4 ms·

> By who? I mean, I guess there are probably people in the US government who think it is a great idea - but there were people who thought it was a great idea to

> By who? I mean, I guess there are probably people in the US government who think it is a great idea - but there were people who thought it was a great idea to invade Iran. You are on the nose: joint chiefs of staff, heads of state and stategists. Here is a recent piece from the Washington Post "Obama administration considering strikes on Assad, again" Emphasis on "again". https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/josh-rogin/wp/2016/10/04/obama-administration-considering-strikes-on-assad-again/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/josh-rogin/wp/2016/10/04... The Obama Administration has made it very clear that there is "no military solution". But that's been an ambition more than it has been a doctrine. The Administration absolutely may change its mind for strategic reasons. And will an election coming up any divergence could happen. The Clinton Campaign's platform on Syria is invasion (Kaine and Clinton have both long advocated for this). I agree that Kerry is telling the opposition that US invasion is not likely to happen, because of the legal obstacles and because the legislative branch and public opinion inside the United States are against it. But I've witnessed US propaganda flip the minds of citizens and their legislature many times. It's not impossible in Syria. Just less likely. More likely is we'll try simultaneously to create no fly zones, we'll send larger amounts of money, weapons and training, and we'll turn on the spigot of non-traditional warfare (lawfare, economic warfare, information warfare, etc). All in all what it means is that Syria'r proxy war is still a frozen conflict and there's bound to be years left of strife and suffering for the Syrian people.

nl 10y ago
The opening paragraph of the WP piece is this: "U.S. military strikes against the Assad regime will be back on the table Wednesday at the White House, when top national security officials in the Obama administration are set to discuss options for the way forward in Syria. But there’s little prospect President Obama will ultimately approve them." There are no good options in Syria. I'm not sure what you are arguing? It's impossible for every piece on Syria to include every single piece of information. If your point is that the NYTimes is somehow systematically trying to advocate for something, then I'm unsure what that something is. I guess the US consensus view is: - ISIS is bad - Nusra is bad - Assad is bad - The Kurdish situation is extremely complex because of Turkey - Some groups within the FSA alliance are worth supporting I think the US's state goal is a cessation of hostilities, Assad leaves power and democratic selection of the next government. All of those things are pretty difficult things to achieve. I don't think any mainstream media is being particularly misleading here?
- jwtadvice 10y ago
  The fourth paragraph: "The options under consideration, which remain classified, include bombing Syrian air force runways using cruise missiles and other long-range weapons fired from coalition planes and ships, an administration official who is part of the discussions told me. One proposed way to get around the White House’s long-standing objection to striking the Assad regime without a U.N. Security Council resolution would be to carry out the strikes covertly and without public acknowledgment, the official said." > I'm not sure what you are arguing? It's impossible for every piece on Syria to include every single piece of information. If your point is that the NYTimes is somehow systematically trying to advocate for something, then I'm unsure what that something is. I think other commenters understand the following: the NYTimes and other 'establishment' media outlets edit and publish material material to cohere with state narrative. The details left out of media pieces end up being the same details everywhere: the opposition in Syria has a deep relationship with al Qaeda, the US stopped bombing al Qaeda after it changed its name, Russia is there legally, the US primary objective in Syria is regime change and is illegal. The way you've characterized it is that the media each miss random bits of the story here and there, and each story/outlet can't be comprehensive. But that's disingenuous. When there's very damning material (thinking of the DIA FOIA document from ~2012, or the Victoria Nuland audio recording) the media inevitably leave out all of the same information they do every time: the context, motivation, objectives and legality that would contradict the state narrative necessary for maintaining government support and sense of legitimacy. This bit of history with Kerry is just a recent example. The distraction, misinformation and censorship of the Snowden Documents is another example provided in the very top comment.
  - nl 10y ago
    the opposition in Syria has a deep relationship with al Qaeda But it isn't as simple as that. "The opposition" isn't one group, and no one could ever sensibly claim that it is. The FSA (such as it is) doesn't have a deep relationship with al Qaeda. But that doesn't mean that there aren't times when there interests align (ie, both are fighting the regime). No Kurdish group has a deep relationship with al Qaeda, but there are times when they've had agreements to leave each other alone. BUT, it gets complicated. There are plenty of Islamists groups which aren't al Qaeda/Nusra/ISIS and do have good relationships with the FSA. Groups like Jabhat al-Shamiya[1] fight alongside the FSA, and have sometimes received US aid (while at other times haven't). the US stopped bombing al Qaeda after it changed its name Well, no. Even RT is reporting US attacks on Nusra[2]. Interestingly, RT makes the same claim you do, apparently based on this quote: "We did carry out strikes initially, back in 2014-2015, against Nusra. But absolutely, you’re correct in that, as they became intermingled and as they became intermingled in civilian areas, we’ve always sought to limit the possibility of civilian casualties in any of our airstrikes. We wanted to work in a very strategic fashion about how to take out senior Nusra leadership like we’ve done pretty effectively against ISIL. And that doesn’t include just laying waste to populated areas that may be under Nusra’s control.". That seems pretty well aligned with how the US has been striking at ISIS too. Russia is there legally Does anyone dispute this? I think the primary questions about Russia's involvement is around how they are carrying out attacks in Aleppo. the US primary objective in Syria is regime change and is illegal How can anyone claim the US has a single primary aim? I think everyone would agree that is one aim of the US: they say that all the time, and it has been widely reported. It isn't clear how that is illegal: at the moment the peace process seems the primary path towards settlement, and that is what the US is engaged in. The US isn't going around bombing Assad in Damascus or anything (not withstanding the attack on Syrian troops a week or two ago, which didn't help with anything!) [1] https://medium.com/@ryanmofarrell/jabhat-al-shamiya-is-one-of-the-more-complicated-rebel-factions-and-has-gone-through-multiple-a7f24030e1f#.wczn93vp1 https://medium.com/@ryanmofarrell/jabhat-al-shamiya-is-one-o... [2] https://www.rt.com/usa/361519-pentagon-airstrike-al-nusra/ https://www.rt.com/usa/361519-pentagon-airstrike-al-nusra/

