Monday, August 26, 2013

War With Syria?

It appears the U.S. is moving closer to some sort of military strike:
Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday that it is clear the Assad regime used chemical weapons last week and that Obama believes such action should lead to consequences. He made his remarks from Jordan as United Nations inspectors were investigating the site where the alleged chemical weapons massacre happened outside of Damascus.
"President Obama believes there must be accountability for those who would use chemical weapons," Kerry said. "Nothing today is more serious."
The attack should "shock the consciousness of the world," Kerry said. "This is about the large scale indiscriminate use of weapons that the civilized world long ago agreed should never be used."
U.S. officials have said Obama is considering military options after the gas attack last week left as many as 1,300 people dead. French and British officials have said a limited, punitive strike is under consideration.
A limited strike would allow Obama to say he's following through on his warning a year ago that Assad would incur U.S. "game changing" action if he used chemical weapons, but it would also allow Assad to continue prosecuting a war that has already cost more than 100,000 Syrian lives, caused radicals to stream into Syria and spread violence into neighboring countries, said Tony Badran, an analyst at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
I don't think there is a winning outcome for the United States in this mess.  Do we want Al-Queda or Hezbollah to win this mess?  My guess would be neither.  If 100,000 people have already been killed, this is already much worse than the Iraqi civil war during our occupation, because Syria has only 2/3 of the population of Iraq, and that was the estimate for the number of Iraqis killed since we invaded.  I guess if we are going to do something militarily, I am hoping for more like Libya and less like Iraq and Afghanistan, even though Libya hasn't exactly worked out peachy.  I'd much rather have an anarchic hellhole without U.S. troops on the ground for 8 or 10 years, as opposed to having an anarchic hellhole with troops on the ground.  But, then again, nobody but the most insane loons want troops on the ground.

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