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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Aug 30, 2013 - 03:49pm PT
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After reading the three pages I missed since I decided to do some paying work, I've come to the following conclusions:
1. Healyje is not alone in his views -- at least as to policy. He and I see this mess quite similarly, although I obviously don't agree with his partisan placement of blame. The Obama Administration has done an admirable job with the Syrian tragedy that is unfolding, on which I will amplify below.
2. "Getting the SOB" has the appeal of justice, but doing so would subject the religious minorities in Syria to catastrophe. For all its evil, the Assad regimes have largely protected religious minorities -- particularly Christians. Accordingly, those minorities have not supported the revolution. The consequences for them, if the rebels win, look deadly.
3. In light of Point No. 2, the Obama Administration has correctly declined to make regime change a U.S. demand.
4. Those who claim the use of nerve gas was a CIA/Israeli conspiracy fail to cite any evidence in support. The International Community, not just the U.S., agreed that using chemical agents should result in very serious sanctions. Now that the key members of that community refuse to engage in any military force, the Obama Administration has a choice of bad options, no matter what it does. No American President, including the current one, is responsible for the disaster unfolding in Syria, but Obama happens to be the one stuck when the music stopped. His measured and restrained actions are just that. The U.S. isn't impotent, but it's not necessarily weakness to refrain from taking action that won't accomplish a long-term goal.
Carry on.
John
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climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
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Aug 30, 2013 - 03:54pm PT
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the Obama Administration has a choice of bad options
That about sums it up
RON..Regarding Vietnam.. Yeah our leaders should have been impeached, tried and caged for that BS. I'll disagree on the chemical weapons charge as it applies to depleted uranium or agent orange. I'm pretty sure others used more chemical weapons in WWI than we did and i dont think we have used em since.. but I could be wrong.. but thats just picking nits perhaps.
Same as Shrub for Iraq.
War is the most serious power we give out leadership.. if they f*#k it up they should be held responsible.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Aug 30, 2013 - 04:01pm PT
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Ron, it's amazing how many humans you want killed for such an avowed pacifist. And again, by and large it's not the facts which are in contention, it's what you do with them, or rather, fail to do with them. You're like an eyes-open version of the twelve blind men and the elephant all in one body.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Aug 30, 2013 - 04:06pm PT
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John: ...although I obviously don't agree with his partisan placement of blame.
It's not 'partisan'. It's simply a statement of fact that all that was entailed in executing on the Neocon's fantasy of a "New [White, Male] American Century" has unleashed a savage diminishing of America's standing in the world, screwed our economy, and entirely destablized the Mideast in ways we will be dealing with for decades to come.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Aug 30, 2013 - 04:07pm PT
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How does it matter how the innocents die? Millions have died in Africa
in just the last two decades. Oh, sure, the French went into Mali but that was
easy money compared to Rwanda, Uganda, or Zaire.
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climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
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Aug 30, 2013 - 04:08pm PT
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Ron
Our nation is far from being a pure moral actor in history. No one can reasonably argue that our historical hands don't have much bad blood on them. We are so hypocritical in our international affairs that it's hard to imagine a more hypocritical existence.
However this is an opportunity to enforce a worthwhile goal. Yes its sad we havn't done more at home.. yes it's clear there are many other current issues that are more important and not getting any thing done about them.
But in this case we are going to do something.. I hope whatever we end up doing is actually pertinent to the issue and effective. I'm doubtful about that though.
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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
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Aug 30, 2013 - 04:10pm PT
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Pud, and others. Yes I am a die-hard liberal and yes at the US Embassy in Dublin I voted for Hillary, not Obama. I just thought she could handle matters better.
But Obama has been a big disappointment, not helped in the least by the Repugs stifling his every move in Congress and elsewhere.
What a poisoned chalice he picked up. But he is just continuing US policy of the last 50+ years. I thought he would be different, but meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
That said, who is cleaning up? The arms industry, which includes the US, China, Brazil, Russia and others.
Eisenhower warned us of the military-industrial complex, as did General Smedley Butler in the 1930s.
Now it appears to be the intelligence-industrial complex that is threatening.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Aug 30, 2013 - 04:19pm PT
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And Ron, no one is questioning US hypocrisy or complicity in past chemical weapons use in Iraq and the Iraq/Iran war.
But let's be equally clear that the use of Agent Orange, depleted Uranium, White Phosphorus, cluster munitions, landmines, and the gas used in the Moscow theater siege are all entirely different matters then the use of specifically-designed chemical WMDs. Yes, dead is dead, but conflict is a human condition and how it is managed and conducted remains of interest to all individuals and nations.
And, if you can't discern the differences between the WMD issues and discussion between W's administration in the run up to Iraq and this one, then you are a far sorrier and pitiful mess than I imagined.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Aug 30, 2013 - 04:21pm PT
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I hate to be picky, Joe, particularly since you seem to be one of the few on this thread whose views come close to mine, but the Middle East destabilization started long before the term "neocon" existed. Somewhat ironically, the root of the problem comes from the relative tolerance of the Ottoman Empire. (And it's particularly ironic that a son of a survivor of the Armenian massacres says what I'm about to say.) Unlike most conquerors, who simply wiped out or totally assimilated the conquered, the Ottomans left the conquered free to continue to live, worship and do almost everything but govern as they did before. Accordingly, when World War I ended in the Empire's defeat, there was no easy way to dismember it, but no easy way to keep it in place, either.
