To everyone who wanted to bomb Syria over use of Chemical Weapons

[cthulu2016]

Remember all the morally righteous arguments here about how we HAD TO bomb Syria because international standards must be upheld, and anyone who didn't agree had no moral core?

(IIRC, it was about five minutes after Obama said we had to bomb Syria. And, amusingly, was not preceded by any spontaneous calls here to bomb Syria.)

It is accepted today, as I write this, that Assad has torture camps and extermination camps and Syria is generally going through the worst stuff there is... all as contrary to international norms as one could want.

So, where are the calls to bomb Syria?

Funny how that works.

The reason to bomb Syria back then was to decide a civil war, not over chemical weapons. Chemical weapons was a sweetener... a factor... it tipped the balance in our position.

We thought, at one moment in time, that taking out Assads air force would decide a conflict that we were at that time entering, having just (at that time) commenced a program of arming and training a rebel force we wanted to win the conflict, and replace Assad.

Our sense of how we wanted that civil war to go has changed. The rebels we backed have not been as effective or loyal as hoped. The jihadist maniacs have been more effective than hoped.

And somehow the decapitation of the Assad regime is not attractive.

And thus there are no calls to bomb Syria, despite the moral arguments being at least as pressing as before.

Which is fine... but bitterly funny.

Myself, I think Syria is so horribly fucked up that if it would make the world a substansialy better place to remove Assad then we ought to. But I have no reason to think it would, in fact, spontaneously improve matters. And I doubt the administration does either.

It is a very bad, very tragic situation.

[JoePhilly]

1. It was always about the chemical weapons.

The red line in the sand quote was about chemical weapons.

The threat to turn over the weapons, or have those weapons bombed, was about chemical weapons.

The deal reached to not bomb included an agreement for destroying the chemical weapons.

If the reason to bomb Syria back then was to decide the civil war, then we'd have bombed Syria back then, and decided the civil war.

As an aside ... If the goal was to decide the civil war, we'd have probably not only bombed Syria, but also invaded with troops, as so very many here wrongly predicted would happen, with great certainty.

Maybe we aren't calling to bomb Syria now because Putin says so.

[cthulu2016]

2. Your argument is that we would have mounted a land invasion

using US forces if our policy was to remove Assad.

Our stated policy has been to remove Assad since last spring.

Our stated policy today reamins that Assad must go.

Do you believe that if our policy was "Assad must stay" we would have decided to bomb Syrian government forces because of chemical weapons?

[JoePhilly]

4. Actually, that was the argument of those here on DU

who were absolutely sure we were going to invade Syria back then. For them, the chemical weapons were not the primary issue.

They claimed the administration was using the chemical weapons issue as a casus belli for starting a large, protracted, war in Syria.

My argument is that the threat of bombing Syria was tied directly to the issue of chemical weapons, not as you claim, to some alternative goal of deciding the civil war.

Clearly, we could decide it, via bombs and troops, but we did not chose to do so back then, nor is anyone suggesting that we should do so now. And the reason is because the threat of bombing was tied directly to the chemical weapons issue.

You seem confused as to why there are not calls to bomb Syria now. The chemical weapons issue has been handled diplomatically.

There is nothing to be confused about.

[okaawhatever]

6. I think the issue with Putin is because Putin will enter the war on Syria's side if we enter

on the rebel's side. Russia has a lot at stake here. They absolutely need the deep water port at Tartus. They also want a gas pipeline and pretty much need Syria to help with that. Our involvement won't help if all we do is turn it into a proxy war between us and the Russians.

[TwilightGardener]

3. I was on the fence about the chem weapons strike. But chem weapon use

being tolerated does have implications beyond Syria, and it's been tolerated in the past to obviously bad effect. So I could see the logic of setting back the Assad regime's military capability in retaliation, although I'm not sure if it would have been a good idea without much broader support by other allies (we only had France to go with us). I could also see how we could have gotten drawn in by a false flag or some other kind of setup by some interest or another, so it was a gamble anyway. Either way, I was relieved that it didn't have to happen, and now at least we have better knowledge of where this stuff is stored and what it's composed of, even if we don't get rid of it all.

As far as Assad executing lots of people...well, yeah, that's what a lot of bad regimes do, especially in civil wars. They suck that way. When all of this finally reaches a resolution, he should stand for war crimes prosecution. But no larger implications to our national security (or that of allied countries), unlike tolerated usage of WMD's. There's the difference, IMO.

[geek tragedy]

5. 1) the opposition to US military involvement was OVERHWHELMING here.

About as much as not wanting Larry Summers as Fed Chair or Mitt Romney as President.

2) The chemical weapons issue--and its possible externalization--was the only plausible justification for military strikes. And even that, as noted in (1) above was extremely unconvincing to most here.

[jakeXT]

7. And I thought it was going to be about W.Virginia

What would we do without Qatar? They even helped to liberate Libya

The report was commissioned by the Gulf state of Qatar, which backs the Syrian rebels.

The report is based on evidence from an unnamed informant, a photographer who claims to have defected from the Syrian military police. Identified as ‘Caesar' to protect his identity, the informant said he had smuggled photographs and files out of Syria on memory sticks to a contact in the Syrian National Movement.

The former prosecutors said they were satisfied there was "clear evidence, capable of being believed by a tribunal of fact in a court of law, of systematic torture and killing of detained persons by the agents of the Syrian government. It would support findings of crimes against humanity and could also support findings of war crimes against the current Syrian regime."

http://www.dw.de/syrian-regime-accused-of-systematic-torture-and-killing/a-17375259