The Syria Thread: Momentum building for Western military strike against Syria; President Bashar Assad's government responsible for chemical attack on civilians outside Damascus
Tweet Topic Started: 28 Aug 2013, 03:51 PM (5,674 Views)
Come on, this makes much more sense than going to war over the use of chemical weapons.
Well this blows your idea out the window.
The US has said if Syria hands over all of its chemical weapons to the UN or an international team for supervision and then destruction military conflict can be avoided. The Russians are supporting this and urging Syria to accept the deal.
This would be a great result and achieve US objectives and strategic interest without firing a shot, also keeps the Russians happy.
The ball is in Syria's court, if they do not need or want to use chemical weapons on its own population they will gladly hand them over. If they want to keep the weapons it means they intend to use them in the civil war as to use chemical weapons against the US, Israel, Turkey or anyone else invites the total destruction of the Assad Government, which is the outcome Assad is trying to avoid.
I heard today the US is expanding it war plans to not only punish Assad but cripple his ability to effectively control his military forces. The 1st plans had about 50 targets selected to hit via cruise missiles. The new plans include the use of B-52 bombers and B-2 stealth bombers to hit a much bigger target list. I think this is what has Russia worried as it would be a threat to the survival of Assad.
Think of this, One B-2 bomber can carry 200 SBD bombs (small diameter bombs). Each of these bombs is GPS guided and can hit a separate target. One plane can hit over 200 separate targets if they wanted to. B-52s can carry even more but you would not want these in Syrian airspace until it air defences had been taken down. If the US used 10 of the B-2s for one mission each they could effectively take out all major air defences, command and control, airbases, army bases and so on in a matter of hours. That is on top of the some 1000 tomahawk cruise missiles now on ship in the Mediterranean and Red seas.
Hopefully Syria will agree to this option, not sure if Assad will or not as he will be seen to giving into US demands and look weak, on the other hand face the US onslaught and risk losing what little power he still has. I doubt he wants to end up like Saddam Hussein at the end of a noose or Gadhafi.
Do you have a link to your sources or is this watercooler stuff?
The closest I could find is:
Quote:
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad could avoid a U.S. military strike by surrendering all his chemical weapons within a week, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Monday, but immediately made clear he was not making a serious offer.
President Barack Obama is seeking support from Congress for punitive military action against Syria over a suspected chemical weapons attack in a civil war that the United Nations says has killed at least 100,000 people.
When asked by a reporter in London whether there was anything Assad's government could do or offer to stop a military strike, Kerry answered:
"Sure, he could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week - turn it over, all of it without delay and allow the full and total accounting (of it), but he isn't about to do it and it can't be done."
The State Department later said Kerry had been making a rhetorical argument about the impossibility of Assad turning over chemical weapons, which Assad denies his forces used in the August 21 poison gas attack.
In an interview with U.S. television network CBS, Assad said the United States would be going against its own interests if it got involved in Syria, warning of repercussions.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, Assad's only big-power supporter, says opponents of Assad staged the attack to provoke U.S.-led military intervention, an allegation Kerry dismissed out of hand on Monday.
Putin's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, met Assad's foreign minister, Walid al-Moualem, in Moscow on Monday and the two urged Washington to concentrate on convening a Syrian peace conference rather than on military action.
Moualem suggested the chemical attack was a pretext to trigger military intervention and asked whether Obama was backing "terrorists" - an allusion to radical Islamists, who are prominent in the ranks of rebels fighting to topple Assad.
WAR IN SYRIA
Kerry said he was confident of the evidence that the United States and its allies had presented to support their case that Assad's forces used poison gas, though he said he understood skepticism lingering from the 2003 Iraq war - in which cited intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was later proven wrong.
He avoided directly answering a question on whether the United States had evidence directly linking Assad to the alleged August 21 chemical weapons attack, but said such weapons were controlled by only three people in Syria: Assad, his brother Maher, and an unnamed general.
Kerry, a former lawyer, said he had successfully prosecuted people with less evidence and warned that doing nothing was worse than doing something, saying inaction would come back to haunt the United States and its allies.
"If you want to send Iran and Hezbollah and Assad a congratulatory message: 'You guys can do what you want,' you'd say: 'Don't do anything.'
"We believe that is dangerous and we will face this down the road in some more significant way if we're not prepared to take ... a stand now," Kerry said.
When asked about the CBS interview with Assad, British Foreign Secretary William Hague cautioned against giving too much weight to the Syrian president's words.
