Meanwhile in Iraq & Syria

[Smitty-48]

Another thing to understand here, is that the Russians are going to fight to keep Syria as a proxy base of operations, or that portion of it at least wherein they have the bases, but that doesn't mean they are married to Assad the person, they would be fine with rebels overthrowing Assad, as long as they felt that those rebels were willing to play ball let the Russians keep their bases, it's the Iranians and Hezbollah who are desperate to keep Assad at the head of the regime, whereas the Russians would be willing to do business with Sunni's, so long as those Sunni's were willing to do business with Moscow, hence, even with the Russians there, Assad himself is not in any way safe.

It's certainly plausible that Assad and his crew are going beyond what the Russians are doing, in terms of using Sarin, because Assad the person has skin in the game whereas the Russians are agnostic, but at the same time, the Russians would have to be in on that, at the very least, looking the other way, and more likley, supllying the Sarin covertly and then looking the other way, since the Russians are the ones in charge of making sure there is no CBRN in Syria, since the agreement with Obama, and clearly they have Assad under their thumbs whenever they choose, simply buy restricting how much support they are providing, based on how compliant the Assadists are being.

The wildcard could be the Iranians, but I just don't see the Iranians handing over Sarin to somebody they don't really control, that's generally not how they operate.

[Montegriffo]

Hence my use of quotation marks when I said ''winning''.

[Smitty-48]

Hence my use of quotation marks when I said ''winning''.

Your assertion simply didn't fit with the desired populist narrative that it's all a NWO conspiracy to make America into an interventionist military empire rather than what they really are, which is a bunch of isolationist peaceniks don't you know...

[heydaralon]

You don't know my stance on involvement in Syria either because I've not stated it. My comments have been aimed at dispelling the myth that Assad would not use chemical weapons against his own people because he is so close to ''winning''.
Interesting that you are prepared to label me a ''sackless progressive'' without knowing how I feel about Western involvement in the war but it isn't the first time I have been strawmanned in this manner.
Go back through the thread and see if you can find me approving or disapproving of military action by the US in Syria.........

You are getting "strawmanned" because you are using the same kind of rhetoric that NeoCons and establishment figures who want to get us into another conflict use. I don't know your stance on Western involvement, but you talk about "Vicious dictators using terror against his own people" and "killing babies" like that is somehow the be all end all. Its a civil war in the Middle East dude. This always happens. Every single time. It is grotesque, but it would not stop if we got rid of Assad, and it would not stop if we put boots on the ground. Lets just sit this one out for a change. Russia wants to get covered in shit this time, and I'm all for that. Trump really fucked the dog on this one.

Also you say it like its a certainty that Assad did the chem attack in 2012. Its not. It is more likely that the Rebels tried to lure a great power into the conflict. It almost worked then. As time goes on, we may get more facts about this attack. The narrative we get from the rebel side is full of shit. Most rebel controlled territory does not even allow Western journalists in, so we get everything secondhand from them. They are proven liars, who inflate casualty numbers (see Aleppo), stage scenes, and generally try to manipulate Western opinion. One guy Kareem Abdul Bilal who was interview many times by CNN turned out to be a fucking PR guy for Jahbat al Nusra. Assad may very well have been behind this attack, but it hardly rates against all the other shit that he has already done, and the atrocities committed by the rebels. It might have violated some retarded ass UN treaty that the US didn't even sign, but the UN is pretty spineless in these kinds of things, so again who cares? Russia will probably protect Assad from most of the fallout in that department.

[Smitty-48]

You don't know my stance on involvement in Syria either because I've not stated it. My comments have been aimed at dispelling the myth that Assad would not use chemical weapons against his own people because he is so close to ''winning''.
Interesting that you are prepared to label me a ''sackless progressive'' without knowing how I feel about Western involvement in the war but it isn't the first time I have been strawmanned in this manner.
Go back through the thread and see if you can find me approving or disapproving of military action by the US in Syria.........

You are getting "strawmanned" because you are using the same kind of rhetoric that NeoCons and establishment figures who want to get us into another conflict use. I don't know your stance on Western involvement, but you talk about "Vicious dictators using terror against his own people" and "killing babies" like that is somehow the be all end all.

