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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
@Native Jovian - For someone who just claimed this ain't black and white, you're attributing invasion to never being good? Right, thats not extremist at all. I never said its always a good idea, but in THIS SPECIFIC CASE, yes. With long term planning, anyway. The world needs to stop this conflict.
So world's a shitty place, let's not doing anything? Riiight. Because shirking duty to the common good because things might be tough at first is somehow a viable strategy. We're not taking in refugees either. We are literally doing nothing to help, peaceful or otherwise. And yes, I do think casualties would be less over time, because the war would be ended quickly with a sufficient international force. Sititng on our ass and crowing how we're not contributing directly to the death and thus we're somehow absolved even as hundreds of thousands die? The Ostritches want their holes back.
I didn't say we needed to invade Libya (expressly said otherwise, but you like to pick and choose what you here, so whatever). I said we needed to help build it back up. Because guess what? We broke it, we bought it. Stopping a massacre doesn't mean all that much if we destroy and then fail to restore order. That just creates longer term suffering. I have also said that we shouldn't invade every country, so stop strawmanning me. I said in exceptional situations, we must. Syria counts as much.
No, we just contribute to the bloodbath by proxy. Just because American troops aren't on the ground, does not mean the US isn't mucking up the world anyway. That you don't get that through your thick head, I can't do anything about. You seem to think force should never be used ever, that the world can catch fire and somehow not affect the US. Climb down from that ivory tower and realize the world is too interconnected for that isolationist bullshit.
U.S. gives up effort to train Syrian opposition forces.
Any intervention we make will have to be very carefully planned and we're going to also have to plan out at least a decades worth of reconstruction afterwards.
A sudden invasion founded on equal parts dick waving and delusions of moral superiority are the exact causes of the mess in the first place.
Oh really when?![]()
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Libyans were already rebelling against the Gadaffi regime, though. There was going to be civil war and instability with or without American involvement.
As for Syria, isn't part of the concern that, given the nature of many of the rebel groups, training and arming them might turn out to be a repeat of the Taliban in the 80's?
edited 29th Sep '15 4:45:16 PM by RavenWilder
Gaddafi interestingly enough as insane as he was, set up Libya to fall like a house of cards if he were removed.
The kurds are probably a safe bet though.
The moderates are also to blame by the fact they let the forigen fighters join in the first place.
edited 29th Sep '15 4:53:11 PM by Skycobra51
Look upon my privilege ye mighty and despair.@Raven Wilder - That civil war was won. That's not the issue. The issue was not helping in the reconstruction afterwards. In a nation where the dictator WAS the state, where there was little in the way of civil society training beyond the cult of personality of the dear colonel, a new bureaucracy had to be trained from scratch.
As for Syria, yes, that's the fear. Thats why we shouldn't do this half-assed kind of proxy intervention there, which is the current strategy. The only solution in Syria that actually solves the problems would be a full scale, multinational intervention, for a long period of time. IF you want to solve it. If not, we should admit it and move on. Not insist on some kind of moral highground we have no intention of enforcing.
In very rare cases, you get something akin to an oil well fire, where yes, the best way to stop it is with explosives. This isn't even a final option or a last resort after you've tried all other alternatives. Most often, doing nothing and letting the situation resolve itself is a better solution in the long run.
I'm unconvinced that Syria is one of these cases.
Suffice to say, I disagree with that assertion.
edited 29th Sep '15 6:04:02 PM by NativeJovian
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.![]()
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And I'd normally agree. But I think Syria is one of those situations where it needs to happen. Burning itself out isn't a possibility when the borders are uncontrolled and you have a population of 18 million.
On Libya, it wouldn't have been expensive. It is a smaller nation than Iraq by population, also more homogenous and the vast majority being within 30 minutes of the coast. And yeah, you break it you bought it actually is a thing. Yes, Libya was gonna break by itself, but we elected to hurry it along. That places some (not all, but some) responsibility to help the people rebuild it, especially since we knew in advance they had no capacity to do it on their own with that madman literally WAS the state. Not doing so has created the current situation where there is a (thankfully) low level civil war there again. Not saying we should intervene in that conflict at this stage, but the fault for it getting to that lies with NATO abandoning the people once Gaddafi died. Not thinking about what would happen after was foolish.
As fore exceptionality, I told you before, it's like porn. You know it when you see it. And in Syria's case, it actually IS exceptional in its statistics.
Also, Russia supporting Assad would not have been an issue if we hadn't bothered to call for his ouster. We could have used back channels to get Russia to make him back off, in exchange for making sure they picked the next leader and kept their interests in check.
edited 29th Sep '15 6:55:12 PM by FFShinra
I'm curious. Amid this fascinating discussion, which of the various sides do you propose we take in Syria?
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"So, with Assad, the dictator against whom all these revolts are occurring, who gassed his own people?
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Genocide: The deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially of a particular group or nation.
Yeah, I'd say that what happened to most of them at least roughly fits under what genocide means. Particularly as war was often a tool to accomplish just that. Aside of basically wanting land that was already occupied, how exactly do you thinking what was done was somehow justified?
edited 29th Sep '15 3:47:02 PM by AceofSpades