 2003: The US led coalition of approximately 148,000 soldiers from the United States, 45,000 British soldiers, 2,000 Australian soldiers and 194 Polish soldiers from the special forces unit GROM, initiated the invasion of Iraq. The invasion force was also supported by Iraqi Kurdish militia troops, estimated to number upwards of 70,000. This was known as Operation Iraqi Freedom.

May 1, 2003: After 21 days, the invasion officially ends, with Saddam Hussein and his Baathist government being deposed from power.

December 13, 2003: Saddam is captured in ad-Dawr, Iraq, near his hometown of Tikrit, after spending the majority of the year on the run after being ousted from power. He is later hung for crimes against the people of Iraq, three years later on December 30, 2006.

And now, a timeline leading up to the attempts by President Obama to launch military action against Syria for supposedly using chemical weapons on its people:

March 16, 2011: An uprising is born in the city of Daraa, Syria.

April 25, 2011: Syrian troops and tanks are deployed to Daraa, Homs and other cities in Syria in an effort to quell the uprising which by then had consumed the entire country. This newborn uprising was met with all deliberate force from the Assad regime for the years succeeding the beginning of this uprising. A total of an estimated 110,875 people have been killed in an attempt to crush the rebellion (as of 2013). What was a protest turned into an armed rebellion, with troops defecting from the Syrian Army to fight for rebel forces.

August 20, 2012: President Obama in an interview with NBC's Chuck Todd draws a "red line" for the Assad regime and threatens military action if it were to be discovered that it has used chemical weapons against it's own people. "We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized," the president said. "That would change my calculus. That would change my equation."

March 19, 2013: Rebels in the Syrian Civil War accuse President Bashar al-Assad of launching a chemical attack against them in the city of Aleppo, the attack killed 24 people.

April 22, 2013: The terrorist group Hezbollah enters the war in support of the Assad regime.

June 13, 2013:President Obama approves arming the Syrian Rebels against the Assad regime.

Thursday, August 21, 2013: A Sarin gas attack is unleashed in the region known as the Gouta, near the Syrian capital of Damascus. The attack was responsible for the deaths of at least 1,400 people. Once again, rebels accuse Bashar al-Assad of launching the attack. This leads to the Obama Administration calling for strikes against the Assad regime, calling on Britain and France to join them in the effort.

Thursday, August 29, 2013: British Parliament rejects military action against Syria, leaving the US and possibly France to organize a limited strike. (Note here, that British rejected Obama's proposal, and unlike the Iraq invasion, there is no coalition of nations coming to the aid of the United States)

Saturday, August 31, 2013: President Barack Obama continues moving for strikes against Syria, after citing "undeniable" evidence that the Assad regime was responsible for the chemical attacks in Aleppo and the Gouta.

Tuesday, September 3, 2013: House Speaker John Boehner throws his support behind Obama's proposed strikes against Syria.

Wednesday, September 4, 2013: Reports surface saying that Arab countries are offering to pay America to launch a full scale invasion of Syria. Secretary of Defense John Kerry did not deny or reject the offer: 'With respect to Arab countries offering to bear costs and to assist, the answer is profoundly yes,' Kerry said. 'They have. That offer is on the table.' Also, later that night, the Senate Relations Committee votes 10-7 authorizing Obama to use limited strikes on Syria.

Monday, September 9, 2013: The Senate returns to Capitol Hill to consider giving Obama the power to strike Syria.

Note that in one instance, a president skilfully pulls together a coalition to accomplish one goal. In the other, a president incompetently tries to organize a coalition to accomplish an unknown goal. He is rejected immediately by the international community, leaving him to possibly take on this task alone. He risks alienating our allies and angering our enemies even further.

This is filled with inaccuracies and omissions.

Good work.

The GOP Ministry of Propaganda thanks you.

 

[TooTall]

Congress needs to withdraw the US endorsement for the conventions against the use of chemical weapons if Congress isn't willing to do anything to enforce them.

Well, in what way does it serve us to launch ourselves into a war that has none of our national interests at heart?

I'm trying to say that we shouldn't be pretending we care about the use of chemical weapons on innocent civilians if we aren't going to do anything about it.

As soon as the other countries that signed the conventions against the use of chemical weapons, we should either join them or withdraw our approval. A real President would lead and convince the other signatories to join the US, as both Bushes did before they attacked Iraq.

 

[TooTall]

In an attempt to amalgamate this issue, I will list off some key similarities and differences between the proposed use of military force against Syria, and President George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq in 2003. Feel free to debate them as you see fit.

First, a timeline leading up to the second invasion of Iraq:

February 28, 1991: A ceasefire between The UN Coalition (including the United States) and Iraq was negotiated, thus ending the first Gulf War.

