Question about Syria

[BainsBane]

I myself am torn on the Syria question. I don't like the idea of the US policing the world and again intervening militarily, but I am concerned about Assad's brutality and use of chemical weapons on his own people. I have a question for folks here. I wasn't around DU when the Obama administration started bombing Libya. Was DU as outraged about that intervention? If not, why is Syria so different?

Like for Libya, the administration says they will not commit ground troops. From what I've read, they plan to use cruise missiles to attack airfields and refueling stations for Assad's air force to impair his ability to deliver chemical weapons. Cruise missiles are shot from battleships and do not involve entering Syrian airspace. If they adhere to that, the impact on American service people is minimal. Certainly Syrians will die, but 100,000 have already died. It is possible that attacking air installations might actually reduce Assad's ability to inflict casualties. Is your fear that the administration is not being forthright and will instead be engaged in a protracted ground war? My understanding is that the authorization from congress, according to Barbara Boxer, will include a prohibition on using ground troops. But even if the US keeps to those parameters, it will kill people with those cruise missiles. Bombs kill and civilians will die. But not intervening doesn't mean peace or an absence of killing either, since people are dying there at this very moment. While I'm torn, I see that most of you are not. You have clear cut views on the issue, and I'm wondering what makes this different from Libya for you?

[LibAsHell]

1. Lots of people said we should stay the hell out of Libya, too

And for similar reasons: because we have no reason to do it.

We're all concerned about the atrocities in Syria, but even if the evidence of who used the chemical weapons was rock solid, it would still not warrant launching missiles and bombs on an already war-ravaged country, backing a group of opposition fighters we don't know that well and some of whom definitely belong to or align with groups that hate us, believing that that will somehow help the situation. The concept is completely ridiculous.

[reformist2]

2. The Libya Operation had UN approval.

[BainsBane]

3. Did it? Yes, that makes a difference.

[Tx4obama]

6. The U.S. Senate passed a resolution urging the UN to take action & impose the no-fly zone March 2011

... so one could say that the U.S. was the driving force behind the Libya intervention

On March 1, 2011 the U.S. Senate approved by unanimous consent a resolution in regards to Libya

Clause 7:

urges the United Nations Security Council to take such further action as may be necessary to protect civilians in Libya from attack, including the possible imposition of a no-fly zone over Libyan territory

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:S.RES.85 :

Article here: http://www.demconwatchblog.com/diary/4441/what-was-the-senates-intent

[BainsBane]

9. Here it is, from the Guardian

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/mar/18/un-security-council-resolution-key-points

So did China and Russia not have close relations with Libya that they allowed the resolution to be passed?

[Tx4obama]

12. Yep, that is the U.N. resolution. That came a couple weeks after the U.S. Senate resolution

[polly7]

13. It was really amazing to see how the 'facts' necessary for a bloody intervention were

obtained and presented to the Council. Have a look at the video, it's interesting, to say the least.

[leftstreet]

4. Your question should be, where's the proof against Assad?

I am floored by the number of posts on DU starting with the unproven assertion that Assad is responsible for the chemical weapons attack

Floored

[BainsBane]

5. The video was proof

and biological tests on victims remains, as are the testimony of victims there who saw gas coming from fighter jets. Who else beside the government has an air force in Syria?

Besides, all but one of the rebels who took that video and got it out of the country died as a result of the exposure to chemical weapons.

[leftstreet]

10. LOL the video that was released before the attack happened?

You can't be serious

There is still no proof Assad did this

[BainsBane]

11. You obviously have decided to believe what you want

and not what has been reported in the press, so there is no point having a discussion. I'll keep that in mind for future events.

[polly7]

7. Many of us were completely outraged over Libya and said so - for all the same reasons.

Bombs kill and civilians will die. .... But they're dying already! Sick and disgusting. One additional death of a child d/t bombs from an illegal war of aggression, which this is ...... is a crime. And ... this has nothing to do with 'policing the world'. Your bloody chemical weapon using war criminals are walking free. That 'policing' the world thing got old about the same time as Hussein's WMD.

