dagblog - Comments for "Can Everybody Be Right?"

Germany backs G20 statement

artappraiser — Mon, 09 Sep 2013 07:35:12 +0000

In reply to No good can come from arguing

Germany backs G20 statement on Syria a day late

That people are making so

Michael Maiello — Sun, 08 Sep 2013 00:48:41 +0000

That people are making so much about Kerry saying that Obama can act even if Congress refuses to authorize is so theatrical. As you say, this is Kerry's role -- play the activist hard ass. But it is also, in light of everything we have lived through post Viet Nam, undoubtedly true. If Congress says no, I doubt that Obama will actually act. But does he have the legal authority to launch limited strikes from afar? I don't think that anybody doubts that he does.

Just found the more

artappraiser — Sat, 07 Sep 2013 16:42:34 +0000

In reply to It's becoming increasingly

Just found the more sophisticated form of the Kerry talking points here, "a senior State Department official" talking to Michael Gordon @ NYTimes. Gordon says

The official introduced some of the arguments American officials are expected to make to their European counterparts during Mr. Kerry’s four-day trip. He asserted that the failure to act militarily presented graver risks than a limited military intervention.

The points were:

‘I don’t expect huge, huge change on the day after on the ground,” said the official, who is traveling with Secretary of State John Kerry to a meeting here with European Union foreign ministers on the Middle East.

“That grinding war of attrition will continue and the regime’s manpower shortages will continue to grow, but I would not expect a breakthrough on the ground.” [....]

“We have been very explicit to the Syrian opposition that any military action that we might take in response to the chemical weapons attack is going to be limited and very focused solely on re-establishing the deterrence,” said the official, who requested anonymity as per diplomatic protocol.

“Do they all welcome that?” he said. “No, some would like us to do more than that. They will be disappointed, therefore.”

Even if the strikes are somewhat limited, the official asserted, they would discourage the Assad government from again using chemical weapons and that, in any case, the condition of Syrian forces would weaken over time.

But he suggested that the push to improve the rebels’ fortunes on the battlefield, and ultimately foster the condition for a possible political settlement, would depend more on increasing efforts to arm the opposition and improve its ability to govern the area it has captured.

Even if the strikes are somewhat limited, the official asserted, they would discourage the Assad government from again using chemical weapons and that, in any case, the condition of Syrian forces would weaken over time.

But he suggested that the push to improve the rebels’ fortunes on the battlefield, and ultimately foster the condition for a possible political settlement, would depend more on increasing efforts to arm the opposition and improve its ability to govern the area it has captured. [...]

It's becoming increasingly

artappraiser — Sat, 07 Sep 2013 15:14:12 +0000

In reply to Can Everybody Be Right?

It's becoming increasingly clear that nothing is going to happen until the U.N. report comes in (as well as U.S. Congress voting) and the U.N. will surely also go through the steps of a meeting and a vote on what to do about the report:

Syrian chemical weapons attack a war crime, says EU
European Union foreign chief Catherine Ashton says strong response is essential to make clear there is no impunity

Staff and agencies, theguardian.com, 7 September 2013

The European Union has called a chemical weapons attack in Damascus a crime against humanity and says it was probably carried out by the Syrian government.

Following a meeting with the US secretary of state, John Kerry, EU foreign ministers said that any punitive military attack should not be carried out until the delivery of a report by United Nations inspectors.

Catherine Ashton, the EU's representative for foreign affairs issued a statement on Saturday calling the chemical attack a "blatant violation of international law, a war crime and a crime against humanity" [....]

And Francois Hollande said on Friday (from NYTimes' Obama Falls Short on Wider Backing for Syria Attack):

“We’re now going to wait for the decision by Congress,” Mr. Hollande said, “then the inspectors’ report.”

That means plenty more time for diplomacy, lobbying, actors pressuring other actors and actors coming up with alternate suggestions.

I would like to point out that there's no way any of this would have happened without the U.S. administration continuing to make aggressive threats.

I am increasingly convinced that we are dealing with the same old community organizer "make me do it" Obama. He was uncomfortable with it at first, as many have pointed out even to the point of ridicule, then he decided (freaking out his main staff in the process) that he was going to make it another "make me do it":

Photos Tell a Tale of Anguished Deliberations
By Mark Landler, New York Times, September 6, 2013

Kerry drew the short straw and has to be the one who has to continue to play the most aggressive role in the Kabuki theater of U.S. threats. (he spews talking points over and over, the one about Obama having the power to do the bombing without approval but more so the one that stands out is: no boots on the ground, I mean it now, zero boots, did I say no boots....when Fineman points out to him that in the Senate resolution it just says no combat troops, not no boots,he replies There will be no American forces on the ground for any purpose. When Fineman replies Well, why does it say "for combat operations"? he answers I have no idea !)

