Trump's Playing With His Military Toys!

[Big RR]

OK, but what after that. Do we oust Asaad and if we do, who do we replace him with. which rebels do we align with? What about the Caliphate? And what do we do with all the refugees displaced by our actions--send them to some hellhole of a camp because they are not welcome here? No, acting without a plan and a goal might please the testosterone fueled among us, but it accomplishes little other than a lot of death and destruction, and an engendered hatred among the locals who see us as only making their lives worse--creating many more potential jihadists.

Face it, republican or democrat, we suck at intervention (except in Gulf War 1 when we had limited objectives and withdrew when they were met, and look how many howled about that). Other than getting Iraq out of Kuwait, when has our military action achieved its desired goals (if there even were any at the outset)? I might give a slight nod to Grenada, but was the alternative so much worse that it justified the cost?

[oldr_n_wsr]

Guess Trump is making good on the red line in the sand.

I agree with LJ, any Assad aircraft should be taken out (on the ground or in the air).

You think that this might also be a warning to North Korea?

ETA

Do we oust Asaad and if we do, who do we replace him with.

Leave him there. If he screws up, hit him. If he screws up again, hit him harder.
No more nation building, but some discipline subtle guidance.

[Lord Jim]

BTW, the same feller who was recently quoted in another thread for badly underestimating the Trump Threat back in June of 2015, nailed this one:

Even Obama himself had to admit that Syria continues to use chemical weapons, in his UN speech...

The whole premise of the "deal " was ludicrous. It would be like the chief of police making a deal with the local meth kingpin along these lines:

"Okay Mr. Kingpin, you tell us where you keep all your meth and your meth making equipment, and we'll go and seize it or destroy it. Then we'll be on our way and leave you alone."

So, not a surprise that Assad still has them and still uses them...

[Lord Jim]

we suck at intervention

Perhaps, but we suck even worse at non-intervention, and the situation in Syria is a case study in what happens when the US engages in non-intervention...

it creates a very sucky situation...

who do we replace him with. which rebels do we align with? What about the Caliphate?

Today, those are fairly complicated questions, but of course they were pretty simple questions to answer had we acted appropriately when this whole thing began...

At that time, what rebels to align with and who to replace him with was pretty obvious...(except apparently to Obama; though Hillary Clinton laid out during the campaign pretty much the same strategy that we should have followed...as I said before, if Hillary Clinton had been elected in 2008, we would most likely not have mess we have today in Syria)

At the time, we should have created a no-fly zone near the Turkish border where we could have used the hundreds of trained Syrian military officers and thousands of trained Syrian enlisted soldiers who abandoned Assad because they would not follow orders to fire on their own unarmed citizens, as the core for a military force to train and support.

That approach would have rallied many to an indigenous Syrian pro-Western pro-democracy force. And once this force was properly trained and equipped, we could have backed it up with air power to either topple Assad or force him from power.

We could have done this with air power, equipment for this force, and perhaps a thousand training troops...We could have taken a leadership role and involved our NATO allies, and allies in the region (who want nothing to do with Assad or his Iranian backers)

We wouldn't be dealing with an Islamist terror-pseudo-state caliphate, because it would never have come into existence...

The strongest recruiting argument that ISIS and the other radical Jihadist groups that now hold so much power in Syria made was, "the West doesn't care about you, they won't help you. Join us, and we will bring down Assad"...

But that was then, this is now, and as I said US inaction has made the situation much more complicated....

acting without a plan and a goal might please the testosterone fueled among us, but it accomplishes little

I agree with you. So here's a plan and a goal:

What probably needs to happen now, is for an international force involving 20 to 30 thousand US troops and an equal number of troops from our NATO allies and countries in the region (Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, etc.) being deployed to sweep ISIS out and then leaving indigenous forces (like the Syrian Democratic Force and the Free Syrian Army ) to control the territory liberated on the ground...(Western troops should NOT be involved in taking the lead in occupation)

This would create the predicate for forcing Assad from power...

And of course we now have to also deal with the Russians...

We should swallow hard and agree to allow them to keep their naval base at Tartus in exchange for them accepting the departure of Assad and his regime...

Then after peace and a transitional government is established, we (and by "we" I don't mean just the US...but also our allies, including specifically the wealthy Gulf States) need to pour in reconstruction aid and personnel...

Then the question of "where do the Syrian refugees go?" answers itself...

They go home, where (with our help) they rebuild a New Syria...