October 1998: It became clear to the Clinton Administration that Saddam Hussein had to be removed from power. It thus passed the Iraq Liberation Act as a response to the expulsion of UN Weapons Inspectors in August of the preceding year.

December 16, 1998: The United States and Great Britain launch a joint bombardment campaign against Iraq, known as Operation Desert Fox; in hopes of weakening Saddam Hussein's grip on power or removing him altogether.

November 7, 2000: President George W. Bush was elected as the 43rd President of The United States. During the campaign, Republicans pushed for a more aggressive stance on Iraq, citing the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 as a starting point to removing Hussein completely from power.

September 11, 2001: Terrorists hijack four airliners, flying two of them into the two World Trade Center Towers causing them to collapse, resulting in the deaths of over 3,000 people. Another was flown into the Pentagon, and another intended for the White House was brought down in Shanksville, Pennsylvania by a brave contingent of passengers.

September 20, 2001: After months of inaction regarding Saddam Hussein and Iraq, President Bush addresses a joint session of Congress in a world simulcast, unveiling a new strategy to combat terrorism, known as the "War on Terror." Accompanying it, was a military action of pre-emptive doctrine known as the "Bush Doctrine."

September 12, 2002: President Bush calls for a UN Security Resolution on Iraq.

October 16, 2002: Congress passes the Iraq Resolution.

November 8, 2002: The UN Security Council adopts Resolution 1441 which authorized the resumption of weapons inspections in Iraq and promised "serious consequences" for non-compliance.

January 28, 2003: President Bush remarks in his State of The Union address that "we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs"

February 5, 2003: US Secretary of State Colin Powell addresses the United Nations General Assembly, continuing U.S. efforts to gain UN authorization for an invasion, citing what later turned out to be allegedly faulty intelligence by an Iraqi immigrant describing a "mobile biological weapons laboratory."

March 17, 2003: President Bush issues a 48-hour deadline for Saddam Hussein and his two sons Uday and Qusay Hussein to leave the country immediately.

March 18, 2003: A day before the deadline was due to expire, the bombing of Iraq by the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Poland, Australia, and Denmark began. (Note here that the US was backed by a coalition of countries in order to accomplish a clear goal)

March 19-20, 2003: The US led coalition of approximately 148,000 soldiers from the United States, 45,000 British soldiers, 2,000 Australian soldiers and 194 Polish soldiers from the special forces unit GROM, initiated the invasion of Iraq. The invasion force was also supported by Iraqi Kurdish militia troops, estimated to number upwards of 70,000. This was known as Operation Iraqi Freedom.

May 1, 2003: After 21 days, the invasion officially ends, with Saddam Hussein and his Baathist government being deposed from power.

December 13, 2003: Saddam is captured in ad-Dawr, Iraq, near his hometown of Tikrit, after spending the majority of the year on the run after being ousted from power. He is later hung for crimes against the people of Iraq, three years later on December 30, 2006.

And now, a timeline leading up to the attempts by President Obama to launch military action against Syria for supposedly using chemical weapons on its people:

March 16, 2011: An uprising is born in the city of Daraa, Syria.

April 25, 2011: Syrian troops and tanks are deployed to Daraa, Homs and other cities in Syria in an effort to quell the uprising which by then had consumed the entire country. This newborn uprising was met with all deliberate force from the Assad regime for the years succeeding the beginning of this uprising. A total of an estimated 110,875 people have been killed in an attempt to crush the rebellion (as of 2013). What was a protest turned into an armed rebellion, with troops defecting from the Syrian Army to fight for rebel forces.

August 20, 2012: President Obama in an interview with NBC's Chuck Todd draws a "red line" for the Assad regime and threatens military action if it were to be discovered that it has used chemical weapons against it's own people. "We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized," the president said. "That would change my calculus. That would change my equation."

March 19, 2013: Rebels in the Syrian Civil War accuse President Bashar al-Assad of launching a chemical attack against them in the city of Aleppo, the attack killed 24 people.

April 22, 2013: The terrorist group Hezbollah enters the war in support of the Assad regime.

June 13, 2013:President Obama approves arming the Syrian Rebels against the Assad regime.

Thursday, August 21, 2013: A Sarin gas attack is unleashed in the region known as the Gouta, near the Syrian capital of Damascus. The attack was responsible for the deaths of at least 1,400 people. Once again, rebels accuse Bashar al-Assad of launching the attack. This leads to the Obama Administration calling for strikes against the Assad regime, calling on Britain and France to join them in the effort.

Thursday, August 29, 2013: British Parliament rejects military action against Syria, leaving the US and possibly France to organize a limited strike. (Note here, that British rejected Obama's proposal, and unlike the Iraq invasion, there is no coalition of nations coming to the aid of the United States)

Saturday, August 31, 2013: President Barack Obama continues moving for strikes against Syria, after citing "undeniable" evidence that the Assad regime was responsible for the chemical attacks in Aleppo and the Gouta.