"We mustn't fall into the trap of attaching too much credibility to the words of a leader, President Assad, who has presided over so many war crimes and crimes against humanity (and) shown such a murderous disregard for the welfare of his own people," Hague said. "So let's not fall into the trap of believing every word that ... comes out of such a man."
Kerry stressed that ties between Britain and the United States were as strong as ever despite the British parliament voting not to endorse military action against Syria, prompting a government decision not to take part.
"The relationship between the United States and the UK has often been described as special, essential and it has been described thus because it is," Kerry said. "The bond ... is bigger than one (parliamentary) vote."
While in London, Kerry said he had held talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that he described as "productive", but did not give further details.
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Something that is not mentioned much on the MSM or the various posts on this Machiavellian on steroids situation in Syria is where does the Royal House of Saudi sit in this conflict. After all they are the dominant force in the Arab world and have had some recent falling out with the yanks after they installed the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt which has since fallen and the Qatar Emir (the only gulf zone backer of them and a big one at that judging by the size of the loans) resigned to his son (Sandhurst educated) who immediately distanced himself from his fathers backing of them and spoke of a new era within minutes of their overthrow and restarted to toe the Gulf line on Egypt. The Saudis also never forgave the yanks for effectively bringing the Shias to power in Iraq. The Saudis being Sunnis as are all the gulf countries see any form of Shia dominance or ascendancy as a direct threat.
If you look at what countries have Shia leadership or its ascendancy then they will be typically in the target of the Saudis, the Israelis which means the US as well, the Gulf countries and NATO. Shia was on the rise in Syria and while Assad is not a Shia, he is also not a Sunni, and theoretically his minority faith is closer to Shia than Sunni. All of the invading western backed terrorists that are in Syria now are Sunnis. So yes there is the aspect of oil and gas, but there is always the bloody Sunni to Shia divide and the Sunni fear of the rise of a Shia Crescent to take into consideration in this game of poker.
Do you have a link to your sources or is this watercooler stuff?
The closest I could find is:
Watch Obamas live interview where he said it is an option they need to explore and it would achieve US objectives of stopping the use of chemical weapons. Obama supports it but a lot needs to happen prior to this being a diplomatic deal.
The US war plans to secure Syria's chemical weapons by force call for the use of 75,000 troops to seize, hold and then destroy the chemical weapons all over Syria. If this can be done peacefully that is a huge risk removed from this civil war. It won't stop the killing on the ground but nothing will stop that, civil wars have a history of running for many years or even decades.
Bardon
10 Sep 2013, 10:26 AM
Something that is not mentioned much on the MSM or the various posts on this Machiavellian on steroids situation in Syria is where does the Royal House of Saudi sit in this conflict. After all they are the dominant force in the Arab world and have had some recent falling out with the yanks after they installed the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt which has since fallen and the Qatar Emir (the only gulf zone backer of them and a big one at that judging by the size of the loans) resigned to his son (Sandhurst educated) who immediately distanced himself from his fathers backing of them and spoke of a new era within minutes of their overthrow and restarted to toe the Gulf line on Egypt. The Saudis also never forgave the yanks for effectively bringing the Shias to power in Iraq. The Saudis being Sunnis as are all the gulf countries see any form of Shia dominance or ascendancy as a direct threat.
If you look at what countries have Shia leadership or its ascendancy then they will be typically in the target of the Saudis, the Israelis which means the US as well, the Gulf countries and NATO. Shia was on the rise in Syria and while Assad is not a Shia, he is also not a Sunni, and theoretically his minority faith is closer to Shia than Sunni. All of the invading western backed terrorists that are in Syria now are Sunnis. So yes there is the aspect of oil and gas, but there is always the bloody Sunni to Shia divide and the Sunni fear of the rise of a Shia Crescent to take into consideration in this game of poker.
Saudi Arabia is supporting Military action against Syria, multiple news sources for this if you look into it.
Is it for the improvement of human rights, freedom of speech and religious tolerance?
The Arab League is supporting action against Syria of which Saudi Arabia is a member.
Saudi Arabia and Iran are fighting a proxy war in Syria. Syria being an Iranian ally is a direct threat to Saudi Arabia. Iran has revolutionary guard units in Syria fighting, a unit was captured earlier in the year. Irans proxy in Lebanon Hezbollah is fighting heavy in Syria as Syria is Hezbollah supply line for weapons from Iran, if Syria falls Hezbollah loses its supply of weapons. Iran supplies weapons to Hezbollah so they can use these against Israel if the US ever strikes Irans nuclear program. The reason nearly every Muslim nation wants to strike Israel even though they are not part of the war is to complicate US efforts and turn world wide Muslim support against the US. It is also present against Israel if Israel launches an attack. It is also a great location for Iranian units to be based and attack Israel or to launch missiles with either chemical or nuclear weapons against Israel.
