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United States44191 Posts
On September 08 2016 04:52 Sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2016 04:02 KwarK wrote:
Also unlike Iraq Syria actually has chemical weapons. Iraq had chemcical weapons that we sold them, that they used previously in a war and on their own civilians, and that we were trying to dispose of secretly before the ISIS invasion.
The UN and Iraq were pretty insistent that there were no WMD stockpiles in Iraq before the invasion. Obviously the US went in prepared for CBRN shit to go down but there were barely any cases of it. Syria is a different case.
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On September 08 2016 04:52 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2016 04:49 oBlade wrote:On September 08 2016 04:34 KwarK wrote:On September 08 2016 04:31 oBlade wrote:On September 08 2016 03:55 TheTenthDoc wrote:On September 08 2016 03:49 oBlade wrote:On September 08 2016 03:45 Plansix wrote:
Yet another reason not to vote for Trump: his plan to deploy troops to “defeat ISIS”. Throwing our troops in to fight people with nothing to lose, no future beyond ISIS and with no clear goal or end to the military effort. In an area filled with conflict, chemical weapons and other groups that would gladly join the cause.
If Trump wanted to grant ISIS the greatest recruiting tool ever, all he needs to do is promise to invade Syria to stop them. Just give them the war they have been begging for.
"No, no, don't you understand, ISIS wants you to fight them." The president should have intervened three years ago and that's why this is now an electoral issue. Do you think the U.S. isn't fighting ISIS or something? We're just not deploying into another quagmire. Yet, anyway. What the US is doing in the country is firstly not working, and secondly there isn't a plan, it's just a waiting game as everyone keeps admitting, drone and air strikes and random arms trafficking are chiefly something to point to to pretend you're working on it. It's something the president can brag about at a State of the Union address. He can come in like Professor Farnsworth and go "good news everyone, we blew up another ISIS truck," because there's nobody to ask: is there no endgame, isn't Syria still fractured into a civil war between 5 groups with millions of people displaced and no multilateral coalition working on it? Waiting has only served to prolong and worsen the situation. That's why not going in three years ago was a mistake. Worsen it for whom? Not America surely, not worse than having troops on the ground in a five way melee including chemical weapons in range of American allies and NATO members. For everyone, including America if the cost of intervention later is greater than intervention earlier. What's so bad about chemical weapons that the greatest army in the world can deal with 10 years of suicide bombers and the road blowing up underneath them but couldn't have targeted and blown up chemical weapon stores? This just sounds like an excuse. Um…are you in the armed service or going to serve in this war? Because I don’t think you get to be dismissive of the dangers of chemical weapons if you aren’t going to go over there yourself. And you don't get to call it an excuse.
War is dangerous. You can't just say "chemical weapons" as a cop-out. Show me the documents, present the actual risk to US soldiers. If all you do is say "chemical weapons" it can be anything you imagine it to be, however apocalyptic and unrealistic, it can be 90% of an army of 100,000 soldiers getting their face melted off.* And the idea that you couldn't invade a country because a regime might violate international conventions and use chemical weapons is itself something that justifies intervention, it's not a defense against it.
*Because this is what's actually happened to civilians:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_chemical_weapons_in_the_Syrian_civil_war And this is people without gas masks and the ability to use US military anti-nerve agent autoinjectors (which I recently learned is where Epipen came from).
But this is all moot now since the regime's chemical weapons are supposedly gone and for all we know in this hypothetical the US could have intervened on (oversimplifying) Assad's side anyway.
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On September 08 2016 05:16 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2016 04:52 Plansix wrote:On September 08 2016 04:49 oBlade wrote:On September 08 2016 04:34 KwarK wrote:On September 08 2016 04:31 oBlade wrote:On September 08 2016 03:55 TheTenthDoc wrote:On September 08 2016 03:49 oBlade wrote:On September 08 2016 03:45 Plansix wrote:
Yet another reason not to vote for Trump: his plan to deploy troops to “defeat ISIS”. Throwing our troops in to fight people with nothing to lose, no future beyond ISIS and with no clear goal or end to the military effort. In an area filled with conflict, chemical weapons and other groups that would gladly join the cause.
If Trump wanted to grant ISIS the greatest recruiting tool ever, all he needs to do is promise to invade Syria to stop them. Just give them the war they have been begging for.