Tuesday, September 3, 2013: House Speaker John Boehner throws his support behind Obama's proposed strikes against Syria.

Wednesday, September 4, 2013: Reports surface saying that Arab countries are offering to pay America to launch a full scale invasion of Syria. Secretary of Defense John Kerry did not deny or reject the offer: 'With respect to Arab countries offering to bear costs and to assist, the answer is profoundly yes,' Kerry said. 'They have. That offer is on the table.' Also, later that night, the Senate Relations Committee votes 10-7 authorizing Obama to use limited strikes on Syria.

Monday, September 9, 2013: The Senate returns to Capitol Hill to consider giving Obama the power to strike Syria.

Note that in one instance, a president skilfully pulls together a coalition to accomplish one goal. In the other, a president incompetently tries to organize a coalition to accomplish an unknown goal. He is rejected immediately by the international community, leaving him to possibly take on this task alone. He risks alienating our allies and angering our enemies even further.

This is filled with inaccuracies and omissions.

Good work.

The GOP Ministry of Propaganda thanks you.

How about itemizing the "inaccuracies and omissions" for the uninformed.

 

[TooTall]

Thanks, Too Tall. Having posted Carivlle's thoughts, do you disagree with them.

The only think that Carville ever said that I agreed with was "it's the economy, stupid." And, it still is!

 

[velvtacheeze]

Your Iraq War timeline left out the post invasion debacle, lack of Iraqis cheering our troops, IEDs slaughtering our troops, Abu Graib torture, rape and murder of Iraqis by US troops, and eventual shift of Iraq to a vassal state of Iran.

Liberals were 100% vindicated by the Iraq War's failure. The GOP was justified in getting voted out of Congress in 2006 once their ham-handed lack of proper war planning was clear to most Americans.

Conservatives need to stop making fools of themselves by trying to rewrite history to where the Iraq War was a success. You already have no credibility on the issue, so don't compound the lack of credibility. Most Americans know that the Iraq War was a failure, didn't achieve any goals worth the cost in blood and treasure, and made life for Iraqis worse.

 

[Redfish]

Your Iraq War timeline left out the post invasion debacle, lack of Iraqis cheering our troops, IEDs slaughtering our troops, Abu Graib torture, rape and murder of Iraqis by US troops, and eventual shift of Iraq to a vassal state of Iran.

Liberals were 100% vindicated by the Iraq War's failure. The GOP was justified in getting voted out of Congress in 2006 once their ham-handed lack of proper war planning was clear to most Americans.

Conservatives need to stop making fools of themselves by trying to rewrite history to where the Iraq War was a success. You already have no credibility on the issue, so don't compound the lack of credibility. Most Americans know that the Iraq War was a failure, didn't achieve any goals worth the cost in blood and treasure, and made life for Iraqis worse.

you are correct that the Iraq war was a stupid fiasco that wasted american lives and money.

But you are wrong when you insert your partisan bullshit to imply that only repubs supported it. Both parties authorized and funded it, the UN supported it, as did the EU, UK, France, Germany, Spain, China, et. al.

Yes, it was a failure in many ways. But they are all responsible. Just as both parties are responsible for viet nam and korea.

this is not a partisan problem, it is a DC problem

 

[velvtacheeze]

Your Iraq War timeline left out the post invasion debacle, lack of Iraqis cheering our troops, IEDs slaughtering our troops, Abu Graib torture, rape and murder of Iraqis by US troops, and eventual shift of Iraq to a vassal state of Iran.

Liberals were 100% vindicated by the Iraq War's failure. The GOP was justified in getting voted out of Congress in 2006 once their ham-handed lack of proper war planning was clear to most Americans.

Conservatives need to stop making fools of themselves by trying to rewrite history to where the Iraq War was a success. You already have no credibility on the issue, so don't compound the lack of credibility. Most Americans know that the Iraq War was a failure, didn't achieve any goals worth the cost in blood and treasure, and made life for Iraqis worse.

you are correct that the Iraq war was a stupid fiasco that wasted american lives and money.

But you are wrong when you insert your partisan bullshit to imply that only repubs supported it. Both parties authorized and funded it, the UN supported it, as did the EU, UK, France, Germany, Spain, China, et. al.

Yes, it was a failure in many ways. But they are all responsible. Just as both parties are responsible for viet nam and korea.

this is not a partisan problem, it is a DC problem

Spare me. So a minority of Democrats made the mistake of voting to authorize was on Iraq? It makes no difference. Had Gore been in the White House, the Iraq War never would have happened. The Iraq War was owned and operated by the GOP. It was the GOP's stupid idea, and the GOP rightly suffered the electoral backlash from it.