Saudi Arabia is no friend of Israel but the enemy of my enemy is a friend. Iran is trying to dominate the region and to do so it needs reduce Saudi influence, one way is to beat them in Syria. Iran is Shia Muslim and Saudi is Sunni Muslim both lead sides in a Muslim civil war which has been going on for a thousand years.
The US goal is to keep the status quo, prevent Iranian nuclear weapons. With Syria the only real interest is to remove the chemical weapons. The US would also like to see democratic change but is very careful that what replaces Assad may be worse, hence the lack of US support for the rebels other then token supplies. The US is letting the muslims supply and fight this civil war as to stop it would require a similar commitment of forces and resources as Iraq and the US has no goals to do this as Syria serves so little US interests.
I short Syria is a distraction for the US against its main rival for the coming decades, China. this is why China remains quiet on Syria, nothing set es Chinese interest more then the US to drain and waste resources far from Chinese interests in the pacific.
I guess we will always have a differing opinion on the situation up there, as I don't think the yanks are the good guys, quite the opposite. I also don't think that the Arab spring was a Facebook revolution either. More like the furtherance of Israeli foreign policy for the region which makes it US foreign policy and a perfect example of that age old imperialist strategy of divide and conquer working well. We have just witnessed stable functioning non aggressive sovereign nations having their leadership exterminated, social structures destroyed, people killed and those that are left now trying to survive in a state of complete anarchy, its just taken a bit longer than they though to do this to Syria.
Look what happened recently within days of one of their chief Mid-East Assassins, Ambassador Ford being deployed to Cairo. The dead bodies and unrest literally started to pile up as his deaths squads quickly and effectively went about their work.
Give us proof it was an Israeli, US, French or UK plot.
How did the rebels get the chemical weapons? How did the rebels get the Russian & Iranian made missiles which carried the chemical weapons as shown in the video footage of the remains of the missiles.
The CIA has communication intercepts from Syrian officials to the commander of the unit which fired the weapons. It appears the official was most upset with the commander as the wrong missiles were fired. German intelligence also says it Naval ships picked up the same communications and believes it was a mistake by a military commander, the Germans are against military action but there intelligence supports the US intelligence that it was Syrian Government forces the launched the missiles.
Further to this, Israel and the US operate a joint Radar installation used for ballistic missile defence to operate the Arrow I & II anti ballistic missile system. Primarily used to detect Iranian missile launches. This radar tracked the missile launches from a Government controlled area fired into the rebel controlled area. It was not just one missile, it was between 11-15 missiles which were fired and hit 11 different locations.
The Russians also have this data as its own radars can track missile launches in Syria, but they wont release it despite releasing data showing Israeli missile tests last week in the Med. Why wont the Russians release the same data which shows the tracking information of the missile launches, they were very quick to release data on Israel's launches, which the Russian mistook for a US missile attack on Syrian and warned the Syrians about, once again intercepted by US and NATO forces in the area.
Why does Russia not release the tracking data that shows the missiles were fired from Rebel held locations into area attacked, that would end the matter right away. Why it does not is it does not exist as the tracking data from its own Russian radars confirms the launches were by Syrian Government forces. Send an email to you're buddy Putin asking for the same tracking data the released of the Israeli missile test last week for August 21 2013 and see what it shows.
You also need to broaden your view on why Russia opposes military action. Syria does buy about $2 billion worth of Russian weapons a year, not a great deal. What Russia does not want is yet another demonstration of US military superiority in technology vs Russian weapons as every time this happens Russia's military sales plummet for years after while the US weapon sales soar. This represents a lot of money for the Russian arms industry which is struggling at best to stay afloat.
What do you think will happen to Russian weapon sales in the next few years if US missiles and warplanes can penetrate the so called formidable air defences of Syria with impunity.
You also need to look at the bigger strategic environment. Iran is watching closely and if it see's Russian defences unable to protect Syria then why would Iran continue to buy Russian weapons if they prove useless to protect Syria. Not that Iran has many options due to sanctions but it could certainly help bring Iran to negotiating table seeing Syria defenceless against US weapons despite the presence of Russian air defences and advanced anti ship missiles.