Teachers return to teaching in new schools, laborers have plenty of construction work, small business folks return to plying their trades, farmers return to resume growing food...

So there's a "plan and a goal" for you...

[Sue U]

For all the chest-thumping and saber-rattling, the attack on the Sharyat air base achieved no substantive military objective, does nothing to alter the course of the Syrian civil war, and has clumsily and pointlessly inserted the U.S. into a foreign conflict that involves numerous warring parties with irreconcilable goals, and which is frankly not our problem, except to the extent of our moral obligation to provide safe resettlement for refugees -- which is exactly the one thing this Administration steadfastly refuses to do.

So you bombed a government airfield. Now what? Do you think the Russians won't supply Assad with more aircraft and use their own to fill in during the interim? Are you going to keep bombing things until you end up in direct conflict with Russia? How much are you strengthening ISIS, al-Nusra and other jihadist factions?

To those who support this strike and even more intervention, I again ask you to answer the same questions I have been asking for four years:

What are the the U.S. national interest(s) in Syria in general, and what are the U.S. interest(s) in the Syrian civil war? How does any action or policy effectively advance any such interest(s) and what are the costs as compared to the benefits? How do U.S. interests align or conflict with those of all the other parties involved, including other regional and global actors? What is the ultimate goal, how likely is it to be achieved, and how long will it take? What will be the result of failure to achieve any or all of these objectives and how will such failure be handled? How are you going to convince the American public to support this program with their blood and treasure?

Without actually having some real answers to these questions, any U.S. involvement in Syria's internal conflict is a serious mistake.

[BoSoxGal]

The tragedy in Syria is heartbreaking, the plight of refugees painful to contemplate.


Meanwhile @ 6 million people have perished in the DRC, the rape capital of the world where children grow up surrounded by atrocities, and it barely ever makes the news.


Priorities, I suppose.

[Lord Jim]

I again ask you to answer the same questions I have been asking for four years:

Oh yeah, I remember that...

You can have the same answer I gave you then:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=14288&p=178577&hili ... in#p178577



ETA:

I also have serious questions about the actual military value of this, (as I've said, I'm in the camp that believes we should have done much more) but if the one and only thing achieved by this is to help drive a wedge between Trump and Putin, that alone made it worth doing...

[Sue U]

who do we replace him with. which rebels do we align with? What about the Caliphate?

Today, those are fairly complicated questions, but of course they were pretty simple questions to answer had we acted appropriately when this whole thing began...

At that time, what rebels to align with and who to replace him with was pretty obvious...(except apparently to Obama; though Hillary Clinton laid out during the campaign pretty much the same strategy that we should have followed...as I said before, if Hillary Clinton had been elected in 2008, we would most likely not have mess we have today in Syria)

At the time, we should have created a no-fly zone near the Turkish border where we could have used the hundreds of trained Syrian military officers and thousands of trained Syrian enlisted soldiers who abandoned Assad because they would not follow orders to fire on their own unarmed citizens, as the core for a military force to train and support.

That approach would have rallied many to an indigenous Syrian pro-Western pro-democracy force. And once this force was properly trained and equipped, we could have backed it up with air power to either topple Assad or force him from power.

We could have done this with air power, equipment for this force, and perhaps a thousand training troops...We could have taken a leadership role and involved our NATO allies, and allies in the region (who want nothing to do with Assad or his Iranian backers)

We wouldn't be dealing with an Islamist terror-pseudo-state caliphate, because it would never have come into existence...

The above, of course, is pure fantasy because it ignores all of the complicating factors that led to the civil war in the first place, the regional and global interests in prolonging it, and the conflicting objectives of all the various participants, as well as the fact that the "Free Syrian Army" could never have been more than a military joke compared to the actual Syrian army.

And even if there could have been a successful military operation to dislodge Assad from power, there was never a credible political solution for governance.

What probably needs to happen now, is for an international force involving 20 to 30 thousand US troops and an equal number of troops from our NATO allies and countries in the region (Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, etc.) being deployed to sweep ISIS out and then leaving indigenous forces (like the Syrian Democratic Force and the Free Syrian Army ) to control the territory liberated on the ground...(Western troops should NOT be involved in taking the lead in occupation)

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Good luck with that!

This would create the predicate for forcing Assad from power...

No it wouldn't. It would just give Assad one fewer enemy to fight in the ongoing civil war.

