Syria: a civil war (closed)

[J Wolfsberger]

Well, JMA, here goes:

For example your man Wolfsberger states that if Assad is taken out it "would lead to complete chaos". Where did he pluck this from? Sadly he states this opinion (his opinion) as a fact. He gives no inkling as to how he is able to state this with such certainty. You should not fall into this trap as well.

He can speak for himself, but he would probably look at prior cases, recent and otherwise, where dictators have been removed by outside force (Iraq, Libya, etc). He'd likely listen to what people who study Syrian politics have to say. He'd probably at least consider the possibility that various factions would contend to fill the power vacuum left by Assad's removal, and the possibility that the contention would involve violence.

Dayuhan pretty much covers it.

As best I can understand it, you believe that (Point A) launching a few cruise missiles, perhaps in conjunction with some raids by special ops forces, will result in (Point B) an end to the violence and the replacement of the Assad regime with one that will have some probability of being a representative, participatory government.

After offering your two or three cruise missile solution, you were asked to discuss planning, execution, consequences and likely outcomes, all in the context of local, regional and global actors and their interests.

What we've received in response has been insults about anything and everything, directed at nearly everyone, having only the constant thread of assertions of your brilliance. At the same time, your posts show remarkably poor skill at responding to the substance of others posts, instead responding to what you wanted them to have written. (I was very surprised at how far back I had to go in this thread to find any substantive post from you.)

In the U.S., when someone presents a course of action (point A) and a desired outcome (point B), without any discussion of the current situation, the effects of the plan or the full range of potential outcomes and consequences, we refer to it as "magical thinking." It's not a compliment.

I don't respond to many of your posts because I learned to ignore playground taunts around the age of 10. Other than that, your posts have little substance: "there's no there, there."

What do you think would happen if Assad were "taken out", and why do you think that?

Which is one of many questions you should probably answer (absent gratuitous insults to all and sundry and the unproven assertions of your own brilliance) if you want any credibility as a serious participant.

[TDB]

Worth a read http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article...rvene_in_syria

[J Wolfsberger]

Worth a read http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article...rvene_in_syria

From the article:

And as painful as it is to watch, the wrenching reality of a brutal dictator killing his own people isn't a compelling enough reason to justify a unilateral, open-ended American military intervention to topple him.

...

But the notion that we should intercede quickly with some dramatic, ill-advised, poorly thought through idea of kill zones or safe havens without thinking through the consequences of what protecting those areas would entail is a prescription for disaster.

Intervening militarily now isn't about left or right, liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat, or even about right or wrong -- it's really about choosing between being dumb or smart.

Which, I think, summarizes what many of us have been saying.

Well, doom predictions about the impending outbreak of chaos always remind me of the tired Hollywood fiction that you need to keep people ignorant of an impending disaster in order to "avoid panic".

Let's face it; the assumption that chaos would break out (for any serious duration) is what result you get if you switch your brain first into sleep mode and then ask it for a prediction.

There's no real intellect, knowledge or originality required for such a conclusion. It's simple the arch-conservative basic instinct at work - the one that tells people that all deviation from the status quo is creepy.

I'm not sure I agree that the assumption that chaos will break out is silly. But I'm reasonably sure that if we do nothing, the current situation in Syria will resolve itself the way such things typically do: those in rebellion will be killed or cowed into submission, and everyday life will, over the course of a few years, revert to the status quo.

As I've written above, if the Syrian people want a different outcome, they're the ones who will have to achieve it. If the other Arab countries want a different outcome, they have the aircraft, tanks, artillery, guns, troops, etc. to try and bring it about. The only thing the intervention of the "Great Satan" can achieve is giving everyone a foreigner to focus their hate on.

[JMA]

Worth a read http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article...rvene_in_syria

Staggering arrogance... he ends with:

Intervening militarily now isn't about left or right, liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat, or even about right or wrong -- it's really about choosing between being dumb or smart.

So if you agree with him (don't support intervention) you are smart but if you don't (by supporting intervention) you are dumb.

Pity because there was some good content in that piece.

[Fuchs]

Well, doom predictions about the impending outbreak of chaos always remind me of the tired Hollywood fiction that you need to keep people ignorant of an impending disaster in order to "avoid panic".