"No, no, don't you understand, ISIS wants you to fight them." The president should have intervened three years ago and that's why this is now an electoral issue. Do you think the U.S. isn't fighting ISIS or something? We're just not deploying into another quagmire. Yet, anyway. What the US is doing in the country is firstly not working, and secondly there isn't a plan, it's just a waiting game as everyone keeps admitting, drone and air strikes and random arms trafficking are chiefly something to point to to pretend you're working on it. It's something the president can brag about at a State of the Union address. He can come in like Professor Farnsworth and go "good news everyone, we blew up another ISIS truck," because there's nobody to ask: is there no endgame, isn't Syria still fractured into a civil war between 5 groups with millions of people displaced and no multilateral coalition working on it? Waiting has only served to prolong and worsen the situation. That's why not going in three years ago was a mistake. Worsen it for whom? Not America surely, not worse than having troops on the ground in a five way melee including chemical weapons in range of American allies and NATO members. For everyone, including America if the cost of intervention later is greater than intervention earlier. What's so bad about chemical weapons that the greatest army in the world can deal with 10 years of suicide bombers and the road blowing up underneath them but couldn't have targeted and blown up chemical weapon stores? This just sounds like an excuse. Um…are you in the armed service or going to serve in this war? Because I don’t think you get to be dismissive of the dangers of chemical weapons if you aren’t going to go over there yourself. And you don't get to call it an excuse. War is dangerous. You can't just say "chemical weapons" as a cop-out. Show me the documents, present the actual risk to US soldiers. If all you do is say "chemical weapons" it can be anything you imagine it to be, however apocalyptic and unrealistic, it can be 90% of an army of 100,000 soldiers getting their face melted off.* And the idea that you couldn't invade a country because a regime might violate international conventions and use chemical weapons is itself something that justifies intervention, it's not a defense against it. *Because this is what's actually happened to civilians: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_chemical_weapons_in_the_Syrian_civil_war And this is people without gas masks and the ability to use US military anti-nerve agent autoinjectors (which I recently learned is where Epipen came from). But this is all moot now since the regime's chemical weapons are supposedly gone and for all we know in this hypothetical the US could have intervened on (oversimplifying) Assad's side anyway.
Chemical weapons is one of the numerous reasons not to go into that area. Such as no clear: measureable goal for success or ability to stabilize the region that ISIS occupies. Let’s not even go into the fact that congress never would have authorized a military action of that scale in 2013. And the public was totally against it.
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A federal judge has granted part of a Native American tribe's emergency request to halt construction of a section of oil pipeline in North Dakota.
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe fears the planned pipeline could contaminate its drinking water and sacred lands, as we've reported. The temporary restraining order is "a mixed victory for both sides," as The Bismarck Tribune wrote.
In the motion filed Sunday, the tribe had sought protection for a larger area along the planned route for the Dakota Access Pipeline — which is set to span at least 1,168 miles, from North Dakota to Illinois.
The area not covered by the judge's order includes lands that the tribe is particularly concerned about protecting. Work in that area, west of state highway 1806, started over the weekend, according to Prairie Public Broadcasting,
Tuesday's ruling is part of a larger lawsuit filed in July seeking an injunction against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which authorized the pipeline's construction. As we've reported, "the tribe filed a complaint with the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, arguing that the Army Corps did not follow proper procedure when it gave Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners the go ahead to build the pipeline."
The judge is expected to issue a decision on the matter later this week.
Source
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On September 08 2016 05:21 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2016 05:16 oBlade wrote:On September 08 2016 04:52 Plansix wrote:On September 08 2016 04:49 oBlade wrote:On September 08 2016 04:34 KwarK wrote:On September 08 2016 04:31 oBlade wrote:On September 08 2016 03:55 TheTenthDoc wrote:On September 08 2016 03:49 oBlade wrote:On September 08 2016 03:45 Plansix wrote:
Yet another reason not to vote for Trump: his plan to deploy troops to “defeat ISIS”. Throwing our troops in to fight people with nothing to lose, no future beyond ISIS and with no clear goal or end to the military effort. In an area filled with conflict, chemical weapons and other groups that would gladly join the cause.
If Trump wanted to grant ISIS the greatest recruiting tool ever, all he needs to do is promise to invade Syria to stop them. Just give them the war they have been begging for.