nl 10y ago

The opening paragraph of the WP piece is this: "U.S. military strikes against the Assad regime will be back on the table Wednesday at the White House, when top national security officials in the Obama administration are set to discuss options for the way forward in Syria. But there’s little prospect President Obama will ultimately approve them." There are no good options in Syria. I'm not sure what you are arguing? It's impossible for every piece on Syria to include every single piece of information. If your point is that the NYTimes is somehow systematically trying to advocate for something, then I'm unsure what that something is. I guess the US consensus view is: - ISIS is bad - Nusra is bad - Assad is bad - The Kurdish situation is extremely complex because of Turkey - Some groups within the FSA alliance are worth supporting I think the US's state goal is a cessation of hostilities, Assad leaves power and democratic selection of the next government. All of those things are pretty difficult things to achieve. I don't think any mainstream media is being particularly misleading here?

jwtadvice 10y ago
The fourth paragraph: "The options under consideration, which remain classified, include bombing Syrian air force runways using cruise missiles and other long-range weapons fired from coalition planes and ships, an administration official who is part of the discussions told me. One proposed way to get around the White House’s long-standing objection to striking the Assad regime without a U.N. Security Council resolution would be to carry out the strikes covertly and without public acknowledgment, the official said." > I'm not sure what you are arguing? It's impossible for every piece on Syria to include every single piece of information. If your point is that the NYTimes is somehow systematically trying to advocate for something, then I'm unsure what that something is. I think other commenters understand the following: the NYTimes and other 'establishment' media outlets edit and publish material material to cohere with state narrative. The details left out of media pieces end up being the same details everywhere: the opposition in Syria has a deep relationship with al Qaeda, the US stopped bombing al Qaeda after it changed its name, Russia is there legally, the US primary objective in Syria is regime change and is illegal. The way you've characterized it is that the media each miss random bits of the story here and there, and each story/outlet can't be comprehensive. But that's disingenuous. When there's very damning material (thinking of the DIA FOIA document from ~2012, or the Victoria Nuland audio recording) the media inevitably leave out all of the same information they do every time: the context, motivation, objectives and legality that would contradict the state narrative necessary for maintaining government support and sense of legitimacy. This bit of history with Kerry is just a recent example. The distraction, misinformation and censorship of the Snowden Documents is another example provided in the very top comment.
- nl 10y ago
  the opposition in Syria has a deep relationship with al Qaeda But it isn't as simple as that. "The opposition" isn't one group, and no one could ever sensibly claim that it is. The FSA (such as it is) doesn't have a deep relationship with al Qaeda. But that doesn't mean that there aren't times when there interests align (ie, both are fighting the regime). No Kurdish group has a deep relationship with al Qaeda, but there are times when they've had agreements to leave each other alone. BUT, it gets complicated. There are plenty of Islamists groups which aren't al Qaeda/Nusra/ISIS and do have good relationships with the FSA. Groups like Jabhat al-Shamiya[1] fight alongside the FSA, and have sometimes received US aid (while at other times haven't). the US stopped bombing al Qaeda after it changed its name Well, no. Even RT is reporting US attacks on Nusra[2]. Interestingly, RT makes the same claim you do, apparently based on this quote: "We did carry out strikes initially, back in 2014-2015, against Nusra. But absolutely, you’re correct in that, as they became intermingled and as they became intermingled in civilian areas, we’ve always sought to limit the possibility of civilian casualties in any of our airstrikes. We wanted to work in a very strategic fashion about how to take out senior Nusra leadership like we’ve done pretty effectively against ISIL. And that doesn’t include just laying waste to populated areas that may be under Nusra’s control.". That seems pretty well aligned with how the US has been striking at ISIS too. Russia is there legally Does anyone dispute this? I think the primary questions about Russia's involvement is around how they are carrying out attacks in Aleppo. the US primary objective in Syria is regime change and is illegal How can anyone claim the US has a single primary aim? I think everyone would agree that is one aim of the US: they say that all the time, and it has been widely reported. It isn't clear how that is illegal: at the moment the peace process seems the primary path towards settlement, and that is what the US is engaged in. The US isn't going around bombing Assad in Damascus or anything (not withstanding the attack on Syrian troops a week or two ago, which didn't help with anything!) [1] https://medium.com/@ryanmofarrell/jabhat-al-shamiya-is-one-of-the-more-complicated-rebel-factions-and-has-gone-through-multiple-a7f24030e1f#.wczn93vp1 https://medium.com/@ryanmofarrell/jabhat-al-shamiya-is-one-o... [2] https://www.rt.com/usa/361519-pentagon-airstrike-al-nusra/ https://www.rt.com/usa/361519-pentagon-airstrike-al-nusra/