Let's face it; the assumption that chaos would break out (for any serious duration) is what result you get if you switch your brain first into sleep mode and then ask it for a prediction.

There's no real intellect, knowledge or originality required for such a conclusion. It's simple the arch-conservative basic instinct at work - the one that tells people that all deviation from the status quo is creepy.

[Entropy]

Well, doom predictions about the impending outbreak of chaos always remind me of the tired Hollywood fiction that you need to keep people ignorant of an impending disaster in order to "avoid panic".

Let's face it; the assumption that chaos would break out (for any serious duration) is what result you get if you switch your brain first into sleep mode and then ask it for a prediction.

There's no real intellect, knowledge or originality required for such a conclusion. It's simple the arch-conservative basic instinct at work - the one that tells people that all deviation from the status quo is creepy.

Yes, but the opposite conclusion suffers from the same problem. Generally it's bad form to make grandiose predictions about what might happen absent some serious analysis and supporting arguments. With respect to Syria there are some good reasons to expect a civil war and not an orderly transition, but there is a lot of uncertainty over what would/could happen.

[Entropy]

Not sure if it's been posted here yet, but here is some more "big picture" analysis from Mark Safranski.

[J Wolfsberger]

Not sure if it's been posted here yet, but here is some more "big picture" analysis from Mark Safranski.

Thanks for the pointer.

The problem is not intervention per se but an otherworldly posture of Western policy makers that embraces tactical geopolitics – i.e. each intervention (Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq), undertaken whenever chance arises somehow exists on it’s own terms, in splendid isolation. It doesn’t, except in NATO capitols.

and

We are now the ones backing others into corners. Iran, North Korea, Syria, Zimbabwe and other states ruled by kleptocrats and monsters act as buffers for China and Russia. Aside from the benefits these failed states can bring as customers for military hardware or sellers of raw materials, the attention of Western statesmen and human rights activists are diverted by the cause du jour in these hellholes, rather than being focused on what Beijing and Moscow might be up to at home or abroad. Every dismantling of an anti-Western dictatorship, from their perspective, is a step closer to their direct confrontation with the West’s hyperactive, erratic, morally hypocritical, meddling, ruling elite who will be no more able to ignore “grave injustices” in Wuhai or Kazan than they could in Aleppo or Benghazi.

I've heard several Russian Generals, politicians and academicians speaking on Voice of Russia describe the U.S. as an international bully, going from country to country and kicking out any government that displeases us in order to replace it with a puppet of our making. To them, NATO is nothing more than the tool the American Empire uses to add the troops of supplicant allies to our own.

I don't think this is propaganda tossed out for domestic consumption. This is the way the world looks from Moscow.

Since Syria is their last ally in the region, it seems safe to assume that any U.S./NATO/European involvement to topple Assad would almost certainly be met with a strong Russian effort to keep him in power.

[jmm99]

from JMA
Next I would like to comment on that (idiotic) quote from that Marine officer. (I hope he is a Lt at most otherwise the USMC is in a lot of trouble) ... So ignore that idiot Marine officer.

Finding the victim of this defamation takes but a little effort.

First, we find Rick's original post:

Why Syria feels different from Libya
Posted By Thomas E. Ricks Wednesday, February 15, 2012

I've been wondering why I advocated NATO intervention in Libya but don't feel the same way about Syria. I had thought it was because I thought all Qaddafi needed was a good shove, while Syria is more complex.

But I got this note from Billy Birdzell, who was a Marine officer with Special Ops experience and two tours in Iraq who went off and got an MBA (and if you know someone in the DC area who could use that sort of background, let me know and I will forward the note to him). He wrote that, "Killing several thousand Syrians so they don't kill several thousand other Syrians only to leave the nation knowing that several thousand more will die is not protecting anyone."

That strikes me as pretty succinct. It's one thing to provide the means to help finish off a reeling dictator. It is another to wade into a civil war.

Lt. Billy Birdzell turns up in 2004 aka 1st.Lt. William Birdzell, in Dick Camp's Battle for the City of the Dead: In the Shadow of the Golden Dome, Najaf, August 2004, at page 94 (Birdzell .pdf attached).