"No, no, don't you understand, ISIS wants you to fight them." The president should have intervened three years ago and that's why this is now an electoral issue. Do you think the U.S. isn't fighting ISIS or something? We're just not deploying into another quagmire. Yet, anyway. What the US is doing in the country is firstly not working, and secondly there isn't a plan, it's just a waiting game as everyone keeps admitting, drone and air strikes and random arms trafficking are chiefly something to point to to pretend you're working on it. It's something the president can brag about at a State of the Union address. He can come in like Professor Farnsworth and go "good news everyone, we blew up another ISIS truck," because there's nobody to ask: is there no endgame, isn't Syria still fractured into a civil war between 5 groups with millions of people displaced and no multilateral coalition working on it? Waiting has only served to prolong and worsen the situation. That's why not going in three years ago was a mistake. Worsen it for whom? Not America surely, not worse than having troops on the ground in a five way melee including chemical weapons in range of American allies and NATO members. For everyone, including America if the cost of intervention later is greater than intervention earlier. What's so bad about chemical weapons that the greatest army in the world can deal with 10 years of suicide bombers and the road blowing up underneath them but couldn't have targeted and blown up chemical weapon stores? This just sounds like an excuse. Um…are you in the armed service or going to serve in this war? Because I don’t think you get to be dismissive of the dangers of chemical weapons if you aren’t going to go over there yourself. And you don't get to call it an excuse. War is dangerous. You can't just say "chemical weapons" as a cop-out. Show me the documents, present the actual risk to US soldiers. If all you do is say "chemical weapons" it can be anything you imagine it to be, however apocalyptic and unrealistic, it can be 90% of an army of 100,000 soldiers getting their face melted off.* And the idea that you couldn't invade a country because a regime might violate international conventions and use chemical weapons is itself something that justifies intervention, it's not a defense against it. *Because this is what's actually happened to civilians: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_chemical_weapons_in_the_Syrian_civil_war And this is people without gas masks and the ability to use US military anti-nerve agent autoinjectors (which I recently learned is where Epipen came from). But this is all moot now since the regime's chemical weapons are supposedly gone and for all we know in this hypothetical the US could have intervened on (oversimplifying) Assad's side anyway. Chemical weapons is one of the numerous reasons not to go into that area. Such as no clear: measureable goal for success or ability to stabilize the region that ISIS occupies. Let’s not even go into the fact that congress never would have authorized a military action of that scale in 2013. And the public was totally against it.
So you've developed these steps for a country to have its self-destruction safe from interruption by the international community:
-Possess and use weapons of mass destruction
-Have intervention be politically risky enough that the ruling party in the US won't risk elections over it
So anyone can follow these simple criteria to turn their country into a wasteland while the planet watches on the sidelines.
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On September 08 2016 05:30 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2016 05:21 Plansix wrote:On September 08 2016 05:16 oBlade wrote:On September 08 2016 04:52 Plansix wrote:On September 08 2016 04:49 oBlade wrote:On September 08 2016 04:34 KwarK wrote:On September 08 2016 04:31 oBlade wrote:On September 08 2016 03:55 TheTenthDoc wrote:On September 08 2016 03:49 oBlade wrote:On September 08 2016 03:45 Plansix wrote:
Yet another reason not to vote for Trump: his plan to deploy troops to “defeat ISIS”. Throwing our troops in to fight people with nothing to lose, no future beyond ISIS and with no clear goal or end to the military effort. In an area filled with conflict, chemical weapons and other groups that would gladly join the cause.
If Trump wanted to grant ISIS the greatest recruiting tool ever, all he needs to do is promise to invade Syria to stop them. Just give them the war they have been begging for.
"No, no, don't you understand, ISIS wants you to fight them." The president should have intervened three years ago and that's why this is now an electoral issue. Do you think the U.S. isn't fighting ISIS or something? We're just not deploying into another quagmire. Yet, anyway. What the US is doing in the country is firstly not working, and secondly there isn't a plan, it's just a waiting game as everyone keeps admitting, drone and air strikes and random arms trafficking are chiefly something to point to to pretend you're working on it. It's something the president can brag about at a State of the Union address. He can come in like Professor Farnsworth and go "good news everyone, we blew up another ISIS truck," because there's nobody to ask: is there no endgame, isn't Syria still fractured into a civil war between 5 groups with millions of people displaced and no multilateral coalition working on it? Waiting has only served to prolong and worsen the situation. That's why not going in three years ago was a mistake. Worsen it for whom? Not America surely, not worse than having troops on the ground in a five way melee including chemical weapons in range of American allies and NATO members. For everyone, including America if the cost of intervention later is greater than intervention earlier. What's so bad about chemical weapons that the greatest army in the world can deal with 10 years of suicide bombers and the road blowing up underneath them but couldn't have targeted and blown up chemical weapon stores? This just sounds like an excuse. Um…are you in the armed service or going to serve in this war? Because I don’t think you get to be dismissive of the dangers of chemical weapons if you aren’t going to go over there yourself. And you don't get to call it an excuse. War is dangerous. You can't just say "chemical weapons" as a cop-out. Show me the documents, present the actual risk to US soldiers. If all you do is say "chemical weapons" it can be anything you imagine it to be, however apocalyptic and unrealistic, it can be 90% of an army of 100,000 soldiers getting their face melted off.* And the idea that you couldn't invade a country because a regime might violate international conventions and use chemical weapons is itself something that justifies intervention, it's not a defense against it. *Because this is what's actually happened to civilians: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_chemical_weapons_in_the_Syrian_civil_war And this is people without gas masks and the ability to use US military anti-nerve agent autoinjectors (which I recently learned is where Epipen came from). But this is all moot now since the regime's chemical weapons are supposedly gone and for all we know in this hypothetical the US could have intervened on (oversimplifying) Assad's side anyway. Chemical weapons is one of the numerous reasons not to go into that area. Such as no clear: measureable goal for success or ability to stabilize the region that ISIS occupies. Let’s not even go into the fact that congress never would have authorized a military action of that scale in 2013. And the public was totally against it. So you've developed these steps for a country to have its self-destruction safe from interruption by the international community: -Possess and use weapons of mass destruction -Have intervention be politically risky enough that the ruling party in the US won't risk elections over it So anyone can follow these simple criteria to turn their country into a wasteland while the planet watches on the sidelines.
