Gas Attack in Syria

[Broomstick]

I remind you all that "Special" is a code word for "Nuclear." This is Putin telling King Barry the Clueless to back the fuck down.

Alternative theory: Russia's objection to intervention really is that this is an internal affair and thus no one outside of Syria should join the battle. If, however, Syria decides to expand the fighting, especially with gas, the Russians are prepared to "answer" that.

Or maybe what you said.

The US Congressional vote is, I believe, on Monday, September 9. I think it unlikely the US will engage in any airstrikes until after that. I think Obama & Co. are still hoping to get a "yes" out of Congress (if I recall correctly, every time the US president has gone to Congress for permission to engage in military action he's gotten it) but this time around it seems the trend is towards "no". There have been growing demonstrations all week in my area, which may or may not reflect general US trends. The New York Times has been running articles on whether and how many Congress critters are with or against Obama on this. The administration is pulling out the stops, releasing more videos of dying people, dying children, and Obama's weekly address today was beating the same drum again.

If the US Congress votes to go along with Obama then there will be US airstrikes against Syria. What happens next will be... interesting in the sense TimothyC meant it.

IF the US Congress votes against Obama's plan I dunno... Obama might go ahead anyway, or try to (the military swears it's loyalty to the constitution not the President in this country so in theory the military could refuse to follow an unconstitutional order but so far as I know the PotUS has never been challenged in that manner) there's a possibility of impeachment, of winding up before the Supreme Court, or, I dunno, something else.

[cosmicalstorm]

Quite. Standing down now would be very dangerous in the long term as well. Because it would set a precedent for the future that encourages the notion that the defender will stand down. Thus promoting future games of chicken.

It would set a precedent for the future that encourages the notion that the defender will stand down from defending something that is really stupid when there is no need to get involved in the first place. Obama backing down now would not mean America could never react to a real threat in the future.

[Broomstick]

Why is it wrong? Because defending Syria is not worth destroying civilization.

You didn't anwser the question, why is it Russia that should stand down and let her ally be attacked? America is the unilaterally acting aggressor here.

Quite. Standing down now would be very dangerous in the long term as well. Because it would set a precedent for the future that encourages the notion that the defender will stand down. Thus promoting future games of chicken.

On the other hand, the two superpowers blinking at the brink of the Cuban missile crisis rather than going to the wall over the matter turned out to be good in the long run.

Seriously, what sort of "face" is the US going to lose by NOT attacking Syria? Does anyone doubt that US could steamroll through any Middle Eastern country at will? Wouldn't we gain face with the entire rest of the world by bowing to the majority this time?

How much is Syria worth? That's what it comes down to. Yes, absolutely what happened was horrible and against "international norms" or whatever the hell it's being called this week. Even so, it's not worth starting WWIII. As horrific and terrible as the Syrian civil war has been doing something that draws in other combatants will only make things worse. It will only kill even more people. I see no gain from intervention in this. If someone else does please explain it to the rest of us.

IF the war spills over the borders of Syria that's a different matter - and I don't mean just refugees, I mean fighting. Until that happens, though, I don't think the rest of the world will buy into intervention no matter how horrific things get. And I suspect the rest of the world might be right on this.

[NettiWelho]

.. defender will stand down from defending something that is really stupid when there is no need to get involved in the first place.

Except Russians are already involved, theyre allied with Syria, Syria is their long-term investment and only base they have in the med, they really dont want the government toppled in Syria.

[Simon_Jester]

He really didn't say a whole lot - it was mostly the "hope - and - change" crap that was everything to everyone. He was able to pull this off because he didn't have a record on anything except being somewhat charismatic on the stump. He won re-election on the back of a class warfare argument against Romney with a generally sympathetic media (You can't tell me that Candy Crowley's interjection in the second debate didn't help Barry).

As for what's next, well, it's getting interesting.

Mitt Romney's worst problem on the class-warfare issue was, well, Mitt Romney. The Republican presidential caucus kind of painted a target on their backs by being unable to field a credible candidate other than Mister Multimillionaire, the former private equity man... in the middle of a recession that most center-left people in America is in large part the fault of Wall Street.

