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Trump and his cabinet/buffoonery- Get your bunkers ready!

brandymac27

By brandymac27
in The Tailgate

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Renegade7

Renegade7

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, tshile said:

Full scale military conflict with a Iran and Russia backed Syria is a big and complicated deal. 

 

Im not really sure how I feel beyond that. 

 

It is interesting seeing some of the same crowd that was unhappy, to say the least, about Iraq and Afghanistan advocating for large scale military confrontation with Syria (and Russia and Iran by proxy)

Just for clarification, we're talking about people wanting to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan versus going in there to begin with, right?

 

I hated Obama's decision to half-ass our response to the Syrian Civil War from get-go, but I understood.  We can't just occupy every country who's government we disagree with, we obviously can't afford it and occupying three ME countries at the same time would've been a bad look, no other way around it. Not only was he trying to get us out of trillion dollar deficits from trying to save our economy from collapse, but many people believed that the Assad government was going to collapse before Russia got involved anyway (including me). 

 

Russia getting involved completely changed this conversation, but it took me a minute to realize how because we didn't know how it was going to go yet.  Russia has proven they are still a military force to be reckoned with by not only saving Assad but helping to completely crush the revolution.  Whether anyone wants to admit it doesn't matter, its over, even if unofficially. Wanting to be taken seriously as a world power is different and can't happen if they keep allowing Assad to use CW against his own people. Not only do I believe they know that, I believe they aren't sure how to get out of that and save face. That doesn't mean they'll dig in their heels to fight us directly just to make that point, they have to know that they risk losing and being in a worse position then when they started. Putin has a lot of pride but is not stupid.

 

What does this say about our civilization that at this point we're still going to allow somebody to hit hospitals with CWs? What does this say about our justification for having military installations in over a 100 counties for being the world police if we continue to let Assad do that?  You brought up the whole "fighting Iran and Russia via Proxy", we're already doing that in other countries.  I shouldn't have to explain what we're dealing with with Iran, but we now have reason to believe that Russia is supplying arms to the Taliban which is having on an effect on why we're basically at a stalemate there. So with that in mind, F both of them.

 

From my standpoint, our status as the premier superpower, world police, and and leader of the free world is getting directly challenged right now. They are absolutely trying to call our bluff, so if this does happen again (Assad using CWs), we need to call their's.  If we don't, there's going to be another Syria and another Syria and another Syria, and to me, that's really what's at stake here.  The right thing to do is not always the right thing to do, and the wrong thing to do is not always the wrong thing to do, that's the land of the real in a nutshell.  

 

The thing is, I don't trust Trump to go about this in a way that truly re-evaluates our role in the world going forward.  We tried the whole "let the region lead a regional conflict" in the ME and what we got was Saudi Arabia's approach to Yemen.  At the same time, however way we go about a direct conflict with Assad CANNOT and SHOULD NOT look like the approach we took to Iraq and Afghanistan in how we took the lead because that's what we wanted to do whether the rest of the world liked it or not.  It's a completely different situation, they are not synonymous, the world WANTS us to do something and wants to help us do it.  

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tshile

tshile

Posted
Posted
25 minutes ago, Renegade7 said:

Just for clarification, we're talking about people wanting to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan versus going in there to begin with, right?

 

Both. We’ve lacked a coherent and long term policy on the Middle East, and our political leaders and people waffle based on whatever the political environment is at the time (tend to support our preferred party’s ideas and oppose the others)

 

are we we going to intervene or are we going to let the region play it all out? Do we want direct involvement or do we want to play the arms and intelligence supply game?

 

the general public’s reactions are easy to make fun of because the vast majority of us don’t have a clue about the Middle East. How many Muslim sects do you think the average person can name?

 

how many people can get how many correct if you ask them to list the major sects in each country and which ones are in control of which country?

 

where on that scale does our president fall?

 

the condense is that the strike wasn’t nothing and wasn’t meaningless, but long term it won’t really do much. 

 

It does t even matter what our government wants to do because our people don’t have the stumach for any of it. Be at war too long and all they want is out. Then chemical weapons are used and suddenly it’s important again. 

 

The same people decrying Assad didn’t seem to have much care for Hussein’s atrocities - to this day they ignore them and talk about how Iraq was unnecessary. 

 

 

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Renegade7

Renegade7

Posted
Posted
53 minutes ago, tshile said:

 

Both. We’ve lacked a coherent and long term policy on the Middle East, and our political leaders and people waffle based on whatever the political environment is at the time (tend to support our preferred party’s ideas and oppose the others)

 

 

The same people decrying Assad didn’t seem to have much care for Hussein’s atrocities - to this day they ignore them and talk about how Iraq was unnecessary. 

 

 

 

People want results, not a long ass wars, I agree with you on that one.  I also agree that most people don't understand what the hell is going on over there and our government has been doing a terrible job of explaining it (either intentionally so they don't have to further rationalize their positions, or in the case of Iraq they really didn't understand how complex that was and didn't think it mattered, which is huge reason why we are where we are today).  You're also right that what we should do is likely not going to happen because Trump is a dumbass, and as much as I don't want to in the interest of maintaining my point, I cannot ignore this, it's true.