or C) no one gives a shit. See large parts of Africa.
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On September 08 2016 02:44 xDaunt wrote:So here is the list of US Military proposals that Trump released today: Show nested quote +PROPOSAL: Immediately after taking office, Mr. Trump will ask the generals to present a plan within 30 days to defeat and destroy ISIS.
PROPOSAL: Mr. Trump will ask Congress to fully eliminate the defense sequester and will submit a new budget to rebuild our military as soon as he assumes office.
PROPOSAL: Mr. Trump will build an active Army of around 540,000, as the Army’s chief of staff has said he needs.
PROPOSAL: Mr. Trump will build a Marine Corps based on 36 battalions, which the Heritage Foundation notes is the minimum needed to deal with major contingencies.
PROPOSAL: Mr. Trump will build a Navy approaching 350 surface ships and submarines, as recommended by the bipartisan National Defense Panel.
PROPOSAL: Mr. Trump will build an Air Force of at least 1,200 fighter aircraft, which the Heritage Foundation has shown to be needed to execute current missions.
PROPOSAL: Mr. Trump will seek to develop a state of the art missile defense system.
PROPOSAL: Mr. Trump will modernize our nation’s naval cruisers to provide Ballistic Missile Defense capabilities.
PROPOSAL: Mr. Trump will enforce all classification rules, and enforce all laws relating to the handling of classified information.
PROPOSAL: One of Mr. Trump’s first commands after taking office will be asking the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and all relevant federal departments, to conduct a thorough review of United States cyber defenses and identify all vulnerabilities – in our power grid, our communications systems, and all vital infrastructure.
Not bad at all. Whatever was changed in the campaign reorganization is paying dividends now. Now all he needs is solid debate performances ... even uninteresting debate performances ... and he'll capitalize on these gains. The military and foreign policy is definitely a weak point for Hillary and the democrats this election.
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On September 08 2016 05:30 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2016 05:21 Plansix wrote:On September 08 2016 05:16 oBlade wrote:On September 08 2016 04:52 Plansix wrote:On September 08 2016 04:49 oBlade wrote:On September 08 2016 04:34 KwarK wrote:On September 08 2016 04:31 oBlade wrote:On September 08 2016 03:55 TheTenthDoc wrote:On September 08 2016 03:49 oBlade wrote:On September 08 2016 03:45 Plansix wrote:
Yet another reason not to vote for Trump: his plan to deploy troops to “defeat ISIS”. Throwing our troops in to fight people with nothing to lose, no future beyond ISIS and with no clear goal or end to the military effort. In an area filled with conflict, chemical weapons and other groups that would gladly join the cause.
If Trump wanted to grant ISIS the greatest recruiting tool ever, all he needs to do is promise to invade Syria to stop them. Just give them the war they have been begging for.
