Let's test the partisan pool. Who believes we should have a single boot on the ground in Syria? I for one, believe we should have NEVER been there. We should have never risked American lives in a place that's in civil war (one side with chemical weapons, the other side islamic extremists 'ISIS'). I'd love to hear from all sides...should we have ever deployed any American troops to Syria? If you think it's a great idea then please sound off.
I don't believe we should stay there. We should destroy Assaud, his chemical weapons and his forces then just leave and let them deal with it.
We have no national security interests in Syria and should stay completely out of it. But for our involvement the civil war would have ended long ago.
You're still a firm believer in the 'unbiased rebels'? Can you tell us exactly who's hands the US military weapons systems ended up in when we armed these 'rebels'? If you're going to just deflect...spare us the time
Side note to my previous reply... Do you think President Obama was wise to enter us in the Syrian civil war? Can you please tell us how the Syrians have benefited from this disaster? Let's make a pro's and cons list
Complicated. We should NEVER have meddled in the beginning. Total hands off. But there are other players who fueled this mess - the Saudis, the Turks, other Gulf States, AQ, and it’s breakaway offshoot, ISIS. So even if we had stayed COMPLETELY out of it, the rise of ISIS may have happened anyway. Of course, now we can only speculate on that. But with or without our initial involvement, once ISIS arose, threatening to take over all of Iraq and maybe Syria too, we had to step in and stop them. THEY ARE our enemy. And if they weren’t stopped, Jordan would have been their next target. So I think we had to intervene against ISIS. But that mission is just about done, and I think we ought to TRY to work out some sort of peace involving the Kurds and the Syrian government and get out. Aside from that, we must not take a side in the Syrian civil war. We don’t have to like Assad, but there is no constructive or feasible alternative to his rule. Therefore, our efforts now ought to be to set the table for getting the hell out.
Calling bullshit to the highest regard. Assad was DESTROYING any ISIS criminals in his path. The reason we intervened was because Assad was using too much force. Remember?
the USA created the situation so yeah it should clean it up, none of this would've happened had the US/Bush not gone after Saddam in GW2 for the non existent WMD's. Saddam was a total arse but the world has many leaders like him and there is no rush to eliminate them. Saddam being secular dictator did have militant islamists under control.
No, I don’t. I remember the Syrian army losing huge pieces of Syria to ISIS and ISIS sweeping into Iraq. In the beginning of the attempt to remove Assad, Assad used brutality against demonstrators. I DO remember that. But once this graduated to a full on shooting war, Assad’s army lost ground.
We intervened NOT because of ISIS. We entered there to stop Assad. Who coincidentally is fighting ISIS...
Yes. We are really just getting hung up on timeline and the semantics of “intervening”. We “intervened” with our diplomatic support for the rebels at the very start. We “intervened” when we gave covert training and weapons to the rebels. And we directly and overtly intervened to wipe out ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Those first two “interventions” are the ones I have always opposed. Those were intended to get rid of Assad as you said.
A small percentage of radical Syrians are at war with their own country, people and government. Consequently, our support for these radicals pits us against the vast majority of the Syrian people who are being victimized by the rebels and the war. Yet we use their suffering as an excuse for our being there. It's absurd. Were is not for the radicals and our support of them, there would be no extended war or suffering in Syria.
But Assad's been fighting ISIS and many other terror groups before we intervened. He was dropping massive bombs on them (at the time, Obama said he was fighting the general public). Assad is a BAD dude. Why not let him do bad things to bad people (ISIS)? HE WAS ALREADY DOING IT
you've characterized this civil war completely wrong. The Assad family are brutal dictators and there was popular peaceful uprising against him, you may have been asleep when it happened it was called the "Arab Spring". Not until after Assad began the brutal suppression of pro democracy demonstrators did the militants like ISIS and AQ appear to take advantage of the turmoil.
Obama was attempting regime change # 3 in Syria. That's why Obama armed Al Qaeda and ISIS. Obama's regime change # 1 was in Egypt, the agenda was to put the Muslim Brotherhood in power in Egypt. FAIL Obama's regime change # 2 was in Libya. FAIL Obama's regime change # 3 was in Syria. Kinda looks like another FAIL. After eight years of Obama's failed policies in the Middle East...the entire region is a complete basket case today. A few hours ago Gen. "Mad Dog" Mattis pointed fingers at Obama. While Vladimir Putin played chess...Obama played checkers for eight years.
It’s complicated. Assad is against ANYONE who is against his rule. He has fought against AQ and ISIS, but so have the Kurds. And yet he is against the Kurds too. I don’t mind if Assad and the Russians fight AQ and ISIS. Why should I? It’s a good reason why we should not topple Assad.
As long as Vladimir Putin is the one who really runs Syria, there will be no Islamo-radicals taking control of Syria. But the U. S.? We've already got Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan problems to deal with. We need to get more involved in Syria like we need a worse case of venereal disease! If/when ISIS, ISIL, (or whatever we're calling it this month) ever becomes a problem again IN IRAQ, then we should do what we should have done in the first place -- bomb the living hell out of them from the air -- and NO "boots on the ground". If 20th-century wars taught us nothing else it taught us that from now on, wars are won with AIR POWER! . "Me? Tolerate Islamo-terrorists? You MUST be kidding!"
Assad's rule is not our problem. We aren't deploying troops and drones to ever African slaughterfest.
Bombing campaigns don't work. Scattering cockroaches does nothing in war. Unless of course you're advocating nuclear bombs. Which will never happen