Fromkin's A Peace to End All Peace is probably the best single narrative of how the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire set the stage for the modern Middle East, with all of its troubles. While the United States stood by in isolationist disgust, Britain and France carved up most of the old Empire, along often completely arbitrary lines. Neither modern political party should take the blame for that. The best we could have done then in any case was to make it a three-way split.
In any case, the issue now isn't what's in the best interest of any political party. It's primarily what, if anything, can we do to avoid a humanitarian tragedy, and secondarily what is in our long-term interest. America has traditionally tried to avoid partisanship in foreign policy matters. It needs to do so now.
John
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climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
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Aug 30, 2013 - 04:21pm PT
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Ron. There are 2 reasons I never joined the military even though I was drawn to it having lived around it much of my life.
I deeply respect our military I think they are one of the best run most capable organizations in the world. SO many awesome people serve.
Sadly they are used at the discretion of our political idiots.
My dad made the point to me as a youngster. Serving your country is admirable, the military life might be one you would like. But you can't trust the politicians with your life. He served during Korea and then was further disillusioned by Vietnam.
Later I found a military job I felt would be honorable and worthwhile regardless what war the politicians might get us into. Pararescue. Unfotunately my eyesight made that impossible.
A shoutout to the 210th ANG!!
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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
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Aug 30, 2013 - 04:32pm PT
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John, it is so true, the carving up of the Ottoman Empire by the British and French primarily, though there is NO excuse for the Armenian genocide, as you well know, and the Kurdish genocide. And others
And yet, the Ottoman Empire did let people of different religions co-habit together. Just like Saladin (a Kurd), after conquering the Crusaders, said to let people live in peace regardless of their religion.
The ironies of life.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Aug 30, 2013 - 04:34pm PT
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If LEFT to them, we would have won every damn conflict we ever entered.
As a veteran, I wish that were more than delusional posturing, but it isn't.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Aug 30, 2013 - 04:42pm PT
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John, we actually agree on the unenviable consequences of trying to carve up Ottoman Empire setting the stage for all that followed, but the Neocon's delusional attempt to do an end-run around the Israeli-Palestinian problem rather than deal with it has seriously destabilized the Mideast from the 'typical' chaotic of the past forty years to a complete nightmare in progress.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Aug 30, 2013 - 05:06pm PT
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Ron, once China entered the war North Korea was lost - nothing was going to change that as we couldn't supply men and material at a fraction of the rate China could and we weren't as well-prepared as them to deal with the winters.
Again, great sentiment, but simply not grounded in any sort of reality.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Aug 30, 2013 - 06:25pm PT
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conflict is a human condition and how it is managed and conducted remains of interest to all individuals and nations.
This is an unavoidable fact but said "managing" has not played out as advertised. Perhaps we have to go the root cause, which in every case is aggression - meaning if you remove the aggression, nothing untoward happens, from machine-gunning your former squeeze (pitiful) to gassing the natives. Here it becomes a matter of impulse control. Move up the ladder to "managing" the aggressive impulses and we're into the quagmire of "reasons," and the battle is lost already because we shunted the business into a mental game instead of where the havoc lies - in our own aggression.
Technology, facts and information of this enlightened age have done nothing to temper our aggression while we spin around talking about why we unleash the dogs of war. But it's addictive to spin around arguing reasons. Much harder work dealing with that which fuels the fire - and it ain't a "reason."
But gunning down your girlfriend. That's harsh.
JL
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frank wyman
Mountain climber
montana
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Aug 30, 2013 - 06:28pm PT
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Maybe we should wait until Sept. 11th to bomb them, That way the world will know who were being used by this time...Who's side are we on anyway??? I don't have a clue..Lets just NOT go to war for once...Let them punch it out on their own. IF OBAMA strikes he should be impeached, This has got to stop..
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Aug 30, 2013 - 07:00pm PT
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Ron: But as far as Syria, between Assad and the Taliban, which side would be more helped by a gassing on the innocents in between the two?
Sigh. Ron, this is exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about.
Crikey, you don't even know who is fighting in this conflict. And if you're going to bandy about the word 'Taliban' it might help if you would bother to learn who the Taliban actually are. The 'Taliban' are a Pashtun-dominated movement with it's [political] origins in Pakistan's NW tribal regions - i.e. they are not an eastern Mediterranean people, nor are they playing a significant role in the Syrian conflict beyond having sent a couple of hundred fighters so as to not be left out of the party.
Look here for the makeup of the Syrian opposition.
Also, the president (ironically) already has the legal and constitutional authority under the 1973 War Powers Resolution to strike without approval from Congress. Jimmy Carter does paint it as illegal, though only under International Law. But then you don't recognize the validity of International Law so you kind of have to go with it's legal and constitutional.
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couchmaster
climber
pdx
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Aug 30, 2013 - 07:32pm PT
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Ron said: "Ive written my reps,, have you all?"
Not over this.
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WBraun
climber
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Aug 30, 2013 - 08:31pm PT
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The stupid jackass American media is gassing it's own populace with stupid lies and daily warmongering propaganda.
What stupid jackasses we Americans are .....
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