Yeah, that's right, America's imperial hubris is all the fault of random Britons stating the obvious from the other side of the Atlantic, if those dang foreigners would just stop talking about bad things happening overseas, America could be the isolationist workers paradise that Americans really want it to be... lol.

[heydaralon]

Hence my use of quotation marks when I said ''winning''.

Your assertion simply didn't fit with the desired populist narrative that it's all a NWO conspiracy to make America into an interventionist military empire rather than what they really are, which is a bunch of isolationist peaceniks don't you know...

I don't know if Trump just did this as a distraction, or to prove to the media that he is not allied with Putin, or because he wanted to show force. I don't think you even need a global conspiracy to explain our foreign policy. There is an institutionalized thinking in our politicians, advisers, and military, that veers toward intervening in questionable conflicts. Sadly, it doesn't seem like Trump is bucking this trend. We have been tilling the middle Eastern shitfarm without yielding any fruits for decades now, and I was hoping we could have at least avoided this extra-pointless war, but I guess not.

How much more involved do you think the United States will get?

[heydaralon]

You don't know my stance on involvement in Syria either because I've not stated it. My comments have been aimed at dispelling the myth that Assad would not use chemical weapons against his own people because he is so close to ''winning''.
Interesting that you are prepared to label me a ''sackless progressive'' without knowing how I feel about Western involvement in the war but it isn't the first time I have been strawmanned in this manner.
Go back through the thread and see if you can find me approving or disapproving of military action by the US in Syria.........

You are getting "strawmanned" because you are using the same kind of rhetoric that NeoCons and establishment figures who want to get us into another conflict use. I don't know your stance on Western involvement, but you talk about "Vicious dictators using terror against his own people" and "killing babies" like that is somehow the be all end all.

Yeah, that's right, America's imperial hubris is all the fault of random Britons stating the obvious from the other side of the Atlantic, if those dang foreigners would just stop talking about bad things happening overseas, America could be the isolationist workers paradise that Americans really want it to be... lol.

I haven't seen the poll numbers. I don't have any idea how popular the idea of Syrian intervention is with voters. I'll say this though, Americans seemed to be easily suckered into wars, but after world war II, they always get tired of them very quickly. I think the first gulf war is probably our only success story. Public opinion might initially be high, but people always wake up from the drunken war fervor with a hangover after a year or two. I can't really think of a conflict in my life that has had longterm approval from the American people. It kind of frustrates me how this always happens.

[Montegriffo]

How much more involved do you think the United States will get?

My guess would be that it all depends on Trump's future unpopularity......

[Speaker to Animals]

This was Ivanka as weird as that is. She brought in Jared Kushner, Gary Cohn, and Dina Powell.

Jared Kushner it turns out is pretty close to Soros. Cohn and Powell are democrats with connections to Goldman Sachs.

These are globalist democrats running the show, hence why you are seeing this Russian war program still steaming along.

[Smitty-48]

There is an institutionalized thinking in our politicians, advisers, and military, that veers toward intervening in questionable conflicts.

I agree with Bacevich when he calls this "Blaming Leviathan", because America's imperial hubris and associated Empire of Liberty does not actually come from on high, it's deeply ingrained in the culture, since the Revolution in fact, "NeoCons" is a cop out, the "NeoCons" didn't invent this shit, America has been intervening in the Middle East, since the Barbary Pirates had to be Regime Changed, who knew?

How much more involved do you think the United States will get?

It's not going to be Vietnam if that's what you're thinking, at the same time, you'll be nibbling around the margins, firing a few TLAM's from time to time, Special Forces Foreign Internal Defense operations, that sort of thing, but I'm not sensing any appetite for full on internvention, it's going to take a full generation or two to get over the Iraq War hump, you will go big with boots on the ground again someday, but it's still gonna be awhile methinks, at this juncture, even your Imperial Hubris as been sufficiently chastened as to keep you on the periphery, sort of sailing around offshore in the aircraft carriers, loathe to get off the boat in fear of another "quagmire".

That will wear off though, always does, but right now you're still spooked enough to remain somewhat circumspect about it as an electorate, both Red Team and Blue Team, so there's no mandate to go big from either camp.