There are no smoking gun intercepts. Do some research the intercepts were picked up by Israel how convenient. Where are these interceptions have u heard them. A panicked syriancommander ddiscovering what happened is not evidence they did it.
What about the sarian gas rebels were caught with in turkey about a month ago? This was completely buried by the mainstream media but very telling. There are news stories emerging of rebals admitting they did it. They were supplied by Saudi Arabia were not properly trained and they accidentally went off. Saudi Arabia wants America to intervene so they can build their pipe line with an US puppet government in power.
There are no smoking gun intercepts. Do some research the intercepts were picked up by Israel how convenient. Where are these interceptions have u heard them. A panicked syriancommander ddiscovering what happened is not evidence they did it.
What about the sarian gas rebels were caught with in turkey about a month ago? This was completely buried by the mainstream media but very telling. There are news stories emerging of rebals admitting they did it. They were supplied by Saudi Arabia were not properly trained and they accidentally went off. Saudi Arabia wants America to intervene so they can build their pipe line with an US puppet government in power.
Apply you're own logic against you, have you seen these rebels with Sarin gas, do you have proof Saudi Arabia trained them, do you have proof this is not all a Russian or Syrian plot. Offcourse Russia will blame the Rebels, its perfect sainthood dictator in Syria can do no wrong.
So you are taking the side of a dictator that slaughters his own population simply to hold onto power against the majority of what the people want. Assad only represents a minority. It would be like the Greens telling the rest of the 90% of Australia's population how to live, oh wait we just had 3 years of that and look how it turned out and we are a peaceful nation.
Oh yes, just like the US wanted all the Iraqi oil even though they already had more then they needed in allied nations nearby. I don't see any Iraqi oil going to the US, its mostly going to China, Americas main threat for the next 50 years.
So now its all about gas even though it is far less trouble and more secure to transport gas via LNG ships as Qatar does to nations such as Japan.
You are wrong and naïve and take a simplistic view. It is nothing to do with Gas but complete domination and control of the entire middle east. It is Sunni vs Shia Muslims with Saudi Arabia and Iran as the regional leaders. Russia backs Iran of which Syria is an Iranian ally, If Syria and Iran roll over or lose Russia loses all influence and allies in the middle east. Saudi Arabia is backed by the USA and nearly all other middle eastern nations to stop Iran dominating the region.
Ask yourself why did the US not destroy Iran's nuclear program, why has it not bombed Syria. If the USA is so evil surely it would simply launch an attack and be done with these pesky upstarts. The US certainly has the military power to deal with both. The reason is both are not critical US interests in which it needs to waste its national power on. Iran is a threat but not a critical threat to the US, it is a threat to US allies in the region but US military power can deal with anything Iran may do. The US is trying to avoid a nuclear arms race in the region which goes against US interests. If everyone starts getting nuclear weapons they no longer require US protection and the US loses much of its influence. The other threat is to the world economy via oil supply, it is in US interest for no war vs Iran so not to disrupt world wide oil supply. Although the US does not get much oil from this region any more China get nearly all of its oil from the Persian Gulf, along with Japan and much of Asia. Anyway would devastate Chinas economy which is a major US trading partner and would hurt US economic interests.
Syria on the other hand offers the US nothing to gain. The US only wants to prevent chemical weapons spreading into the wrong hands or the war spreading into other nations. Who do you think kept Turkey in check when they wanted blood over Turkish civilians being killed by Syrian Government forces firing into Turkey. Syria despite the Human tragedy offers little to US interests other then a headache and a drain on resources. It is of some benefit to US allies in the region is a pro-US government can be installed but that is unlikely and more likely Syria will remain in chaos for years to come as the nation tears itself apart.
As for the Arab spring it is mostly a revolution against many of the dictators which have remained in power far to long and serve against the best interests of the population. The middle eastern population is booming and can no longer be kept in check without political reforms. The war in Iraq showed how even a powerful dictator who once controlled a military that was the 4th largest in the world can be forced from power. Obama speeches in Cario also allowed opposition parties to broaden there view. No longer could Muslim governments claim the US was the evil master when Obama was ending the wars and is half Muslim himself with a Muslim relatives. It opened peoples eyes to what is possible.
It is rather strange that you think one of the biggest US allies in the region Egypt would be in US interests to be in turmoil. Why would the US want to see its ally in turmoil and open the door to radical Islamic parties taking over as we see now. It runs counter to US interest and 50 years of US effort in the region.
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