...A Russian warship carrying "special cargo" will be dispatched toward Syria, a navy source said on Friday, as the Kremlin beefs up its presence in the region ahead of possible US strikes against the Damascus regime.

The large landing ship Nikolai Filchenkov will on Friday leave the Ukrainian port city of Sevastopol for the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiisk, from where it will head to Syria's coast, the Interfax news agency quoted a source from the Saint Petersburg-based central naval command as saying.

"The ship will make call in Novorossiisk, where it will take on board special cargo and set off for the designated area of its combat duty in the eastern Mediterranean," the source said.

The source did not specify the nature of the cargo...

I remind you all that "Special" is a code word for "Nuclear." This is Putin telling King Barry the Clueless to back the fuck down.

No, a diplomatic message announcing that nuclear weapons were being deployed to the Russian fleet on the scene would be that. That, then, would be King President for Life Strongman DonPutin the Corrupt telling President Obama* the Clueless** something of that nature.

The thing about nuclear weapons is that if you intend to make a "do this and we will fight using nuclear weapons" threat, you need to actually tell someone. In a quasi-official capacity that makes the message credible. Reread Kahn for information about why.

Otherwise, this is just some random bullshitter talking about a "special" cargo that could be literally anything.

*Come on, you're calling Obama a king, even as an ironic gesture, in the same goddamn sentence that you're talking about Vladimir "Polonium" Putin?" Get some perspective.
**Not even disputing the 'clueless' part here.
______________

Now, more generally I've noticed this pattern, that opposition to Obama has gotten very good about reading very large messages from some very small tea leaves. First you were telling us that the administration "expected" Iran to abandon Syria over chemical weapons use, now you're telling us that a Russian freighter full of nukes is sailing to ammo up the Russian fleet off the Syrian coast. In each case, this is based off one quote by one person who, while they might know about the thing that's allegedly happening, might also NOT be saying what you/the author think they are.

I think you're being one-sided. Putin probably has a big ego. That's the problem. They might not be planning to start World War III, but if neither of them backs down...

I don't deny the fact that Putin has a large ego. He's also not a coward, nor stuck in the mind set that Obama is about nukes being evil.

Doesn't that make HIM the one more likely to kick off World War III by, say, ordering Russian ships to fire nuclear cruise missiles at American ships?

You cannot simultaneously accuse a man of being too cowardly to fight, and accuse him of being responsible for a war.

This Syria adventure is becoming more insane by the hour. If Russia actually deployed nuclear weapons to the region that makes me worried. This is the kind of situation that could escalate badly by accident. Looking around on different forums almost no of Obamas traditional supporters seems to back this. What the hell is he doing?

Personally, I suspect the "unnamed source says 'special cargo,' 'special weapons' is a euphemism for nukes, OH MY GOD THE RUSSIANS ARE DEPLOYING NUKES TO SYRIA" chain of inference is simply wrong.

United States also has nukes in range, why is that not 'threatening with nukes'? (besides, both sides have global nuclear reach without any regional deployments anyway, right?)

Having nukes in range and sending a nuke into a combat zone are two very different things.

To expand on this:

When you take a combat unit in a place where it might fight, and arm it with "tactical" nuclear weapons, that sends a very different message than just, y'know, having "strategic" nuclear weapons parked in silos ten thousand kilometers away. The main reason is that if a ground or naval unit is armed with nuclear weapons, you can predict that the unit has orders to use those nuclear weapons before it is overrun or destroyed by the enemy. Therefore, you cannot attack it without risking a nuclear counterstrike; it acts as a nuclear tripwire.

This is one of the reasons the US deployed tactical nuclear weapons in Germany during the Cold War- to ensure that the NATO forces defending Germany would use those nuclear weapons to defend themselves, and that the Russians would therefore know that any war fought against NATO in Europe would predictable become a nuclear war.

If all you do is say "if you do XYZ, we will fire ze missiles we have parked in our backyard five thousand miles away," an antagonist might think "no, he's not really going to do that, it's a bluff."

