Gas Attack in Syria

[Broomstick]

I have a dreadful feeling the US is about to get involved in yet another war where, no matter what is done and what happens the US will be the bad guy. I wish these smug sorts who scream DO SOMETHING! would step forward and volunteer for the doing just as eagerly as they ask someone else to put themselves in harm's way.

[Dartzap]

And yet again our dearly beloved Prime Minister will join in the 'fun'

Fucking joyful.

[Thanas]

Yeah if you see Op-Eds in the USA papers saying war is a question of when, not if.....

makes you wonder if the people involved there haven't learned their lesson yet from Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan.

BTW, over 1000 civilian dead in July this year alone in Iraq. The invasion made it such a peaceful and stable place....

[HMS Sophia]

I figure we'd all appreciate seeing todays headline from the daily fail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... epare.html

Britain and the US are set to launch missile strikes against the Syrian regime in retaliation for its barbaric chemical attack on civilians.

David Cameron and Barack Obama discussed the plan in a 40-minute phone call at the weekend and will finalise the details within 48 hours.

The two leaders want to send a clear warning to dictator Bashar Al-Assad over the deaths of as many as 1,300 people, many of them children.

[Broomstick]

>sigh<

I can't help but wonder if the apparent increase in willingness to use chemical weapons is tied to the fact that not only have all the victims from WWI died off, but so have most of their caretakers who saw the effects first hand. The societal memory of it has faded. Oh, and of course it's so damn convenient for killing off uppity civilians...

I'd be far more comfortable with the notion of blowing shit up in Syria if:
1) Russia was also on board, or at least not actively opposing such action (last I heard they were still opposed, that might have changed since last time I checked my sources)
2) It was more than just the US and the UK - if this is so damn important to the west can we get a "yes" vote from the rest of the "west"?
3) We target very precisely - chemical weapons facilities, launch sites, etc. to make it clear it's the chemical weapons the west is intent on eliminating without getting involved in the rest of it. Right. Anyway you slice it, this means "getting involved".

I fucking hate seeing trainwrecks coming when there's not a damn thing to do about it.

Hey, what about a standing UN resolution about chemical weapons? A sort of "if you deploy X, Y, or Z then the response will be A, B, and C"? If everyone is so goddamned serious about not being the first to use this shit then they shouldn't mind such a thing, right? You launch chemical weapons against your civilian citizens you get cruise missiles up your ass. I'm sure there's something wrong with that notion, but it would take some of the uncertainty out of these situations.

[Zaune]

I know we're probably going to make a total cock-up of it again, but somehow I can't be entirely unhappy at the thought of doing away with a regime that tries to solve its internal security problems with fucking nerve gas.

[Crazedwraith]

I know we're probably going to make a total cock-up of it again, but somehow I can't be entirely unhappy at the thought of doing away with a regime that tries to solve its internal security problems with fucking nerve gas.

Yeah, this. At least we're not going in under false pretenses or anything.

[Dr Roberts]

Thanks for clearing up chemical weapons. Also in regards to the west being countries other than US And UK, France has called for force also. I'd assume most of the EU would be in agreement. The thing is Russia and China.

[Simon_Jester]

Has there been any talk of an actual ground invasion?

[Dr Roberts]

Not sure but there is a national security council meeting on Wednesday and William Hague has said that the UK and it's allies could intervene without a Unanimous UN agreement.

[cosmicalstorm]

Actually toppling Assad seems pretty insane, will it really help with the chem-situation? These weapons will still be there unless they are carefully destroyed. And whoever comes after Assad will be a nasty one/bunch. The kind of people who survive a long and grueling civil war like this one are not fun to play with.

There is another nasty thing about the entire ME situation right now that I kind of smell sometimes, it's that feeling of tension that existed before WW1. Is the ME about to have one of their own or am I just over-interpreting this way too much?

[Dr Roberts]

Well with the number of uprisings the middle east is pretty unstable but it hasn't been for a while.

[Dr Roberts]

Also according to BBC News the PM has spoken to Putin on the phone regarding Syria.