"No, no, don't you understand, ISIS wants you to fight them." The president should have intervened three years ago and that's why this is now an electoral issue. Do you think the U.S. isn't fighting ISIS or something? We're just not deploying into another quagmire. Yet, anyway. What the US is doing in the country is firstly not working, and secondly there isn't a plan, it's just a waiting game as everyone keeps admitting, drone and air strikes and random arms trafficking are chiefly something to point to to pretend you're working on it. It's something the president can brag about at a State of the Union address. He can come in like Professor Farnsworth and go "good news everyone, we blew up another ISIS truck," because there's nobody to ask: is there no endgame, isn't Syria still fractured into a civil war between 5 groups with millions of people displaced and no multilateral coalition working on it? Waiting has only served to prolong and worsen the situation. That's why not going in three years ago was a mistake. Worsen it for whom? Not America surely, not worse than having troops on the ground in a five way melee including chemical weapons in range of American allies and NATO members. For everyone, including America if the cost of intervention later is greater than intervention earlier. What's so bad about chemical weapons that the greatest army in the world can deal with 10 years of suicide bombers and the road blowing up underneath them but couldn't have targeted and blown up chemical weapon stores? This just sounds like an excuse. Um…are you in the armed service or going to serve in this war? Because I don’t think you get to be dismissive of the dangers of chemical weapons if you aren’t going to go over there yourself. And you don't get to call it an excuse. War is dangerous. You can't just say "chemical weapons" as a cop-out. Show me the documents, present the actual risk to US soldiers. If all you do is say "chemical weapons" it can be anything you imagine it to be, however apocalyptic and unrealistic, it can be 90% of an army of 100,000 soldiers getting their face melted off.* And the idea that you couldn't invade a country because a regime might violate international conventions and use chemical weapons is itself something that justifies intervention, it's not a defense against it. *Because this is what's actually happened to civilians: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_chemical_weapons_in_the_Syrian_civil_war And this is people without gas masks and the ability to use US military anti-nerve agent autoinjectors (which I recently learned is where Epipen came from). But this is all moot now since the regime's chemical weapons are supposedly gone and for all we know in this hypothetical the US could have intervened on (oversimplifying) Assad's side anyway. Chemical weapons is one of the numerous reasons not to go into that area. Such as no clear: measureable goal for success or ability to stabilize the region that ISIS occupies. Let’s not even go into the fact that congress never would have authorized a military action of that scale in 2013. And the public was totally against it. So you've developed these steps for a country to have its self-destruction safe from interruption by the international community: -Possess and use weapons of mass destruction -Have intervention be politically risky enough that the ruling party in the US won't risk elections over it So anyone can follow these simple criteria to turn their country into a wasteland while the planet watches on the sidelines.
You mean the Republicans? Because they control both houses of congress and they authorize acts of war. The president is not empowered to invade another country with 50-100K troops unilaterally. Congress would need to approve it.
The US wasn’t intervening in 2013. Obama couldn’t get approval to engage in airstrikes against Syria. That is how uninterested we were in getting involved.
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United States44191 Posts
On September 08 2016 05:30 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2016 05:21 Plansix wrote:On September 08 2016 05:16 oBlade wrote:On September 08 2016 04:52 Plansix wrote:On September 08 2016 04:49 oBlade wrote:On September 08 2016 04:34 KwarK wrote:On September 08 2016 04:31 oBlade wrote:On September 08 2016 03:55 TheTenthDoc wrote:On September 08 2016 03:49 oBlade wrote:On September 08 2016 03:45 Plansix wrote:
Yet another reason not to vote for Trump: his plan to deploy troops to “defeat ISIS”. Throwing our troops in to fight people with nothing to lose, no future beyond ISIS and with no clear goal or end to the military effort. In an area filled with conflict, chemical weapons and other groups that would gladly join the cause.
If Trump wanted to grant ISIS the greatest recruiting tool ever, all he needs to do is promise to invade Syria to stop them. Just give them the war they have been begging for.
"No, no, don't you understand, ISIS wants you to fight them." The president should have intervened three years ago and that's why this is now an electoral issue. Do you think the U.S. isn't fighting ISIS or something? We're just not deploying into another quagmire. Yet, anyway. What the US is doing in the country is firstly not working, and secondly there isn't a plan, it's just a waiting game as everyone keeps admitting, drone and air strikes and random arms trafficking are chiefly something to point to to pretend you're working on it. It's something the president can brag about at a State of the Union address. He can come in like Professor Farnsworth and go "good news everyone, we blew up another ISIS truck," because there's nobody to ask: is there no endgame, isn't Syria still fractured into a civil war between 5 groups with millions of people displaced and no multilateral coalition working on it? Waiting has only served to prolong and worsen the situation. That's why not going in three years ago was a mistake. Worsen it for whom? Not America surely, not worse than having troops on the ground in a five way melee including chemical weapons in range of American allies and NATO members. For everyone, including America if the cost of intervention later is greater than intervention earlier. What's so bad about chemical weapons that the greatest army in the world can deal with 10 years of suicide bombers and the road blowing up underneath them but couldn't have targeted and blown up chemical weapon stores? This just sounds like an excuse. Um…are you in the armed service or going to serve in this war? Because I don’t think you get to be dismissive of the dangers of chemical weapons if you aren’t going to go over there yourself. And you don't get to call it an excuse. War is dangerous. You can't just say "chemical weapons" as a cop-out. Show me the documents, present the actual risk to US soldiers. If all you do is say "chemical weapons" it can be anything you imagine it to be, however apocalyptic and unrealistic, it can be 90% of an army of 100,000 soldiers getting their face melted off.* And the idea that you couldn't invade a country because a regime might violate international conventions and use chemical weapons is itself something that justifies intervention, it's not a defense against it. *Because this is what's actually happened to civilians: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_chemical_weapons_in_the_Syrian_civil_war And this is people without gas masks and the ability to use US military anti-nerve agent autoinjectors (which I recently learned is where Epipen came from). But this is all moot now since the regime's chemical weapons are supposedly gone and for all we know in this hypothetical the US could have intervened on (oversimplifying) Assad's side anyway. Chemical weapons is one of the numerous reasons not to go into that area. Such as no clear: measureable goal for success or ability to stabilize the region that ISIS occupies. Let’s not even go into the fact that congress never would have authorized a military action of that scale in 2013. And the public was totally against it. So you've developed these steps for a country to have its self-destruction safe from interruption by the international community: -Possess and use weapons of mass destruction -Have intervention be politically risky enough that the ruling party in the US won't risk elections over it So anyone can follow these simple criteria to turn their country into a wasteland while the planet watches on the sidelines.