And of course we now have to also deal with the Russians...

... whose fundamental involvement in Syria was to prevent "regime change" at the hands of the U.S.

We should swallow hard and agree to allow them to keep their naval base at Tartus in exchange for them accepting the departure of Assad and his regime...

"Let" them? Exactly whose country do you think this is?

So there's a "plan and a goal" for you...

Whatever you're smoking, you should probably lay off for a bit.

[Sue U]

I again ask you to answer the same questions I have been asking for four years:

Oh yeah, I remember that...

You can have the same answer I gave you then:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=14288&p=178577&hili ... in#p178577

Your only "answer" then was that it was in the security interest of the U.S. to fight ISIS in Syria and Iraq so they wouldn't spread to Lebanon and Jordan.

Apart from the fundamental incapability of ISIS to extend geographic control that far, how does attacking Assad and toppling his regime further this interest? Moreover, do you think the Russians will just stand by and let this happen?

[Lord Jim]

Your only "answer" then was that it was in the security interest of the U.S. to fight ISIS in Syria and Iraq so they wouldn't spread to Lebanon and Jordan.

No, actually, I said a lot more than that:

Well Sue, I ignored that nonsense the first time you posted it, but since you insist...

Regarding the national security questions:

It's pretty much pointless for you and I to get into a debate over that because we are on such completely different planets in terms of how to define it. If I were to say that if ISIS isn't stopped in Syria and Iraq, they could go on to Jordan and Lebanon, your response would probably be "so what?"

I see the best way to protect US national security interests being dealing with threats early on and at a distance if possible. The fight against Islamo-facist terrorism in general and ISIS in particular meets that criteria.

On the other hand,I get the impression that you wouldn't see anything short of an invasion fleet sitting off the coast of New Jersey as a national security threat...

As to that ridiculous series of questions like:

Estimate the likelihood of success in achieving that result and over what period of time.

7. What are the likely consequenes of failure at every stage, and how are they going to be handled?

You couldn't have justified the US entry into WW II using the sort of criteria you are insisting on...

It was clear to me the first time I read through those questions that whole purpose for them was to set up a standard so hopelessly specific and detailed that virtually no US military action, any where, any time, under any circumstances could ever be justified.

Sorry, you'll have to find somebody else to play with that tar baby. I completely reject the standards and criteria you are attempting to set to justify US action, so I will not use them as acceptable standard that needs to be satisfied.

by the way our engagement in 2013 eliminated the use and most if not all of the stockpiles of the Syrian government's chemical weapons.

That ranks up with your assertion that Turkey and the Gulf States think the Iran nuke cave-in is just peachy, on the Total Horseshit Meter...

Even Obama himself had to admit that Syria continues to use chemical weapons, in his UN speech...

The whole premise of the "deal " was ludicrous. It would be like the chief of police making a deal with the local meth kingpin along these lines:

"Okay Mr. Kingpin, you tell us where you keep all your meth and your meth making equipment, and we'll go and seize it or destroy it. Then we'll be on our way and leave you alone."

So, not a surprise that Assad still has them and still uses them...

As usual, Obama got rolled...

[Sue U]

You must be hard of reading:

how does attacking Assad and toppling his regime further this interest? Moreover, do you think the Russians will just stand by and let this happen?

ETA:

As to your quoted post above, everything after the first six sentences was non-responsive to the questions, and just a lame excuse for not answering them.

[Lord Jim]

As to your quoted post above, everything after the first six sentences was non-responsive to the questions, and just a lame excuse for not answering them.

No, actually they were a spot on response, exposing the lame nature of your questions...

Moreover, do you think the Russians will just stand by and let this happen?

Well clearly they were prepared to do that initially, since it was several years after the uprising began and threatened Assad's regime, (coupled with several years of US dithering inaction) before they came rushing in...

Frankly I suspect that Putin was surprised by our lack of action, and expected a much more robust response...he didn't want a confrontation with the West over this, so he wasn't initially inclined to get involved...

But he's an opportunist, and when he saw that we were prepared to stand by and do nothing (and particularly after he saw that we had a President that was foolish enough to actually trust him to broker a chemical weapons disarmament deal) he saw a chance to expand his influence and he took it...

What we need to do is convince him that we now are serious, and this isn't a fight he wants...(And part of doing that involves giving him a guarantee on the one real interest he has in that country; his naval base)

I believe this is entirely doable, (but I admit I have zero confidence that this President has the will to do it, or to carry out any of the rest the solid plan I outlined...We would have had a better shot at getting something like that accomplished with Hillary...)