[Dartzap]

Grauniad

Warplanes and military transporters have begun arriving at Britain's Akrotiri airbase on Cyprus, less than 100 miles from the Syrian coast, in a sign of increasing preparations for a military strike against the Assad regime in Syria.

Two commercial pilots who regularly fly from Larnaca on Monday told the Guardian that they had seen C-130 transport planes from their cockpit windows as well as small formations of fighter jets on their radar screens, which they believe had flown from Europe.

Residents near the British airfield, a sovereign base since 1960, also say activity there has been much higher than normal over the past 48 hours.

If an order to attack targets in Syria is given, Cyprus is likely to be a hub of the air campaign. The arrival of warplanes suggests that advanced readiness – at the very least – has been ordered by Whitehall as David Cameron, Barack Obama and European leaders step up their rhetoric against Bashar al-Assad, whose armed forces they accuse of carrying out the chemical weapons attack last Wednesday that killed many hundreds in eastern Damascus.

I don't suppose the planes were something to do with that RN group that nipped into Gibraltar recently? Some sort of exercise wasn't it? If not, Camerons getting ahead of himself, I doubt the Commons will vote in favour if he lets them have a say. Fucks sake....

[Patroklos]

This is going to require quite a bit of AA supression prior to strikes proper if thats the sort of aircraft they intend to use (as opposed to cruise missiles and B2 strikes). I am sure they have been planning how to do that for quite a long time but Syria is a far harder nut to crack than Libya or 2003 Iraq as far as achieving air supremecy goes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Air_Defense_Force

[Dartzap]

Yep, the Russians flogged them a few S300's IIRC? And the personnel to use train to use them as well? So much for a proxy war....

[cosmicalstorm]

I wonder how the civil war has affected Syrias ability to wage conventional warfare? I've seen many videos of rebels dancing around small and medium sized military bases.

[Grumman]

Obama should send Assad a gift hamper. What better way to distract from that whole "The NSA is reading your email" issue than a new war?

[Broomstick]

The bombing hasn't even started yet and already you've forgotten the weeks of other people saying "The US has to do something!" Same old story - everyone whines the Americans aren't doing something, then bitch when the something happens. Except, apparently, for those who start bitching about the something happening before the something is even started.

[CaptHawkeye]

The bombing hasn't even started yet and already you've forgotten the weeks of other people saying "The US has to do something!" Same old story - everyone whines the Americans aren't doing something, then bitch when the something happens. Except, apparently, for those who start bitching about the something happening before the something is even started.

Broomstick uses false dilemma to excuse own disregard for history, news at 11.

Now if only you were the only person I knew who said shit like this. Wouldn't it be nice if countries didn't make major foreign policy decisions based on popularity contests? I don't think they would either, if you weren't seriously pedaling your feelings as a rational analysis. Unfortunately for all of the people in the world who aren't American, Americans are A. massively oversensitive and B. impulsively violent. Combined the two lead to some real hijinks that remind me of the 19th century-chic "we are on a mission to civilize!" kind.

[ChaserGrey]

Hey, what about a standing UN resolution about chemical weapons? A sort of "if you deploy X, Y, or Z then the response will be A, B, and C"? If everyone is so goddamned serious about not being the first to use this shit then they shouldn't mind such a thing, right? You launch chemical weapons against your civilian citizens you get cruise missiles up your ass. I'm sure there's something wrong with that notion, but it would take some of the uncertainty out of these situations.

Only if everyone trusted the UN to enforce it. Which would depend on the willingness of member nations to enforce it, which turns into a proxy fight, etc, etc. I can't see it being taken seriously.

I know we're probably going to make a total cock-up of it again, but somehow I can't be entirely unhappy at the thought of doing away with a regime that tries to solve its internal security problems with fucking nerve gas.

Yeah, this. Or at the very least, removing said nerve gas from their arsenal.

Has there been any talk of an actual ground invasion?

Not as far as I know. Who'd do it? The US ground forces are a) shrinking and b) still in Afghanistan, and most European nations have armies too small to start land wars as an adventure. (Something to that policy, come to think of it...) If this happens the forces involved will probably look like Libya, with a few special ops types on the ground spotting for jets and cruise missiles.