[Tx4obama]

8. As I remember it: DU, the American people, and the news folks were not 'outraged' about Libya

... like they are now in regards to Syria.

The folks on the news didn't keep saying the word 'war' when talking about Libya.

The Libya reaction was much different - everyone knew it was a short-term, no boots on the ground intervention - just like Syria will be.

So, I am perplexed as to why folks are acting so much differently this time in regards to Syria.

[Waiting For Everyman]

14. It was completely different,

For starters, the vast majority of Libyans wanted the Gaddafi regime ENDED, and begged us, and begged us continually for help. Next, the world community was almost entirely behind us and/or with us in intervening. And third, the UN was solidly endorsing our action too, as was the Arab League. We weren't out in front ahead of everyone by ourselves, we were being pulled in by everyone after they were already resolved that we should act.

But the first difference, the Libyan public, was the most important. Because without that unambiguous desire from them for our help, I don't think the world community and the UN would have been on board with us either.

I question whether there is a sufficient majority of Syrians who clearly and without reservation, WANT our help as desperately as the Libyans did. I'm not saying the situation is not as desperate, of course it is. But I don't see that same desperate desire for our help that was so clearly unmistakable from the Libyans.

See the story of this man, Mo Nabbous,...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Nabbous

...whose internet stories caught the attention of many of us, and whose friends made this film montage in his memory, of clips from news stories that he made to bring Libya to our attention. Sadly, Mo died just hours before Libya won its independence.

Additionally, Syria is more complex in its dangerous associations in the region, with Iran and so on, in a way that Libya was not. Everything about it is different.

[BainsBane]

15. The point about the international community is well taken

but Syria too had huge protests to oust Assad. The difference between Syria and Egypt is that Assad is willing to do absolutely anything to hold power and Mubarek wasn't. Quaddafi was willing to do anything too, but he wasn't as powerful. Syria has loads of weapons from Russia and support from Iran.

[joshcryer]

16. Some DUers called for Obama's impeachment.

But generally DU was fairly against it. I covered it extensively (yes, the entire civil war until Gaddafi was killed and Tripoli was liberated).

The revolutionaries actually had a lot of support on DU until the UN voted on the NFZ, so you can be instructed that mainly people are against the US doing anything as opposed to a concern for the victims of dictators or murderers. I knew several people who died in that war. I argue that Libya would look like Syria does today had the international community not got involved. I can't say the same for Syria because there wasn't such a dramatic line in the sand, so to speak. Half of Libya was divided before the UN made its decision. The rebels in Syria never had a line in the sand, they've always been scattered.

A lot of DUers got banned for Libya and I still get stalkers trashing me on Libya to this day.

[BainsBane]

17. banned for saying what?

[joshcryer]

19. Well, the ones that got banned were bad.

They trash talked a lot and once Libya was liberated they basically had no reason to post.

Turns out Gaddafi hired PR firms (much like Assad) to make his image on the internet better than it was. I don't have proof those posters were with those firms but some of them were parroting the firms propaganda.

Basically most of them had a blow out once it was over, trash talking people, being hateful, trolling, so they were gone.

[BainsBane]

21. Wow.

That's something. Do you have a link to an Assad PR firm propaganda?

[joshcryer]

22. Not directly.

I tend to ignore Assad propaganda sites and posters and they don't come up on my radar.

But here's an article about his attempt to use a western PR firm to clean his image up: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/11/world/middleeast/syrian-conflict-cracks-carefully-polished-image-of-assad.html

Here's a more recent article I just found (sort of unrelated but interesting): http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/08/bashar-al-assads-family/68915/

[BainsBane]

23. Interesting articles. Thanks

[BainsBane]

18. thanks for the link

I look forward to reading it.

[joshcryer]

20. It is very long, book-level.

Several hundred thousand words.