While Obama does the community organizer holding a prosecutor vs. defense attorney advocate thing with Putin at the G 20:

Even Putin admitted it (from NYTimes' Obama Falls Short on Wider Backing for Syria Attack):

“We hear each other and understand the arguments,” Mr. Putin said. “We simply don’t agree with them. I don’t agree with his arguments and he doesn’t agree with mine, but we hear and try to analyze.”

You're doing very well at

artappraiser — Sat, 07 Sep 2013 15:06:18 +0000

In reply to Thanks, double A. I am

You're doing very well at that. (I dunno if the wrassler persona fits so well anymore, though.)

Thanks, double A. I am

Michael Maiello — Sat, 07 Sep 2013 13:20:18 +0000

In reply to I want to take a minute to

Thanks, double A. I am working on my own rant impulse.

Elaborate a little for me

Michael Maiello — Sat, 07 Sep 2013 13:19:30 +0000

In reply to I like this article alot,

Elaborate a little for me about the implications of this. Are we using Syria to poke at Russia? Is Russia just doing in Syria what we do all over the world where we have strategic bases? To what extent do you consider Russia and the U.S. rivals and to what extent partners?

I like this article alot,

Orion — Sat, 07 Sep 2013 06:44:53 +0000

In reply to Can Everybody Be Right?

I like this article alot, Mike, and truly respect your effort to walk between the middle on this subject.

However, alot of the negatives didn't get mentioned and few on this website have mentioned them, such as the relationship with Russia. There is the largest military base outside of the former Soviet Union there and Russia is justifying the presence of all these warships as a way of allowing Russian military personnel to escape when a US airstrike occurs.

This, like all military actions in that region, will result in more resentment and more violence, not less. Almost all of our interventions in the Middle East, from removing Iran's democratically elected leader and installing the Shah in the 1950s all the way to Iraq in 2003, have had horrible consequences. It is very strange that people think this will be different.

No good can come from arguing

artappraiser — Sat, 07 Sep 2013 04:10:12 +0000

In reply to All bad is going to come of

No good can come from arguing about what to do about Syria? That's what I was talking about. I don't think a whole lot of good came from not talking about it for the last two years.

By the way (to everyone on thread,) it should be noted that despite media spin, it's not true that everyone at G-20 came out against intervention, it's just that it broke out in unusual ways. From The Guardian:

[....] In a minor diplomatic advance for Obama, 11 of the G20 nations signed a joint statement at the end of the two-day summit calling for "a strong international response to a grave violation of the world's rules" in response to last month's chemical weapons attack in Ghouta, east of the Syrian capital, Damascus.

The signatories, including the UK, the US and France, said evidence "points clearly to the Syrian government being responsible for the attack which is part of a pattern of chemical weapons use by the regime" and warned it would not be possible to achieve a UN consensus on action.

The signatories also "recognise that the UN security council remains paralysed, as it has been for two and a half years. The world cannot wait for endless failed processes that can only lead to suffering in Syria. We support efforts by the US and other countries to reinforce the prohibition on the use of chemical weapons."

The painfully constructed wording stops short of explicit support for a punitive, but limited, military strike by the US. Yet the statement represents more international sympathy than seemed likely at the summit's outset. Other signatories included Australia, Canada, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Spain and Turkey – a coalition that may sway some US congressmen weighing up whether to defy domestic America opinion and back military strikes. A Downing Street source claimed the statement "backs US efforts and the American president has clearly set out his intended military response".

Russia, China, South Africa, Indonesia, Argentina and Brazil were among those that refused to sign. But it was the absence of German chancellor Angela Merkel's signature that was the most frustrating – a result deemed to be a blow to the Franco-German alliance [.....]

the New Yorker guy The writer

artappraiser — Sat, 07 Sep 2013 03:53:57 +0000

In reply to Good links, esp the New

the New Yorker guy

The writer is a woman! Kind of amazing, that. She described in the article that "Omar" helped her over steep terrain by offering her the end of his rifle rather than his hand, because it is forbidden to touch her, since she is not family. And that he forgot twice that it was loaded when he did that!

On Libya, I would just point out that the Libyan intervention was not seen as led by the U.S.

Maybe the French can pay a Syrian General to knock off Assad and start 'reconciliation'?

I was just having a fantasy of the U.N. making Putin take most of the Syrian refugees until his good buddy finishes his desire to kill everyone left that won't vow that Alawite are not kafir but are Allah's chosen leaders. It's not that far from Damascus to like, Belgorod; put em in ferries over the Black Sea. Putin could then have some of the joy he has helped give Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq by supporting Assad in using arms instead of coming to a negotiation table. (I dunno know about doing that to Iran, though, loads of incoming Sunnis, probably not a good idea.)