Moment of Truth In The Middle East.

I thin it's a spring show. It'll be back on around the same time as Justified.

 

Thanks.

 

Agreed

 

I must admit that the retro 80s time frame often leaves me reminiscing about my teen years.

 

Circumstances change. Remove the last 10 years of war and throw in a WTC incident recently and Obama would be able to go anywhere he wanted without batting an eye.

 

Two things-

1. I'm tired of people acting surprised at how they do business over there. Brutal, jacked up, whatever you want to call it - it's nothing new.
2. The men, loyalties, and tactics that make up the Syrian rebels are not secrets. For the umpteenth time, why are wanting/willing to help them?


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/05/w...l=1&adxnnlx=1378383169-ls7vidNXvuJL8mtl7urvoQ

 

[video=youtube;sc0BqXN9BKw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sc0BqXN9BKw&feature=player_detailpage[/video]

 

Because we don't own them. But we could own them. And the price doesn't have to be particularly high, but if there were no rebels, the price would be really high... and so it is cheap. So why not see if we can purchase them away from Russia, amongst others?

 

Interesting view ... never looked at it quite that way. However, the U.S. seems to pick and choose which 'bad guys' get sold the new weapons. If we were to refuse them a new weapons technology at some point, they would be realigned with Russia once again I would think. Russia doesn't discriminate ... if you have money, they have weapons. Plus, Russia's largest Naval base that isn't in the continental Russian country is in Syria so their presence there is pretty dug in.

 

Because I don't believe the risk to worth the reward nor do I hold much hope that if the rebels succeed their masters are all of a sudden going to change their tune or agenda. They'll gladly accept our help out of convenience not because we share common ground in shaping the future of Syria.

 

the we could own them, and cheaply piece boggles my mind. Neither is realistic or practical.

 

Exactly. To me, this has nothing to do with party affiliation or anything silly like that, it's got everything to do with common sense.

 

Cheap in this instance means cheaper by comparison. If we take this whole idea that we aren't going to put troops on the ground in Syria, but we will bolster the rebels with specific strikes, should the rebels win, we have gathered some level of support with very little cost,
comparatively.

If, however, the rebels lose, we write it off as us doing our duty to limit chemical weapons use.

What is, in your opinion, the increase in cost of strategically bombing Syria, whether effective or not? Just straight dollar amount.

 

They don't have to bend the knee and arise American lovers. They just have to be a bit more neutral. Maybe stop supplying munitions, or help smuggle the same into Iraq, where it is in our interest that that stops.

The question isn't how much you are willing to spend to control every action in Syria. It is how much are you willing to spend to limit to some degree their interaction with some of our other interests.

 

It was common sense not to go to war before then, if the only reason it was acceptable was due to the emotions of the time.

 

Emotions certainly played a big part.

 

I understand your point. We just feel differently about the reality of that happening.

 

I also can't help but shake the nagging feeling that both sides are using chemical weapons to some extent.

 

I don't go buy a car just because someone is selling it cheaper than its book value, if I neither want nor need it. Nor do I think that a one-time savings off of the sale price would justify the added expenses (i.e. insurance, maintenance, fuel, etc.) which my ownership would then needlessly cause me to incur.

I certainly don't go buy it in some misguided attempt to proactive prevent said car from being purchased by another, in hopes thwt doing so may prevent the possibility of their running me over with it, later.

Given that we struggled for some months to stabilize Iraq to the point of having even a makeshift police presence, running water, electricity, etc., I find it overly-optimistic to believe in our ability to either bring about or consistently maintain the many advantages which you suggest would occur from our direct involvement.

I'm not arguing that your point is invalid, or that there isn't some advantage to be had, but rather, that such would come at too high of a cost, for such a meager and largely uncertain return.

 

Or hoping that Assad doesn't store these in highly populated areas so that when they're "destroyed" they inflict even more harm.