Actually toppling Assad seems pretty insane, will it really help with the chem-situation? These weapons will still be there unless they are carefully destroyed. And whoever comes after Assad will be a nasty one/bunch. The kind of people who survive a long and grueling civil war like this one are not fun to play with.

Done right, the objective of the strikes would be to destroy the nerve gas stockpile, not topple Assad. And yes, you can do that with bombs. It will suck for anyone in the area, but less people will die than if the stockpile's used.

There is another nasty thing about the entire ME situation right now that I kind of smell sometimes, it's that feeling of tension that existed before WW1. Is the ME about to have one of their own or am I just over-interpreting this way too much?

Well, it's not just you, cause I have the same period. The Arab Spring has caused a lot of instability, some of which has led to improvement and some of which hasn't. Add to that Iran building a nuclear weapon and Saudi Arabia announcing that they're going to start enriching uranium for "power generation" (because God knows if there's one thing the Saudis are short on, it's energy resources), and the whole place starts looking like the Balkans circa 1913. With nerve gas and nukes. Sleep tight, kids.

This is going to require quite a bit of AA supression prior to strikes proper if thats the sort of aircraft they intend to use (as opposed to cruise missiles and B2 strikes). I am sure they have been planning how to do that for quite a long time but Syria is a far harder nut to crack than Libya or 2003 Iraq as far as achieving air supremecy goes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Air_Defense_Force

The $6.4x10^5 question is, how much of this stuff has been left intact and is still in regime hands? God, I hope someone with a higher clearance than me knows. But yeah, if they still have those S300s this will *not* be like Libya.

[Broomstick]

Done right, the objective of the strikes would be to destroy the nerve gas stockpile, not topple Assad. And yes, you can do that with bombs. It will suck for anyone in the area, but less people will die than if the stockpile's used.

Really? Doesn't that depend on where those stockpiles are, and who is downwind of them? Bombing a pile of chemical weapons can potentially release toxic shit into the local area. What, exactly, would happen depends on how the weapons/chemicals involved - in some cases the precursor chemicals are in separate vessels and are only mixed to produce the toxic gas just prior to launch or even after launch while en route to target. Those probably aren't as hazardous to bomb as some others but I can't imagine the precursor chemicals are entirely harmless.

[Thanas]

The bombing hasn't even started yet and already you've forgotten the weeks of other people saying "The US has to do something!" Same old story - everyone whines the Americans aren't doing something, then bitch when the something happens. Except, apparently, for those who start bitching about the something happening before the something is even started.

Citation needed for people demanding action from the US.

Heck, so far nobody here in Europe is demanding this.

In fact, most people I have talked to fear the US going into another war and - with their colossal incompetence being a matter of record - messing everything up again.

[Simon_Jester]

Done right, the objective of the strikes would be to destroy the nerve gas stockpile, not topple Assad. And yes, you can do that with bombs. It will suck for anyone in the area, but less people will die than if the stockpile's used.

Really? Doesn't that depend on where those stockpiles are, and who is downwind of them? Bombing a pile of chemical weapons can potentially release toxic shit into the local area...

Broomstick, I suspect he's factoring that in. Think about where the nerve gas would likely be stockpiled.

Remember the Libyans? Qaddafi kept most of his heavy weapons in depots out in the middle of the desert. Syria has reason to do the same anyway, let alone when they have a weapon where an accident could potentially kill thousands.

So far as I know, when the US government had chemical warfare plants, it didn't park them in the middle of major cities when it could be avoided, for obvious reasons.

The bombing hasn't even started yet and already you've forgotten the weeks of other people saying "The US has to do something!" Same old story - everyone whines the Americans aren't doing something, then bitch when the something happens. Except, apparently, for those who start bitching about the something happening before the something is even started.

Citation needed for people demanding action from the US.

Do people saying "well if you want to do XYZ, why haven't you already invaded Syria on humanitarian/pro-democracy grounds?" count?

[Thanas]

Who are those and are any of those politicians?