Syria: a civil war (closed)

[JMA]

It also evades the point that there are no US interests involved...

I would have thought the US interests were clear. Avoid confrontation with China and Russia at all costs.

[Ken White]

I would have thought the US interests were clear. Avoid confrontation with China and Russia at all costs.

Nah, that's just your interpretation. We have and continue to actively seek confrontation short of war with them. War is sensibly avoided by anyone but probes and small jabs are acceptable and used. If you don't see them, you just aren't paying attention.

As to this:

I do understand your sensitivity about the continued inability of the US to either figure out an intelligent way to intervene or to interevene in an effective manner. Chin up, learn from the Brit loss of empire and drift from 'hero to zero' gracefully.

The issue is not how or if, it is what the US polity will support. That polity is fractured by design just to avoid petty and unnecessary interventions -- the majority of which fail in their purpose in any event. Think Iraq where we did go and Libya where, much to your chagrin and my satisfaction, we didn't go (as far as most know)...

As J Wolfsberger wrote, thanks for reinforcing his point with your admission of such interventions frittering away the troops for no good reason. That's a good assessment.

As for the drift from hero to zero; been predicted (wrongly) for years. Certainly bound to happen sooner or later -- but I bet it will not happen in your lifetime or mine. Nor even my kids; Grandkids -- maybe the youngest who's seven; Great Grandson, probably...

[JMA]

Nah, that's just your interpretation. We have and continue to actively seek confrontation short of war with them. War is sensibly avoided by anyone but probes and small jabs are acceptable and used. If you don't see them, you just aren't paying attention.

Nah Ken, it seems that Americans desperately want to believe that there is someone 'at the wheel' of the US ship of state to the extent of delusion... when the rest of the world can clearly see that with that Laurel and Hardy show (State Department and CIA) guiding the ship the US is becoming less relevant by the year. It's a slow irreversible process but it is sure.

As to this:The issue is not how or if, it is what the US polity will support. That polity is fractured by design just to avoid petty and unnecessary interventions -- the majority of which fail in their purpose in any event. Think Iraq where we did go and Libya where, much to your chagrin and my satisfaction, we didn't go (as far as most know)...

Ken you keep talking as if interventions were a bad thing per se. While I have repeatedly said such interventions get a bad name because (through inept and incompetent handling) they continue to fail.

IMHO intervention was needed in Libya... so did the US Administration.

Where you and I differed (I believe) Ken was that I thought 'how can the US possibly screw this one up' while you knew they could and they would (boots on the ground or not). That is when the last flickering flame of hope I held for the US finally died.

The world watches (some with glee and some in horror) as the President of the US and the Sec of State etc prove to be totally inept in international affairs. The question is who will fill the vacuum... and how soon?

As J Wolfsberger wrote, thanks for reinforcing his point with your admission of such interventions frittering away the troops for no good reason. That's a good assessment.

Correction. My point is that it is the manner the intervention is executed that leads to lives of soldiers being frittered away and not the intervention itself (which may be warranted and justified).

As for the drift from hero to zero; been predicted (wrongly) for years. Certainly bound to happen sooner or later -- but I bet it will not happen in your lifetime or mine. Nor even my kids; Grandkids -- maybe the youngest who's seven; Great Grandson, probably...

There are none so blind as those who will not see. Being nearly 60, in my short life I have seen the US slide in power through my own eyes. It is obviously too humiliating for most Americans to acknowledge.

Don't worry about your great grandchildren, make sure your grandchildren are taught to say 'Sir' in Chinese and how to bow and scrape for what the world is witnessing are the last kicks or a dying horse.

[Ken White]

Nah Ken, it seems that Americans desperately want to believe that there is someone 'at the wheel' of the US ship of state to the extent of delusion... when the rest of the world can clearly see that with that Laurel and Hardy show (State Department and CIA) guiding the ship the US is becoming less relevant by the year. It's a slow irreversible process but it is sure.

You don't pay attention very well -- I've been telling you just that for a couple of years. I've also been telling you that it is by design and most of us are okay with that. We realize it adversely impacts our conduct of foreign affairs but are willing to tolerate that for domestic purposes.

Ken you keep talking as if interventions were a bad thing per se. While I have repeatedly said such interventions get a bad name because (through inept and incompetent handling) they continue to fail.

Again, you aren't paying attention -- I've been telling you that interventions are a bad thing and don't work very well simply because they will usually end up with ineptitude ruling what occurs. IOW, that ineptitude and incompetence are precisely why they should be avoided. The response to that is fix the problems -- not going to happen; it is acceptable and idealistic to want them to be fixed but it is totally unrealistic to expect that they will be (note that they can be fixed, its just that they will not be...). Also again, the US political system is virtually designed to be that dysfunctional and even without that, normal human foibles insure that incompetency is prevalent in 50% of all endeavors.

IMHO intervention was needed in Libya... so did the US Administration...The world watches (some with glee and some in horror) as the President of the US and the Sec of State etc prove to be totally inept in international affairs. The question is who will fill the vacuum... and how soon?

Not going to happen. International affairs for the US are, rightly or wrongly (that latter in my view...), an afterthought to US domestic politics. The concerns and / or glee of the world are noted or known and are ignored because all those other six billion people don't vote in US elections. Many think that's stupid -- all should acknowledge it's reality.

