Syria

[HopAlongBunny]

When it is in our interests to be accurate, however...

Perhaps, but recent history puts "Because I say so" cred at (O). Without a source that can be verified, no one is buying it at face.

[ICantSpellDawg]

The President should decide to cease answering questions on Syria for a time. Deliberations should be made directly with potential coalition partners without the use of corrupting interlocutors, in order to protect Op Sec. This is one example of a government decision that will, implicity, mean the loss of lives and we are getting a babbling brook of info which serves to do nothing other than prepare Assad to withstand a minor intervention. If ever there was a time for Top Secret discretion, this is it.

[Montmorency]

You know, one possibility I haven't seen mentioned here is that elements of the Assad military or security apparatus contravened the big man and made a local decision to use the stuff.

Stretching things a bit, it might even amount to an internal coup-attempt.

To be honest, I'd even believe that it's a ploy by the foreign jihadis to lure the West into another damaging ground war, as more likely than a false-flag by actual rebels.

[Montmorency]

The first two just mean that autocrats with NBC will have more to worry about.

It will set a precedent for subordinates screwing over their masters in this particular manner, and it will make the West more likely to intervene in some way to destroy or secure the weapons of future stumbling regimes.

The last one, that's a bigger one.

[Montmorency]

To make a long post short, I'll just post some thoughts on the nuclear states we might conceivably have cause to jump into. Nuclear weapons are much bigger fish than toxic gases anyway.

On a case-by-case basis:

*North Korea would be the most probable candidate for American intervention, if only because most promising of success. Direct and massive intervention by the US would be almost certain at some point given the proximity to South Korea and Japan. On the other hand, China's disapproval would stall the US for at least a while, and the Chinese might even decide on their own that the North Korean monarchy had run its course and so take care of the situation themselves quickly and quietly, not least to pre-empt the US.

*Iran is a much larger country than North Korea, but its position within the Middle East makes intervention a considerably-probable scenario. The Saudis and Israelis would lobby furiously,I think. Actually finding the weapons might be the most difficult here. Special forces alone could not possibly accomplish anything. On the other hand, Russia would make itself felt here the most out of the three, which might preclude any invasion without Russian approval or cooperation. The Russians might have their own plan for getting their hands on the nukes.

*Pakistan is the most troubling case, and has the highest potential in the world to become a state with a government prepared to use nuclear weapons against external enemies -think jihadi takeover. That or its looming specter would be an existential threat to India, so they would be the first to try something 'hands-on' to complement diplomatic pressure on the international community. Some possibility of a full-scale Indo-Pakistani war with at-least limited nuclear exchange.

But keep in mind that no one would be so hasty as to act at the first sign of trouble in these countries, or else we might as well just take them out this year, confiscate all the goodies, and save the future trouble.

I assure you that it would take an exceptional situation of instability or civil war within one of these countries before one of the scenarios I outlined would come into play. Korea is moderately likely, lowest difficulty. Iran is least likely, and would be the most difficult to pull off. In all these cases, if there is a ground invasion the hope would be that no one would dare use nukes on their own soil to thwart the invader. Otherwise, there's no basis for endangering the entire military, and tht raises the likelihood of preemptive nuclear strikes to simply devastate an entire nation, but then again would Russia or China (even assuming their private relief) tolerate that? At this point, there are too many factors and too many unknowns for me to process.

I do agree that the NSA would probably find a mandate to keep a close eye on Pakistan - and NATO to retain a larger force in Afghanistan - if my suggestion turns out to be the case.

Again: these are all still very unlikely scenarios, even if hackles are to be raised by such a revelation. I'm sure that the government recognizes that SF have surprisingly little capacity to secure and extract nuclear weapons. I suppose they could just destroy them, but you'd need to bring in quite a bit of explosive force with the SF, and isn't there a small chance that the explosion would detonate the nuke? Which is to say, decision-makers might come to believe that nothing short of a ground invasion would do, but a ground invasion is much more difficult to initiate and sustain, not least for reasons mentioned earlier in the post.

Would that ultimately mean that, due to international inaction, for the first time, terrorists or rogue states or rogue elements within states would just end up using nukes against their own people or (more likely) external enemies? Hmm...

So my ideas could entail some pretty serious consequences, I suppose, and they're all closely associated.

What's the best-case scenario here, that Assad miscalculated after all and America's coming to save the day?

[Fragony]

lol teh ressurection http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=4a9_1377562800

Don't be so sad your children are still alive man

Disclaimer: leftist people can't see this video

There are many video's like this, Palestinian kids also have that quality of dying again and again and again

Why, well quality media https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v...ryingwoman.jpg

People who don't read quality media know better than that

[ICantSpellDawg]

We've just seen a stream of threads suggesting that;
1)chemical weapons were not used, it is an elaborate hoax created by security services to create pretext for war
2)If they were used, it was by the opposition on the opposition
3)I'm a Republican, so if people are piling on the President, it is time to pile on the President.

I'm receptive to lines of argument suggesting that the war powers act runs counter to Article One, but I believe that the President should have the police action power in a nuclear/chemical age with small, unstable states. Call me a hypocrite if you'd like, at least I'm not attacking a President just because he sucks generally when I supported another President who sucked generally on weaker evidence.

Too many conservatives seem like circling hyenas on this, foaming at the mouth, looking for a chance to pounce on a lame duck. I get the allure, but not when people are suffering and dying and the President is trying to do something about it.