But if you say "the 10th Armored Division has been deployed on the scene, and they are armed with ze missiles," then the antagonist knows "realistically, the general of that armored division won't allow his command to be wiped out without firing ze missiles."

It's a more credible threat, but also a serious escalation.

[The Romulan Republic]

Why is it wrong? Because defending Syria is not worth destroying civilization.

You didn't anwser the question, why is it Russia that should stand down and let her ally be attacked? America is the unilaterally acting aggressor here.

I did answer the question.

You may not like the answer, but I don't give a fuck.

America should back down too, but if they don't, then Russia should. Syria isn't fucking worth it. No one country is worth it.

[Zaune]

You didn't anwser the question, why is it Russia that should stand down and let her ally be attacked? America is the unilaterally acting aggressor here.

Because their ally -which is a pretty generous interpretation of their relationship, I suspect- is trying to solve its internal security problems with fucking nerve gas.

[Prannon]

I'm beginning to think that this, for Russia and the US, is a little more than just about Syria. Sure, war between the powers is not worth the use of gas weapons in Syria. But Russian under Putin has been beating a drum for the last decade that says that the world is not a unipolar world anymore. It's not even really bi-polar (not referring to the syndrome).

Point is, maybe my vision is a bit obscured, but it appears that Russia is being a lot braver in asserting itself over Syria. I say this comparing it to the NATO involvement in the Balkans in the 90s, the steady absorption of Eastern European states into NATO and the EU, and the interventions into Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, etc that the West (as an abstraction) has undertaken in the past 20 years or so. In all those cases, Russia would complain a bit but acquiesce in the end. In this case, Russia is sending armed units into the area. When it's not doing that, it's talking about arming the Syrian regime with advanced AA weapons. People are talking about war and armed confrontation, not just with Syria, but with Russian military units. Whether plausible or not, this is part of the dialogue, which is an important part of how the decisions are made.

So, ultimately I think this is somewhat of a dick waving contest in the end. If anything, Putin has bequeathed the Russian state with some personality that is requiring some respect from its peers, and in this particular case you're seeing that personality matured and asserting itself.

[TimothyC]

Mitt Romney's worst problem on the class-warfare issue was, well, Mitt Romney. The Republican presidential caucus kind of painted a target on their backs by being unable to field a credible candidate other than Mister Multimillionaire, the former private equity man... in the middle of a recession that most center-left people in America is in large part the fault of Wall Street.

I do not dispute this.

No, a diplomatic message announcing that nuclear weapons were being deployed to the Russian fleet on the scene would be that. That, then, would be King President for Life Strongman DonPutin the Corrupt telling President Obama* the Clueless** something of that nature.

The "King" part was in fact intended as a jab at how he acts - and the fits he throws when he doesn't get his way (notice the "It's not my fault" statement in Sweden when it started to look like he would lose the vote). And I'll be including that in a polite response.

Otherwise, this is just some random bullshitter talking about a "special" cargo that could be literally anything.

The problem Simon, is that "Special" is universally and singularly used as a euphemism for nuclear weapons. Now, it is possible that there has been a translation error, or that the Russian source isn't using the normal nomenclature, but if we discount these possibilities (and not I admit that both are possible) then we're left with the fact that the Russians have decided to escalate the situation.

Now, more generally I've noticed this pattern, that opposition to Obama has gotten very good about reading very large messages from some very small tea leaves. First you were telling us that the administration "expected" Iran to abandon Syria over chemical weapons use, now you're telling us that a Russian freighter full of nukes is sailing to ammo up the Russian fleet off the Syrian coast. In each case, this is based off one quote by one person who, while they might know about the thing that's allegedly happening, might also NOT be saying what you/the author think they are.

It's a possibility, but the possibility that the Russians are escalating the situation shouldn't be ignored. As for the tea leaves, yes, I do tend to read a lot into them, and I do tend to take the assumptions that look the worst for the current president - but that's exactly in line with the political track here that was taken against

You cannot simultaneously accuse a man of being too cowardly to fight, and accuse him of being responsible for a war.

