US, UK and France launch attack on Syria, including its capital Damascus

[Johnw1104]

o_O.Q said:

Johnw1104 said:

First, no, this won't "bring peace". Frankly, I don't see how any "peace" will come about in that region for ages with all animosity between the many different religious groups and the contradictory interests of regional powers like Turkey and Iran, let alone Russia/Assad and western powers. If "peace" is subjugation by an autocratic monster like Assad, one must ask if that's even something to hope for. Heck, Putin is Assad's only friend at this point, and it's mighty coincidental that Russia's only year-round warm water naval port in the Mediterranean is located in Syria; no one, Putin included, are under the delusion that this man actually deserving of support, it's simply too important strategically for him not to do so.

Otherwise, he has been tied to use of chemical weapons in past investigations that no one this side of Putin or Assad disputes. You speak of "convenience", and yet just a couple of days ago Russia vetoed the UN's motion to set up an independent investigation into these allegations, so we'd never get to properly confirm blame regardless. 

Thus far they've targeted three separate locations all known to be involved in the production and storage of chemical weapons (specifically avoiding any Russian targets), and they're waiting to see how many targets they hit and how many were shot down before launching a second wave. It is hardly a "rampage to kill innocent life". All we can hope at this point is that the bombs were indeed "smart" and avoided as many additional casualties as possible, though I have no doubt both sides will claim minimal causalities on one side and hundreds or thousands on the other.

Seriously though, this won't bring about peace. I don't think a damn thing anyone is doing or attempting to do in Syria will bring peace. I truly have no idea what should (or can) be done.

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-22424188

well actually it was the united states backed rebels  trying to bring about sharia law that launched the attacks to begin with

 

and lets not forget that these wars were planned long before anyway

Did you actually read your own link? It was one woman within the UN who stated there were strong reasons for suspicions based on interviews but no solid evidence. The rest of her team quickly scaled back that statement as it was unfounded and reckless.

You also speak as if "Syrian rebels" are a single, unified faction, and that the US was backing all of them, rather than an absolute mess of competing factions and interests. We can't know who actually used that particular sarin gas (though everyone outside of Russia largely believed it was Assad in that instance), but the onus is on those who believe it was the rebels to explain where on earth they were able to acquire the gas which Assad's regime conveniently has large stockpiles of. Perhaps they were able to get their hands on those, who knows? Occam's razor suggests that the regime which owns chemical weapons and is time after time linked to using them may have been the guilty party in this instance.

I honestly hadn't thought about that Gen. Wesley Clark bit since he was involved in politics, but I've always had a lot of questions about it. In what world did they think such an attack, 7 countries in 5 years, was even feasible? Second, what possible benefit was there to attacking these countries, some of which we had fairly good relations with? Also, seriously, Somalia? The whole thing just seems too bizarre to be literally true, and given they didn't invade beyond Iraq I sincerely doubt they were meant to be taken as such.

The truth is every war that happens is in some way planned. Militaries write up invasion plans and defensive war plans for every contingency they can think of; I'd be shocked if China didn't revise their "invasion of Taiwan" plans annually heh. Those, I imagine, were likely contingency plans of that nature, as no person on earth could believe they'd generate enough support for such a rampage. I'm sure we still have them for war with Mexico, Russia, China, North Korea, most of the relevant middle eastern nations... basically anyone who seems like there's even the slightest chance we'll be at war with at some point. One need only look at the plans the US and Canada wrote up and revised regarding a potential war with one another a century ago to see how just about every war is "planned" for, but most don't actually happen.

Frankly, if you suddenly face a war you didn't plan for, your brain trusts and top military brass need to be replaced.