To return to Libya, that was an example -- a predictable one -- of the lack of acumen of some US power brokers.

Yes, I did say it would be screwed up -- I'm still waiting for someone to name me any armed and combative intervention by third parties that did actually work...

Correction. My point is that it is the manner the intervention is executed that leads to lives of soldiers being frittered away and not the intervention itself (which may be warranted and justified).

True and I know that -- but my point is that interventions will ALWAYS be screwed up, thus the Troops will always be frittered away for no good result often and almost never for a result that justifies the costs in all terms.

As for warranted and justified, that is very much a personal preference determination. No government (and the US in particular) is ever going to come to a unanimous, consensual, no arguments position on such actions and those opposed will attempt to stymie, politically interfere or sabotage to one extent or another as best they are able. That factor will always intrude if history is any guide.

There are none so blind as those who will not see. Being nearly 60, in my short life I have seen the US slide in power through my own eyes. It is obviously too humiliating for most Americans to acknowledge.

With near 20/20 vision and over 20 years more experience observing, I've seen that as well. Unlike you, I see it as acceptable, predictable, and totally unavoidable. I have also noted that the slide is not a constant angle but a series of waves both upward and downward with an overall downward trend that gets reversed when we think we just have to do something -- that doesn't happen too often and we are maturing a bit -- slowly to be sure -- so we tend to not get overwrought about aging and declining abilities -- happens to all of us as you'll soon note if you have not already.

To my mind, most Americans are very much aware of that decline, there seems to be general agreement that it is occurring so it is seen and while painful to some, it is less so to others. What to do about it is another issue altogether and there is little consensus on what should be done barring an existential problem and none of those seem to be on the horizon.

Don't worry about your great grandchildren, make sure your grandchildren are taught to say 'Sir' in Chinese and how to bow and scrape for what the world is witnessing are the last kicks or a dying horse.

We can differ on that, no question of talking past each other. The "world" has been "witnessing" that since 1945 and to paraphrase Samuel Clemens, reports of our impending death have been greatly exaggerated. If the kids learn Chinese, it'll be most likely be in order to buy or sell something there.

Descendants engaged in petty commerce is more worrisome to me than Chinese world hegemony -- which, BTW, I doubt is wanted or will happen.

[Dayuhan]

There are none so blind as those who will not see. Being nearly 60, in my short life I have seen the US slide in power through my own eyes. It is obviously too humiliating for most Americans to acknowledge.

Don't worry about your great grandchildren, make sure your grandchildren are taught to say 'Sir' in Chinese and how to bow and scrape for what the world is witnessing are the last kicks or a dying horse.

The decline of the US, to the infinitely arguable extent to which it exists, is a consequence of domestic economic failure. Overseas interventions are a largely irrelevant sideshow and have little or nothing to do with US influence on the larger scale. Sending troops or cruise missiles into disordered backwaters is not going to boost American influence or reverse any hypothetical decline, no matter how it's executed. It just doesn't matter very much.

I see no particular reason to fear the Chinese, but since you evidently do, and seem to see the capacity for military intervention as a critical indicator of ascendancy, you might ask yourself how the Chinese have inspired such fear despite a notable disinclination toward military intervention.

Why would the US want to intervene in Syria? What have we to gain?

The default US position on military intervention overseas logically must be "just don't do it". That default might be set aside if there's sufficiently compelling reason... but is there any compelling reason for the US to intervene in Syria? Any reason at all?

[davidbfpo]

The latest Strategic Comment:http://www.iiss.org/publications/str...nto-civil-war/

It ends with:

Such trends as the militarisation of the opposition and the entry into the fray of Syria's neighbours would be immensely difficult to stop or shape. The real challenge for the international community is to decide how to contain a possibly contagious collapse of Syria.

[J Wolfsberger]

The latest Strategic Comment:http://www.iiss.org/publications/str...nto-civil-war/

A typically knowledgeable, well reasoned and incisive product from IISS. Two things stood out the most:

To mobilise his own community and scare other minorities into supporting him, Assad has had to fracture the Syrian polity in irremediable ways: the state purposely cultivates tensions and rifts within society, and its security services often operate as occupation forces. Syrians of all political persuasions are finding ways of circumventing the state apparatus in order to cope, organise and survive.

Which reinforces the likelihood Assad will win the current round, with much bloodshed. But the additional cost will be the complete and most likely permanent fragmentation of civil society. The consequence will be for things to become much, much worse in the inevitable next time around. Assad will eventually lose power, the questions are when, and how much damage will he do in on the way out.

The prospect of foreign intervention has proven very divisive among Syrians, Arabs and the international community. Desperate Syrians are calling for intervention to protect civilians, often without defining its scope, requirements or the possible identity of the intervening party; others resist this idea on principle or because of the experience of Iraq.

Which is precisely why I've been arguing against any U.S. involvement. There is no way we can do anything without becoming, yet again, the villains of the piece.

[JMA]

Why would the US want to intervene in Syria? What have we to gain?

I generally ignore your posts because you just can't help yourself. You continue to post as if you are speaking on behalf of the US people.

You don't speak for anyone but yourself. Try to preface your comments with 'in my opinion' or 'as I see it' etc etc.

As such I won't even ask who the 'we' is in this instance.