It's like you've only just worked out the entire reason all countries with WMDs developed them, the U.S. included.
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On September 08 2016 05:35 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2016 05:30 oBlade wrote:On September 08 2016 05:21 Plansix wrote:On September 08 2016 05:16 oBlade wrote:On September 08 2016 04:52 Plansix wrote:On September 08 2016 04:49 oBlade wrote:On September 08 2016 04:34 KwarK wrote:On September 08 2016 04:31 oBlade wrote:On September 08 2016 03:55 TheTenthDoc wrote:On September 08 2016 03:49 oBlade wrote:
[quote]
"No, no, don't you understand, ISIS wants you to fight them."
The president should have intervened three years ago and that's why this is now an electoral issue. Do you think the U.S. isn't fighting ISIS or something? We're just not deploying into another quagmire. Yet, anyway. What the US is doing in the country is firstly not working, and secondly there isn't a plan, it's just a waiting game as everyone keeps admitting, drone and air strikes and random arms trafficking are chiefly something to point to to pretend you're working on it. It's something the president can brag about at a State of the Union address. He can come in like Professor Farnsworth and go "good news everyone, we blew up another ISIS truck," because there's nobody to ask: is there no endgame, isn't Syria still fractured into a civil war between 5 groups with millions of people displaced and no multilateral coalition working on it? Waiting has only served to prolong and worsen the situation. That's why not going in three years ago was a mistake. Worsen it for whom? Not America surely, not worse than having troops on the ground in a five way melee including chemical weapons in range of American allies and NATO members. For everyone, including America if the cost of intervention later is greater than intervention earlier. What's so bad about chemical weapons that the greatest army in the world can deal with 10 years of suicide bombers and the road blowing up underneath them but couldn't have targeted and blown up chemical weapon stores? This just sounds like an excuse. Um…are you in the armed service or going to serve in this war? Because I don’t think you get to be dismissive of the dangers of chemical weapons if you aren’t going to go over there yourself. And you don't get to call it an excuse. War is dangerous. You can't just say "chemical weapons" as a cop-out. Show me the documents, present the actual risk to US soldiers. If all you do is say "chemical weapons" it can be anything you imagine it to be, however apocalyptic and unrealistic, it can be 90% of an army of 100,000 soldiers getting their face melted off.* And the idea that you couldn't invade a country because a regime might violate international conventions and use chemical weapons is itself something that justifies intervention, it's not a defense against it. *Because this is what's actually happened to civilians: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_chemical_weapons_in_the_Syrian_civil_war And this is people without gas masks and the ability to use US military anti-nerve agent autoinjectors (which I recently learned is where Epipen came from). But this is all moot now since the regime's chemical weapons are supposedly gone and for all we know in this hypothetical the US could have intervened on (oversimplifying) Assad's side anyway. Chemical weapons is one of the numerous reasons not to go into that area. Such as no clear: measureable goal for success or ability to stabilize the region that ISIS occupies. Let’s not even go into the fact that congress never would have authorized a military action of that scale in 2013. And the public was totally against it. So you've developed these steps for a country to have its self-destruction safe from interruption by the international community: -Possess and use weapons of mass destruction -Have intervention be politically risky enough that the ruling party in the US won't risk elections over it So anyone can follow these simple criteria to turn their country into a wasteland while the planet watches on the sidelines. It's like you've only just worked out the entire reason all countries with WMDs developed them, the U.S. included.
There is also the secondary reason of being able to go on the offensive with them if one wants to such as in WW1 and more notably in WW2.
Theoretically if the US seriously threatened all parties in Syria with Nuclear strikes they could take over the region with all military forces standing down. If they don't they just use them and can take over the land since any organised resistance is dead without any military on the ground.
