US Forces Ready To Strike Syria If Ordered

An anonymous reader writes "The Associated Press reports that 'U.S. forces are now ready to act on any order by President Barack Obama to strike Syria, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Tuesday. The U.S. Navy has four destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean Sea positioned within range of targets inside Syria, as well as U.S. warplanes in the region, Hagel said in an interview with BBC television during his visit to the southeast Asian nation of Brunei. Hagel also predicted that U.S. intelligence agencies would soon conclude that last week's deadly attack on civilians in a Damascus suburb was a chemical attack by Bashar Assad's government.'" The New York Times has an informative map of the sites of the chemical attacks.

Comments

Yay! Wag the dog!

[korbulon]

NSA what? I'm sorry I can't hear you over all this FREEDOM.

Re:I'm usually against military action.

[orzetto]

But in this case, the use of chemical and/or biological weapons is a no no, and outlawed by the international community for a reason. It's time to destroy any such weapons since Syria's gov does not seem to have any restrain in the use of such weapons.

Personally I do not believe Assad used chemical weapons, and this looks like a charade pulled off to start a war.

• First, Assad has no reason to cause an international outcry by using chemical weapons—he's winning, the last thing he needs is giving an excuse to the US to enter the conflict.
• Second, the US and Western countries were expecting the rebels to win. Currently, they are losing, and the US/NATO seem to want Syria really badly: at this point they really needed a casus belli, and guess what here it is. Coincidence?
• Third, a new war is great to distract the media from whatever Snowden has to reveal.
• Fourth, seriously: war over war crimes? Since when anybody started a war on principles? Cynical as I may be, I won't buy the line that suddenly all our leaders take civilian casualties so seriously.

The rebels have degenerated as they were infiltrated from so many radical groups with different agendas. At this point, if they win they will be just as bad as Assad, only less predictable. Who is the US intending to install in Syria? How are they going to control the nation? Has anyone learnt anything at all from Iraq?

Re:Here we go...

[Teancum]

Here is a question: What the hell is going on in Syria? So far as I can see it is one group of idiots who are being destructive and killing innocent people attacking another group of stupid idiots who are also being destructive and killing innocent people, with a whole bunch of people who have no voice at all caught in the middle not knowing what the hell is going on and just trying to get out of the way.

There is no "righteous side" in this conflict, and indeed I see the current role of the U.S. government in this whole mess as just being a catalyst to cause even more death and destruction by supplying arms and "training" to various people on both sides of the conflict. Yes, both sides are getting these arms and training. Russia is doing the same damn thing as are other military powers.

Heck, this whole mess could even be considered a clean-up operation from World War I where the French failed to be responsible for their jurisdiction over Syria when it was their colony. At least if you want to get into historic roles, nearly every former French colony is quite screwed up, so why should Syria be any different?

I certainly don't see any reason for America or anybody else for that matter to go to war over this mess. There certainly is no reason to even seek UN approval for going there either, of course why does anybody need "UN approval" for going to war in the first place?

Re:Here we go...

[Dunbal]

But they are world affairs. You try making an oil pipe-line from the heart of the middle east to China without going through Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan. Now make one that goes to Europe through Turkey and see how important Syria and/or Iraq are. Iraq and Syria are key to blocking the oil from both Russia and China and forcing it to continue being shipped out via the maritime route, like it has been all along, or by pipeline to Europe. And if you have the biggest navy in the world (ie, the US), then you control maritime shipping and you can cut Russia and China off whenever you want. That's one hell of a bargaining chip.

Of course Russia has newly discovered vast oil reserves, massive natural gas reserves, and also a willing buyer right in the form of China right on its border. So nothing can be done about that. They can build other pipelines elsewhere. But at the rate China is growing, it's going to need far more than just Russian oil. It's going to soon need ALL the oil. And what's more, unlike the US, it can afford to pay. It has cheap labor and isn't hindered by countless anti-business or protectionist laws and unions that are the reason manufacturing fled the West in the first place. This has the US and its allies running scared and is driving their foreign policy - from the recent Georgian/Russian war, a complete failure for the US who was covertly backing Georgia, to setting the entire middle east on fire except, conveniently, Saudi Arabia and the small states near the entrance to the Persian Gulf.

Don't think for one minute that this "arab spring" is a spontaneous event. Remember that in politics absolutely nothing happens by "chance". Nothing. This is not about Saddam. Assad. Khaddafi. Mubarak. They are irrelevant. It's about controlling the direction of the flow of oil, and making it harder for "the other guy" to get at it unless he plays ball with you on your terms.