Syria: a civil war (closed)

[Fuchs]

Yes, but what if they are used, for instance, to protect an offensive? Weapons that are used for tactical defense can help on the offense.

Let's stay serious.
I understand your point, but you overstate it.

The bigger problem is that defence is not decisive. The people or Syria may protect themselves with foreign assistance, but that doesn't equal an end to the civil war, they cannot defeat the regime with defence alone.

The foreign meddling would most likely turn towards supporting the offence of the rebels, just as in/over Libya where bombers -originally supposed to destroy tanks which attack towns - began to pave the way for the rebel offensive by bombing regime defenders ripe for assault.


So the really despicable thing here is not that "defensive weapons" is misleading, but that the hawks pull an old trick and try to lower the threshold to get Western powers involved, expecting that mission creep will then carry the Western powers to what the hawks really want.

It's a salami slicing tactic, and I regret that more than one Western public is stupid enough to fall to such tactics again and again (at least in the current setting; not so sure what would happen in a direct democracy when people discussing at a bar would have a sense that their discussion and their vote may have consequences).

[Entropy]

Fuchs,

I think you're overthinking things. My point about "no such thing as a defensive weapon" was simply to point out that you can't give a rebel movement "defensive" weapons and expect them to use those weapons only for "defensive" purposes. So I think we basically agree and are just arguing semantics.