The bottom line on our differences here are this:

You choose to define the problems in a way that make them unsolvable definitionally...

You're perfectly entitled to do this, but I fundamentally reject this defeatist approach and world view...

[Sue U]

The questions I raise go directly to the lessons that should have been learned most recently from our adventures in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, and earlier from Serbia/Croatia/Bosnia/Kosovo. And the questions I raised touch only on U.S. interests and action; they don't even address the interests of our allies and other potential partners in any joint action.

It is not the questions that make a problem unsolvable, it is the answers, or lack of same. Not every problem in the world requires U.S. military intervention, and when one does, there must be crystal clear justifications and objectives, a realistic evaluation of prospects for success, and a contingency plan in case of failure. I am most assuredly not an isolationist; however, I am firmly opposed to using the U.S. military as anything but a last resort and only where absolutely necessary, particularly where doing so may very well result in substantially more harm than good. And so far, I can't see where unilaterally stepping Uncle Sam's big foot into the clusterfuck that is Syria is going to actually yield any positive result.

As should be obvious to any but the comatose, failed states can present significant dangers. What happens when you depose an authoritarian regime in a country already riven by factionalism, sectarian discord and ethnic separatism? What institutions will exist and can survive to preserve a semblance of law and government? Who will run them and how will they gain legitimacy?

I reject your characterization of me as a defeatist; on the contrary, I am an optimist. But I also know that in the real world, not every story has a happy ending. And sadly, tragically, Syria is one of them.

[BoSoxGal]

As is the Democratic Republic of Congo.

[RayThom]

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-peopl ... SKBN179058

[Econoline]

[Econoline]

[Lord Jim]

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-peopl ... SKBN179058

Like I said, at least on this issue, we'd be getting a better policy from Hillary...

the lessons that should have been learned most recently from our adventures in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya,

Yes we should definitely learn lessons from other interventions in that part of the world, but while you apparently believe the lesson to be learned is "we can't do any interventions right" I learn different lessons...

In Iraq we made the mistakes of not going in with sufficient force to secure the peace, (a mistake we compounded by disbanding the Iraqi Army) and not having a sufficient appreciation for the dynamic of ethnic and religious divisions. We ultimately corrected the second mistake under the Petraeus strategy of working with the local tribal leaders, but then had the value of that correction destroyed by the failure to achieve a residual force agreement which would have allowed the US to continue to act as an honest broker between the Shia and Sunni factions.

We attempted the same sort of strategy in Afghanistan, but Obama refused to approve the troop levels requested that were needed to enact a similar "surge" type strategy, so we weren't successful.

In Libya, our mistake wasn't in taking down Qaddafi. We built up a lot of goodwill with the Libyan people over that; I recall that after the terrorist attack in Benghazi, tens of thousands of Libyans poured into the streets for pro-US demonstrations. (It's the only time I've ever seen anything like it; I believe I posted some video of it here.) Our mistake in the case of Libya came from our walking away after Qaddafi was toppled and not providing sufficient support to the pro-Western Libyans to build up their institutions and stabilize the country against the extremists.

Yes, we should certainly learn from these mistakes (bringing insufficient force to bear initially, failing to pay sufficient attention to the internal dynamics and divisions, and leaving the job half-done) and not repeat them in Syria.

so far, I can't see where unilaterally stepping Uncle Sam's big foot into the clusterfuck that is Syria is going to actually yield any positive result.

Laying aside the fact that had we acted in a fairly modest but effective way initially, it wouldn't be anywhere near the clusterfuck it is today, I'm not proposing a large scale unilateral action.

The template for my plan is the first Gulf War; a broad coalition with NATO allies and Arab countries (Assad was long ago kicked out of the Arab League; there is little love for him or his Iranian patrons. A number of them are already participating in the limited airstrike operations we've been conducting in Syria.)

But I'm not talking about anywhere near the kind of force levels that were deployed in Gulf War I; and I'm also proposing that US forces comprise no more than 50% of the force. (US troops made up nearly 90% of the forces in that war)

The kind of force I'm talking about could easily be deployed and in place to move with 3-4 months. Ideally we would get agreement from the Turks to deploy at least a portion of this force from Turkey, (After a lot of dithering they finally allowed us to use bases in Turkey to launch airstrikes ) but if not we could deploy from Jordan and Iraq.