It's not that Obama is too cowardly to fight, it's that he's too cowardly to do the right thing and back down not only because Don Putin can't afford not to save face, but because Obama has backed the Islamists no less than twice now (Muslim Brotherhood is the other one that can't be disputed), and turning the USAF and the USN into al qaeda's airforce (and that's what supporting the rebels would be doing) is not a good thing to do.

[The Romulan Republic]

The presence of Al Qaeda does not mean the rebels are synonymous with Al Qaeda or that attacking Assad means fighting for Al Qaeda.

I'm starting to think you're just a shill for Putin and Assad. And if you are, please go fuck yourself. Just because I oppose intervention doesn't mean I support Putin or his nerve gas loving buddy.

[Simon_Jester]

I think Timothy's perspective has more to do with the fact that he thinks Obama has handled the current situation in the Middle East very badly, and in a way that plays into the hands of Islamic fundamentalists.

The four highest-profile uprisings of the 'Arab Spring' were in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and Syria. Egypt in particular has a huge problem because the single largest demographic that helped overthrow Mubarak was the fundamentalists- and it looks like that's a problem in Syria too. Calling air strikes in support of the (often fundamentalist) rebels "al Qaeda's air force" is literally inaccurate- but it does express an important point, which is that by intervening in Syria we may be acting to install a government we'll find no better than the previous one.

Otherwise, this is just some random bullshitter talking about a "special" cargo that could be literally anything.

The problem Simon, is that "Special" is universally and singularly used as a euphemism for nuclear weapons. Now, it is possible that there has been a translation error, or that the Russian source isn't using the normal nomenclature, but if we discount these possibilities (and not I admit that both are possible) then we're left with the fact that the Russians have decided to escalate the situation.

The Russians have every reason to escalate the situation at least a bit. Dropping nuclear weapons into the mix would be an excessive response. But at this point, I would not be surprised if they decided to, say, ship several hundred tons of high-end air defense hardware to Syria.

And yet, for someone who does not speak the precise dialect of American military-industrialspeak, that would be a pretty damn "special" cargo... while being totally non-nuclear.

[Siege]

Nobody here even knows if the original press release was in English or Russian, and so if "special" might in fact be a direct translation from a Russian word that's not be a "universal and singular" euphemism (or even if Interfax is aware of the usage of the word in that fashion). To infer from the use of a single word that Russia is deploying nukes strikes me as more than a little spurious. As Simon said, any country to do so would want to be as clear about it as possible to avoid any potential confusion about just what exactly is going on.

(Frankly it's completely daft to even have an euphemism to refer to nuclear weapons in a wink-wink-nudge-nudge fashion to begin with, but then again the Cold War was a spectacularly stupid time in human history, made only very slightly less utterly brainless by the fact that in the end we decided not to collectively incinerate ourselves.)

Finally, and this is just me idly armchair-generalling, but if I was Russia and I wanted nuclear weapons in my naval base I'd use my large collection of airlifters to just, you know, fly them there. I certainly would not put them on some hoary cargo ship from the seventies in order to sail them past a few NATO fleet elements in a ridiculous re-enactment of the Cuban missile crisis.

[Gandalf]

Mitt Romney's worst problem on the class-warfare issue was, well, Mitt Romney. The Republican presidential caucus kind of painted a target on their backs by being unable to field a credible candidate other than Mister Multimillionaire, the former private equity man... in the middle of a recession that most center-left people in America is in large part the fault of Wall Street.

To be fair, the class warfare stuff was there before Romney was the candidate. The "no skin in the game" shots at the poor were oddly prevalent.

That just makes the Romney choice even more mystifying.

[cosmicalstorm]

Does the Diplomad have a point? There are some eery similarities.

Envious of JFK, Obama Seeks His Own Bay of Pigs Fiasco
Talking to a vaguely Democratic neighbor the other day about Syria, he mentioned something which I have long expected to hear as a DNC talking point, especially on the War Channel, AKA MSNBC: Obama the reincarnation of steely-eyed JFK during the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. I have seen a few stories (here, for example) trying to call up the ghosts of that crisis. I am sure, especially as Putin gets increasingly bombastic about Russia's reaction to an attack on Syria, we will see efforts by the DNC talking point machine to show Obama as a worthy successor to JFK and his "stare down" of Nikita Khrushchev over fifty years ago.

