Syria under Bashir Assad (closed end 2014)

[JMA]

Bill, by “removing Qaddafi unilaterally with U.S. or NATO Forces..." you mean declare war on a sovereign nation?

Why the surprise?

You don't remember Operation Just Cause - the US invasion of Panama in 1989 where Noriega was 'lifted'. A 80% public approval in the US for the action.

The US now certainly has the wherewithal to target the leadership of such countries - in other words the cause of the problem - without getting tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians killed through some unimaginative conventional method of removing such criminal leadership.

We can discuss what level of sovereignity a criminal or illegal - non-democratically elected - government can hide behind if you wish.

[TheCurmudgeon]

Why the surprise?

You don't remember Operation Just Cause - the US invasion of Panama in 1989 where Noriega was 'lifted'. A 80% public approval in the US for the action.

The US now certainly has the wherewithal to target the leadership of such countries - in other words the cause of the problem - without getting tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians killed through some unimaginative conventional method of removing such criminal leadership.

We can discuss what level of sovereignity a criminal or illegal - non-democratically elected - government can hide behind if you wish.

JMA, I am not surprised. I was a little surprised to see Bill interested in the idea.

I have no allusions about these things. There is no such thing as International Law; there is only what various actors can get away with. The larger the power, the more you can get away with. We complain about the Crimea but we had much less justification to invade Grenada, although the justification was similar – we needed to go in and protect American students at a university - they needed to protect Russians in the Crimea.