See also, a related two part article by Col. Camp which starts in Leatherneck Magazine - December 2010; and e.g., Zenith Press, Military Snapshot - A Tank's-eye View in Najaf, Iraq:

Looking through a tank driver's view port down a debris-laden street in Najaf. Note the barrel of the tank's 120mm cannon. Photo courtesy of 1st Lt. William Birdzell, USMC, from Battle for the City of the Dead by Col. Dick Camp.

And, in the April 2007 Marine Gazette, as Capt. William Birdzell for his award winning article. The article was noted at this SWC post:

... April 2007, "For what are we ready?", by Capt William Birdzell

In the conclusion, he notes the five great improvements of the 20th century as amphibious assault, close air support, vertical envelopment, tank blitz, and parachute operations. He credits the Marine Corps with the first three and the Germans with the rest.

Some here may know him personally - It's a small Corps.

I stand by the Marine who was defamed.

Regards

Mike

[JMA]

Finding the victim of this defamation takes but a little effort.

First, we find Rick's original post:

Lt. Billy Birdzell turns up in 2004 aka 1st.Lt. William Birdzell, in Dick Camp's Battle for the City of the Dead: In the Shadow of the Golden Dome, Najaf, August 2004, at page 94 (Birdzell .pdf attached).

See also, a related two part article by Col. Camp which starts in Leatherneck Magazine - December 2010; and e.g., Zenith Press, Military Snapshot - A Tank's-eye View in Najaf, Iraq:

And, in the April 2007 Marine Gazette, as Capt. William Birdzell for his award winning article. The article was noted at this SWC post:

Some here may know him personally - It's a small Corps.

I stand by the Marine who was defamed.

Regards

Mike

Oh here we go then... happy to hear from the horses mouth why his (the following statement) is not totally idiotic:

"Killing several thousand Syrians so they don't kill several thousand other Syrians only to leave the nation knowing that several thousand more will die is not protecting anyone."

He is so wide of the mark it is obvious he has not thought the whole issue carefully through.

[JMA]

I must admit that I am mostly in agreement with the sentiments expressed in the document Presidential Study Directive on Mass Atrocities

It has a clear opening statement as follows:

Preventing mass atrocities and genocide is a core national security interest and a core moral responsibility of the United States.

Dated August 04, 2011 with a 120 day to commence work deadline. Has it made the deadline, who knows? Will it ever be more than a talk-shop, who knows.

But what it does is makes it clear that preventing mass atrocities is in the nation interest of the US. Good, so now the world knows what the current Administration sees as being in National Interest... so let there be no more of the nonsense around here that action envisaged in terms of the above document not being in the US national interest unless prefixed with "in my personal opinion".

[J Wolfsberger]

Lt. Billy Birdzell turns up in 2004 aka 1st.Lt. William Birdzell, in Dick Camp's Battle for the City of the Dead: In the Shadow of the Golden Dome, Najaf, August 2004, at page 94 (Birdzell .pdf attached).

...

Some here may know him personally - It's a small Corps.

I stand by the Marine who was defamed.

Regards

Mike

Especially easy to do when you consider the source of the defamation.

[JMA]

Well, doom predictions about the impending outbreak of chaos always remind me of the tired Hollywood fiction that you need to keep people ignorant of an impending disaster in order to "avoid panic".

Let's face it; the assumption that chaos would break out (for any serious duration) is what result you get if you switch your brain first into sleep mode and then ask it for a prediction.

There's no real intellect, knowledge or originality required for such a conclusion. It's simple the arch-conservative basic instinct at work - the one that tells people that all deviation from the status quo is creepy.

Such predictions of doom and gloom or the opposite made unsupported by facts is always dangerous if they are used as a basis for decision making around a military intervention.

Intelligent people will indeed realise this danger.

I have no access to current intel on Syria so I will just stick to a position that the longer the internal strife is allowed to continue the more people (combatants and civilians) will be killed both before and after the the current regime falls. The quicker the regime's butchery is brought to an end the less the need for vengeance there will be.

Arming the opposition will prolong the violence and provide the means to exert payback after the regime collapses.