I agree that Obama's foreign policy in Syria can be compared to JFK's Cuba policy, but to an episode earlier than the Missile Crisis. I refer, of course, to JFK's disastrous handling of the Bay of Pigs. As I wrote on the fiftieth anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, contrary to the hagiographic accounts of JFK's handling of the event, it proved,

the classic leftist screw up that risked global disaster, produced a fifty-year disaster for the Cuban people, and ended up being twisted into political gain for a not very competent President of the USA. There would have been no October 1962 "crisis" had it not been for JFK's betrayal of the Cuban freedom fighters in April 1961. Had JFK carried out the Eisenhower plan instead of allowing the freedom fighters to be killed and captured, Castro would have been gone, there would have been no Soviet presence in Cuba, no October Missile Crisis, and very likely no wars in Central America.

Obama is going for another Bay of Pigs, to wit, a half-baked operation lacking in the essential resources needed to produce a favorable outcome for the United States. JFK sabotaged Eisenhower's stright-forward plan for eliminating Castro in favor of a convoluted, ill-supplied invasion by exiles that would not require American boots on the ground until victory was nearly assured. The Democrats seem to love these sort of half-measures because they look sophisticated. Some years ago, it was fashionable to read David Halberstram's classic 1972 The Best and The Brightest. His book, of course, told how the "smartest guys in the room" led the United States into disaster in Southeast Asia. They were convinced that they were, in Tom Wolfe's subsequent phrase, Masters of the Universe; that thanks to their Harvard degrees, and fluency with tecno jargon, they could wage modern limited war as though military conflict were an orchestra responding to the subtleties and delicate nuances of a brilliant conductor. A little more bombing here; a pause there; talk a little; increase the pressure as needed, etc., and that the opposition would come to the rational conclusion that there was no point in trying to match the resources and sheer brilliance of The Best and The Brightest. Didn't work. The subtleties and nuances were lost on a foe who wanted to win regardless of cost, and who knew that eventually the Americans and their Wiz Kids leaders would have to go home. They simply forgot or ignored Von Moltke's observation, borrowed from Von Clausewitz, to the effect that, "No plan survives first contact."

It would seem that Obama wants his own little Bay of Pigs--OK, OK, let's be culturally appropriate, Gulf of Camels. He has no particular plan on how to deal with Assad except to launch a few missiles at some facilities, which by now are either empty, greatly fortified, or both. Assad knows that the full might of American firepower, an awesome spectacle, indeed, will not be unleashed on him. The odds are Assad will survive whatever Obama does to him, and be a hero in the eyes of the Arab world. Don't forget that Saddam appeared as such a hero even after the beating he took in the first Gulf War--he took the punch and remained standing, that's all that matters in the Middle East. Quite frankly, we should probably hope that is the result. If by some chance, Assad falls, wait until you see the jihadi loons who will replace him!

thediplomad.blogspot.se/2013/09/envious-of-jfk-obama-seeks-his-own-bay.html

[Simon_Jester]

Aside from my skepticism about the "Eisenhower Plan" for getting rid of Castro, which I suspect had very low chances of success even with full US support...

Yeah, I think this nails it. The fundamental problem here is the desire to exercise control over foreign countries, without being willing to risk lives and political capital on it. That really only works if you have a big enough technological edge and the means to make it count. Which, in the case of Syria, we probably don't. Kennedy wanted to keep control in Cuba (and Vietnam) and failed in large part because he was trying to micromanage and not making allowances for the hostility and determination of his opponents. Obama could quite plausibly make similar mistakes.

