Meanwhile in Iraq & Syria

[DBTrek]

Smitty can shout "IT WILL NEVER WORK, NO ONE IS SCARED" until the cows come home.
Just remember, every minute that ticks by without more WMD being unleashed in Syria - he's wrong.
All sixty seconds, of every one of those minutes - he's wrong.
Tick, tick, tick ...

[Martin Hash]

When a year from now we learn those "WMDs" were extras from a Turkish zombie movie, won't you feel silly?

[Okeefenokee]

Let's see when the chemical weapons pop out again.
Or ... let's watch the bold retaliation against our military forces.

And if we see neither, then we'll have to settle for watching some folks here wrestle with their cognitive dissonance like an oiled midget caught in the grip of a python.
(I'm telling ya, guys - the people launching the missiles at the folks who are going to shut up and take it are the terrified ones. For reals!)

Do you think it seems plausible that after Assad leveled Allepo and has all but defeated ISIS and the rebels, that he would then resort to a chemical attack to kill about a hundred people and draw the ire of the rest of the world? Because it doesn't seem plausible to me.

He's walking into the endzone with not much opposition left on the field. Why break out gas at the end of the fight when conventional munitions have been doing the job the whole time?

[heydaralon]

What is the West's endgame in Syria? Understandably, our leaders don't like Assad, but who is the replacement? Who is going to rebuild the country if we get rid of him? This has never been explained well by Obama, Clinton Kerry, Trump, or McCain. Maybe we will involve ourselves in Syria and fuck it up so bad that we will fondly look back on the Bush years as a time when we only had two failed state shitholes in the Middle East to drain our economy and maim our soldiers. Obama ruined Libya, so I guess now that its Trump's turn he needs to finish what Obama and Clinton started and get us sucked into yet another hopeless sectarian free-for-all in the region.

[Speaker to Animals]

What is the West's endgame in Syria? Understandably, our leaders don't like Assad, but who is the replacement? Who is going to rebuild the country if we get rid of him? This has never been explained well by Obama, Clinton Kerry, Trump, or McCain. Maybe we will involve ourselves in Syria and fuck it up so bad that we will fondly look back on the Bush years as a time when we only had two failed state shitholes in the Middle East to drain our economy and maim our soldiers. Obama ruined Libya, so I guess now that its Trump's turn he needs to finish what Obama and Clinton started and get us sucked into yet another hopeless sectarian free-for-all in the region.

End game? Why, I imagine it's the same game they have been playing for thirty years now.

[StCapps]

Have you ever heard of Vietnam?

What's more likely, this is merely saber rattling, or this is the next Vietnam?

oops.

This still isn't looking like Vietnam and it looks a whole lot like saber rattling. 1-0 Capps.

[Okeefenokee]

Dunno if covered in previous 40 pages, but do we have any proof that Assad gassed the kids?

I've been meaning to ask where Apeman has been. Good to see you around.

Ever heard this at a funeral?

It's great to see everyone again. We should get together more often and not just when someone dies.

Brought together over military action.

[Smitty-48]

It's definitely not "Vietnam", America got dragged into Vietnam by an American proxy, namely the French, Syria has been a Soviet/Russian proxy since 1946, there's no oil in Syria, there's nothing of any consequence to the United States in Syria, the only reason the United States needed to have any concerns about Syria was while the United States had large numbers of troops occupying Iraq, but now that they are out, there's absolutely nothing tying the United States to Syria, not even the "Zionists", because in the end, the Israelis don't even want the United States in Syria, when it comes to dealing with Hezbollah, the Israelis don't even want a "partner", because the Israelis want carte blanche to be able to do whatever they think they need to do, whether the United States agrees or not.

There's absolutely no American strategic interest in Syria, the Russians being in there dealing with their own shit, the Turks having to do deal with it rather than having America dealing with it for them, this is all in America's interests, it's actually one of the few countries, which even as the "preeminent superpower", the United States could really afford to completely ignore.

[Okeefenokee]

You are assuming Assad has the same sensibilities as you. There is no reason to believe he will act in a way that our culture would deem rational.

Personally i prefer to form opinions based on facts, not on conjecture. What I know is there are a lot of people in Syria that died after an attack by Assad, and our intelligence community believes Assad used chemical weapons. Yes they could have bad information, or there could be some conspiracy going on as of right now though I have no evidence in support. All I have in opposite is people saying, "This is illogical within my world view!"

This is a weak argument, and that's being generous.

When confronted with the fact that what you are suggesting happened doesn't pass the smell test, responding that the person in question is just crazy or otherwise unpredictable is a cheap copout to avoid answering why what you are suggesting is out of the ordinary and should be believed, rather than something else that makes more sense.

[Okeefenokee]

Lol

The country gave Mr. Trump a shiny new toy for Christmas and you thought he wasn't going to play with it? You thought he wanted to increase military spending, why? Silly heads.

BTW - I support his decision to do this and I'm happy to see some bi-partisanship in the Senate again. From two directions, even. You have democrats applauding the bombing and republicans telling him to get his ass to Congress if he wants to keep going. That's a bit of sunshine in what has been a pretty dark couple of months.

of course anti-trumpers cheer for more military intervention. it's not like we just had an election where we rejected your hawk candidate.