MAD is stopping this but if the world magically changed so North Korea under previous ruler was the only country that had them they would expand to 10x their current size in a matter of months.
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WMDs are the only reason we don't have large scale war anymore. They are a tremendous benefit to humanity as a whole.
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On September 08 2016 05:49 Mohdoo wrote:
WMDs are the only reason we don't have large scale war anymore. They are a tremendous benefit to humanity as a whole.
WMDs is probably the largest reason but the other weapons just below that tier is also a big reason. Any offensive war is horribly expensive in equipment and lives.
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On September 08 2016 05:51 Yurie wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2016 05:49 Mohdoo wrote:
WMDs are the only reason we don't have large scale war anymore. They are a tremendous benefit to humanity as a whole. WMDs is probably the largest reason but the other weapons just below that tier is also a big reason. Any offensive war is horribly expensive in equipment and lives.
Simply put, offense is a lot easier than defense nowadays. Wanna chop their head off? Gonna lose at least an arm. Probably better to just weaken economically.
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On September 08 2016 05:49 Mohdoo wrote:
WMDs are the only reason we don't have large scale war anymore. They are a tremendous benefit to humanity as a whole.
As someone who grew up fearing the India v Pakistan conflict, they are not that cool. They are cool if everyone is like the US and Russia, with a natural fear of the bomb. But many nations do not have that fear.
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On September 08 2016 05:55 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2016 05:49 Mohdoo wrote:
WMDs are the only reason we don't have large scale war anymore. They are a tremendous benefit to humanity as a whole. As someone who grew up fearing the India v Pakistan conflict, they are not that cool. They are cool if everyone is like the US and Russia, with a natural fear of the bomb. But many nations do not have that fear.
I would argue India and Pakistan likely would have had a brutal war in the absence of WMDs. WMDs gave you something significantly worse to be afraid of. But that thing replaces something significantly more likely to happen. 1% chance of dying rather than 50% chance of losing your legs sorta deal, or at least that's how I see it.
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On September 08 2016 05:35 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2016 05:30 oBlade wrote:On September 08 2016 05:21 Plansix wrote:On September 08 2016 05:16 oBlade wrote:On September 08 2016 04:52 Plansix wrote:On September 08 2016 04:49 oBlade wrote:On September 08 2016 04:34 KwarK wrote:On September 08 2016 04:31 oBlade wrote:On September 08 2016 03:55 TheTenthDoc wrote:On September 08 2016 03:49 oBlade wrote:
[quote]
"No, no, don't you understand, ISIS wants you to fight them."
The president should have intervened three years ago and that's why this is now an electoral issue. Do you think the U.S. isn't fighting ISIS or something? We're just not deploying into another quagmire. Yet, anyway. What the US is doing in the country is firstly not working, and secondly there isn't a plan, it's just a waiting game as everyone keeps admitting, drone and air strikes and random arms trafficking are chiefly something to point to to pretend you're working on it. It's something the president can brag about at a State of the Union address. He can come in like Professor Farnsworth and go "good news everyone, we blew up another ISIS truck," because there's nobody to ask: is there no endgame, isn't Syria still fractured into a civil war between 5 groups with millions of people displaced and no multilateral coalition working on it? Waiting has only served to prolong and worsen the situation. That's why not going in three years ago was a mistake. Worsen it for whom? Not America surely, not worse than having troops on the ground in a five way melee including chemical weapons in range of American allies and NATO members. For everyone, including America if the cost of intervention later is greater than intervention earlier. What's so bad about chemical weapons that the greatest army in the world can deal with 10 years of suicide bombers and the road blowing up underneath them but couldn't have targeted and blown up chemical weapon stores? This just sounds like an excuse. Um…are you in the armed service or going to serve in this war? Because I don’t think you get to be dismissive of the dangers of chemical weapons if you aren’t going to go over there yourself. And you don't get to call it an excuse. War is dangerous. You can't just say "chemical weapons" as a cop-out. Show me the documents, present the actual risk to US soldiers. If all you do is say "chemical weapons" it can be anything you imagine it to be, however apocalyptic and unrealistic, it can be 90% of an army of 100,000 soldiers getting their face melted off.* And the idea that you couldn't invade a country because a regime might violate international conventions and use chemical weapons is itself something that justifies intervention, it's not a defense against it. *Because this is what's actually happened to civilians: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_chemical_weapons_in_the_Syrian_civil_war And this is people without gas masks and the ability to use US military anti-nerve agent autoinjectors (which I recently learned is where Epipen came from). But this is all moot now since the regime's chemical weapons are supposedly gone and for all we know in this hypothetical the US could have intervened on (oversimplifying) Assad's side anyway. Chemical weapons is one of the numerous reasons not to go into that area. Such as no clear: measureable goal for success or ability to stabilize the region that ISIS occupies. Let’s not even go into the fact that congress never would have authorized a military action of that scale in 2013. And the public was totally against it. So you've developed these steps for a country to have its self-destruction safe from interruption by the international community: -Possess and use weapons of mass destruction -Have intervention be politically risky enough that the ruling party in the US won't risk elections over it So anyone can follow these simple criteria to turn their country into a wasteland while the planet watches on the sidelines. It's like you've only just worked out the entire reason all countries with WMDs developed them, the U.S. included.