[NettiWelho]

Kerry Tells Lavrov Chemical Disarmament Demand Was "Rhetorical", Not Meant To Be Proposal

U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE JOHN KERRY TOLD LAVROV HIS COMMENTS ABOUT SYRIA AVERTING U.S. STRIKE BY TURNING OVER CHEMICAL WEAPONS WERE RHETORICAL, U.S. OFFICIAL SAYS
KERRY TOLD RUSSIA'S LAVROV IN TELEPHONE CALL THAT HIS COMMENTS WERE NOT MEANT TO BE A PROPOSAL, U.S. OFFICIAL SAYS
KERRY TOLD LAVROV OF HIS SERIOUS SKEPTICISM WHEN LAVROV OFFERED TO EXPLORE THE IDEA, U.S. OFFICIAL SAYS
KERRY TOLD LAVROV THE UNITED STATES IS NOT GOING TO "PLAY GAMES" BUT IF THERE WAS A SERIOUS PROPOSAL U.S. WOULD TAKE A LOOK AT IT
KERRY TOLD LAVROV THE IDEA WILL NOT BE A REASON TO DELAY OBAMA ADMINISTRATION EFFORTS TO SECURE CONGRESSIONAL AUTHORIZATION TO USE FORCE AGAINST SYRIA

[Broomstick]

Over the past week, opinion polls given to Americans have gone from about 60% against intervention/airstrikes to about 80% against today. None of the polls are particularly stringent or scientific but might well be an indication of mounting opposition. I'm hoping this is enough to influence Congress to vote "no" to intervention.

What happens if Congress does vote no is a different matter.

[Thanas]

Given that congress is a bunch of cowards I doubt they will do much. I expect them to either do nothing or pass some kind of compromise which allows Obama to go ahead and congress to wash their hands of it if he does.

[Broomstick]

Hmm... well, for a lot of topics maybe but this involves the powers and limits of both the legislative and executive branches, which have been in contention pretty much since the beginning of the nation. It's never come to a head because every other time the PotUS has asked Congress to authorize military action Congress has said "yes". If they say anything other than an unequivocal "yes" it will be without precedent.

Potentially, you could have a situation where Congress says "no", Obama says "do it anyway", and the military obeys Congress instead of the PotUS, because the military swears allegiance not to the president but to the constitution and the constitution supposedly gives the power to declare war to Congress, not the president. Although the PotUS is the Commander in Chief the military is not supposed to obey an unlawful command. While the executive branch tends to favor the notion that what president orders is inherently lawful not everyone else shares that opinion.

That odds of that, from where we sit, are admittedly quite low.

Personally, I'm hoping that the Russians might broker a deal involving Syria surrendering chemical stockpiles in return for the US standing down.

I also think that "helping the Syrians" might be done more effectively by supplying help to those countries now hosting hundreds of thousands of refugees who need food, shelter, and medical care, or by air-dropping gas masks and atropine doses in convenient dispensers over vulnerable urban areas to reduce the effectiveness of poison gas. But hey, what do I know?

[Sea Skimmer]

I like that some opinions in congress are suddenly being swayed by videos of dead and dying children that were on liveleak three hours after the attacks happened. Really shows how in touch those idiots are.

[Simon_Jester]

Since I haven't stopped to watch those videos either, I can imagine them being 'new information' to a person who hasn't stopped to watch them.

On the other hand, I have a certain contempt for a policymaker who actually needs information like that to tell them "hello, people are dying." A graphic depiction of one dead baby should not cause a congressman to change his vote, if he had already been informed that babies were dying.

[Knife]

Yeah, I would assume it's either a reference to WP or IIRC, someone used some CS or tear gas there.

[Broomstick]

On the other hand, I have a certain contempt for a policymaker who actually needs information like that to tell them "hello, people are dying." A graphic depiction of one dead baby should not cause a congressman to change his vote, if he had already been informed that babies were dying.

It's not just one dying child in those videos... but should it matter how many?

The videos are being shown to provoke an emotional response, not a rational one. It's an attempt to change votes by horrifying people.

[K. A. Pital]

Very similar tactics of stirring up emotional response were used to facilitate US funding of Afghan mojaheed and justify the intervention in the Yugoslav civil war. Rationalism and warmaking rarely go hand in hand.

[CaptHawkeye]

It's not as if it occurs to Americans that a heavy handed, forceful military intervention will inevitably kill many more children and innocents. A lot of people are still totally absorbed by the idea of the Hollywood-esque "military adventure". One of the worst legacies of the 2nd World War was how attached it left many to this idea, and how attractive it makes war look.