 

In regards to Saddam, didn't he stop using CW against his own people after the first Gulf War? Or at least serverly curtail it and quickly stop soon after? This may be different in that we didn't have to get rid of him and fully invade his country to force that issue, in this case, we may have to.  This is something that we need to try letting NATO take the lead along with Saudi Arabia and Israel or something like that, even if we're the most power military in that alliance.  Everyone knows what we need to do and how to do it, I'd have no problem deferring to Macron on this and asking what he needs outside of supplying the most ground troops ourselves (they trippin if they ask us to do that).

 

I don't agree with bringing going into Afghanistan into this conversation like that.  After 9/11 happened, its was almost universally accepted that we needed to kick someone's ass for that, and most the world was fine with it.  Staying there for 16 years I don't think anyone saw coming at the time.

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Burgold

Burgold

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, tshile said:

Full scale military conflict with a Iran and Russia backed Syria is a big and complicated deal. 

 

Im not really sure how I feel beyond that. 

 

It is interesting seeing some of the same crowd that was unhappy, to say the least, about Iraq and Afghanistan advocating for large scale military confrontation with Syria (and Russia and Iran by proxy)

Oh, I'm not for large scale military confrontation either. I just am not sure what will change because of yesterday's actions. I am not a fan of flexing our muscles for the sake of flexing our muscles.

 

If we think this will make Assad change his behavior and stop the use of chemical weapons then the strike had a point. If it blew up a large percentage of his stockpile or ability to produce it then the strike had a point. However if, as many are suggesting, Russia alerted Assad, and nothing was really damaged except some buildings, then this was nothing more than a gesture and possibly an empty  one at that.

 

Does such a timid and ineffectual attack have a powerful impact on Assad because he understands what we could have done? Or does it encourage him that he can get away with even more atrocities because the US will not strike a meaningful blow against him with Russia and Iran there?

 

Edit: I was okay with Afghanistan. I was opposed to Iraq.

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AsburySkinsFan

AsburySkinsFan

Posted
Posted
8 hours ago, twa said:

 

those troops were attacking ours, which would be similar to them shooting down our attacking planes.

 

I'm pretty sure someone cared though

 

 

They have been doing that for decades, as has Iran

Then I suppose we can put away our faux rage about it since it’s obviously something we aren’t willing to do anything about.

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tshile

tshile

Posted
Posted

@Renegade7 I bring up Afghanistan because  I think the problem is the Middle East and our lack of policy. Which we’re allowed to have a lack of policy because our populace didn’t care or understand. Which is not exactly unexpected, I’m just pointing it out. 9/11 happened because of that and Afghanistan turned into what it has because of it. 

 

I don’t know enough to have a firm solution (or framework) but I’ve read enough to know or government isn’t doing a great job. 

 

And ive read enough to know that politics and politicians have more culpability in that than our men and women working in the intelligence and military communities. 

 

Im just frusted with the media and the politics and the games people play with it. 

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Renegade7

Renegade7

Posted
Posted
20 minutes ago, tshile said:

@Renegade7 I bring up Afghanistan because  I think the problem is the Middle East and our lack of policy. Which we’re allowed to have a lack of policy because our populace didn’t care or understand. Which is not exactly unexpected, I’m just pointing it out. 9/11 happened because of that and Afghanistan turned into what it has because of it. 

 

I don’t know enough to have a firm solution (or framework) but I’ve read enough to know or government isn’t doing a great job. 

 

And ive read enough to know that politics and politicians have more culpability in that than our men and women working in the intelligence and military communities. 

 

Im just frusted with the media and the politics and the games people play with it. 

That's more then fair.  

 

We're our own worst enemy in regards to what's going on over there and how it got to this point.  The fact we helped overthrow Iran's government in the late 70s and then less then three years later are supplying weapons to Saddam so Iraq can invade them was NEVER talked about in school, I NEVER see it talked about in the media.  

 

I'm a cynic, I believe the government in many respects wants us to be uniformed so they can get away with **** and don't want us asking too many questions.

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twa

twa

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, AsburySkinsFan said:

Then I suppose we can put away our faux rage about it since it’s obviously something we aren’t willing to do anything about.

 

I'm still willing....even after all this time.

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tshile

tshile

Posted
Posted

@Burgold my understanding is personell were evacuated but equipment wasn’t. I would imagine the equipment for chemical weapons is somewhat stationary but I’m guessing. 

 

We’ll always be guessing as to how effective it was and I’m willing to bet he’ll use chemical weapons again and it won’t tell us how effective the strikes were.  

 

So long as Russia is allowed to be cover for them nothing of significance will change. The un will hold meetings and issue statements. 

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tshile

tshile

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, @SkinsGoldPants said:

Link? 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-assessment/pro-assad-official-says-targeted-bases-were-evacuated-on-russian-warning-idUSKBN1HL07R

 

 

theres stuff on twitter too. Ultimately it’s from Syrian spokespeople. 

 

I dont know know that we can trust what they say, and I don’t know that our government will tell us what it knows. 

 

But it reports I’ve read have been consistent. People were mostly evacuated. The targets were stock piles and equipment. I’m sure they moved whatever they could, but I would think military chemical production involved a lot of machinery and supplies that just cannot be moved on short notice. The Damascus target has been consistently described as a hub of their production, I doubt it was done with mobile equipment. Just guessing though. 

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