There are institutions dedicated to stopping the proliferation of WMDs. The US never developed chemical weapons to use on its own people in a civil war.
The US is the only country that developed nuclear weapons to use them specifically to win. Everyone else has developed nuclear weapons for the purposes of defense/not getting fucked with because of (mutually) assured destruction. Chemical weapons are not nuclear weapons. They may be called WMDs but there is no MAD. They're just something for rubes like you to hold up, like a kid trying to find a snowflake to prove school's cancelled. There's an enormous difference between the US not being able to start a war with Russia due to the threat of vaporization of the entire country, and people who are dogmatic noninterventionists digging up random excuses that might sound plausible to justify their position after the fact.
Chemical weapons are bad because they're bad, not because they're apocalyptic like nuclear weapons. The rules of war have worked out that killing civilians in any event is bad, but gassing them is particularly bad in principle. But in the grand scheme chemical weapons aren't consequential, which you can verify on the wiki about attacks in Syria. They don't stop armies, or they would have stopped the civil war. Besides which the regime gave up the weapons, thereby opening door for US intervention in your analysis, right? We can go tomorrow.
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On September 08 2016 05:56 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2016 05:55 Plansix wrote:On September 08 2016 05:49 Mohdoo wrote:
WMDs are the only reason we don't have large scale war anymore. They are a tremendous benefit to humanity as a whole. As someone who grew up fearing the India v Pakistan conflict, they are not that cool. They are cool if everyone is like the US and Russia, with a natural fear of the bomb. But many nations do not have that fear. I would argue India and Pakistan likely would have had a brutal war in the absence of WMDs. WMDs gave you something significantly worse to be afraid of. But that thing replaces something significantly more likely to happen. 1% chance of dying rather than 50% chance of losing your legs sorta deal, or at least that's how I see it.
In hindsight that is an observation you can make. People did not have the benefit of that when it looked like they were going to engage in a point blank battle of atomic weapons. You don’t need to launch a lot of those weapons to do bad things to the environment, weather and cancer rates for the surrounding region. We don’t need more WMDs, we need fewer.
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On September 08 2016 06:02 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2016 05:56 Mohdoo wrote:On September 08 2016 05:55 Plansix wrote:On September 08 2016 05:49 Mohdoo wrote:
WMDs are the only reason we don't have large scale war anymore. They are a tremendous benefit to humanity as a whole. As someone who grew up fearing the India v Pakistan conflict, they are not that cool. They are cool if everyone is like the US and Russia, with a natural fear of the bomb. But many nations do not have that fear. I would argue India and Pakistan likely would have had a brutal war in the absence of WMDs. WMDs gave you something significantly worse to be afraid of. But that thing replaces something significantly more likely to happen. 1% chance of dying rather than 50% chance of losing your legs sorta deal, or at least that's how I see it. In hindsight that is an observation you can make. People did not have the benefit of that when it looked like they were going to engage in a point blank battle of atomic weapons. You don’t need to launch a lot of those weapons to do bad things to the environment, weather and cancer rates for the surrounding region. We don’t need more WMDs, we need fewer.
Sorry, I wasn't trying to minimize the fear associated with the experience. My point is that if I were permitted to make bullshit estimations, I would estimate WMDs have had a net positive impact on humanity.
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On September 08 2016 05:55 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2016 05:49 Mohdoo wrote:
WMDs are the only reason we don't have large scale war anymore. They are a tremendous benefit to humanity as a whole. As someone who grew up fearing the India v Pakistan conflict, they are not that cool. They are cool if everyone is like the US and Russia, with a natural fear of the bomb. But many nations do not have that fear.
Why would you grow up fearing the India Pak conflict? Even I didnt grow up fearing that.
We've gotten over full scare war stupidity in the 60's and 70's and realized there were worse ways to fuck with each other.
I can assure you that both countries have very healthy fears of the bomb, thats why they both got them.
Also hilariously our nukes are way better protected than the US protects its own, which is saying something.
Then again its easy to get lackadaisical when the only legitimate threats to your country are made up bullshit.
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EPT