The Western Forces, because of our capabilities would be the tip of the spear in bringing down the caliphate, (something that would be achieved in weeks, not the "years" envisioned under the current strategy) but holding the territory liberated would be the primary responsibility of a combination of regional forces, pro-Western rebel groups and the local power structures.

I would also borrow from the Gulf War I strategy in terms of financing the effort, with all the countries that benefit from the action being expected to bear a share of the cost. (This approach was used quite successfully in that engagement.)

Once ISIS and the other radical groups were routed, US ground forces would be withdrawn as rapidly as possible, but we would maintain a robust air, intel and training presence to help protect the liberated areas, and build up and support the local forces (other Western nations would also withdraw their troops, as ultimately would the Arab countries)

Far from creating a situation where Assad "just had one less enemy to fight", he would now be facing a much stronger and better supported enemy than he has faced to date...

If that didn't bring him to the table to negociate a transition, then in the short term we would be looking at a defacto partition, but at least in those areas of the country that were controlled by Western backed Syrian forces, (and protected from attack by Western air power) people could begin to come home, and we could start reconstruction. (Simply leaving without participating in a robust reconstruction phase would create just the sort of "failed state" you mentioned) And the Syrian forces would now be in a position to far more effectively press the war against Assad and the regions he still controlled should he refuse to yield.

Now, I have absolutely no expectations that the current Administration has either the skill or the will to carry out a plan like this (Donald Trump is no George HW Bush, and Rex Tillerson sure ain't no Jim Baker) but Big RR asked for a plan and a goal and this provides both.

It's a realistic plan, it's a doable plan, and it's a plan that learns from mistakes made in earlier interventions.

My plan involves bringing down the caliphate in a matter of months, and creating conditions in Syria for the refugees to begin to return home to rebuild their lives and help rebuild their country.

Your "plan" (such as it is) seems to consist of giving up on Syria as a country, and doing nothing except standing on the sidelines with a blanket and a hot meal for anyone lucky enough to escape the meat grinder...

I like my plan better...

ETA:

Well Sue, here's someone who agrees with you about the cruise missile attack:

"Those who wanted us meddling in the Middle East voted for other candidates," Ann Coulter, a conservative media personality and longtime Trump backer, wrote on Twitter.

"Trump campaigned on not getting involved in Mideast. Said it always helps our enemies & creates more refugees. Then he saw a picture on TV," she wrote in another tweet.

http://thehill.com/homenews/media/32777 ... ria-strike

Gee, maybe you and Ann should go out clubbing...

Or have a sleep over, put on your jammies, breakout a half gallon of Häagen-Dazs, and watch Meg Ryan movies together...

[ex-khobar Andy]

In the end, cui bono? Syrian children have been dying for years and that did not appear to have bothered Mr T very much. (I think I'll keep calling him that - all bling and attitude.) I am not here to praise Obama's handling of Syria, although he did have the temerity to ask the legislative branch what they thought of responsive action. They declined.

So it's not the kids. Drum roll please. The winner in the Best Supprting Actor in a fantasy drama is: The Donald. Best Actor in the same movie is Vlad the Impaler who has Mr T firmly pinned down so that he can continue to shower him with gold, and has retained the movie rights.

I am not normally a conspiracy theorist. I prefer to go along with William of Occam and his razor, and the simplest answer is usually a fuck-up. Not this time.

[Econoline]

• • “Launching missiles is not difficult. It's what comes next that will be the test of leadership.
    
    “The despicable murderous actions by Syria's President Assad demanded a response. The human tragedy of the people of Syria is beyond comprehension. But we must hope that the escalation of American military force in a region swirling with intractable religious and other geopolitical forces was planned with a sense of what day 2 will bring, day 3, and all the days ahead.
    
    “Tomorrow will bring new questions and new crises. A cruise missile explodes in an instant but the fallout can last for years. With the events of tonight, we, the people of the United States through our President, have inserted ourselves deeper into a very complicated, many sided civil war. It is a conflict that includes Russia and Iran. At the same time, we are also getting deeper in Iraq’s religious-based civil war next door.
    
    “Ever deeper we go. May we all hope for steadiness and wisdom. Many Americans worry that these traits have been lacking in the current Administration. The worry is that events and the world won’t wait for Mr. Trump’s learning curve. We are about to find out.”
    
    — Dan Rather