If the USA is Going to Bomb ISIS in Syria Should the USA Work With Assad?

faithful_servant said:

The moderates aren't willing to take the steps that lead to power and as such they would get slaughtered in short order.

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False.

Moderates came out in droves to support a democratic revolution. It's not their fault that they have no weapons and Assad used chemical weapons to slaughter them.

This is like blaming a child for not taking down a gang, in regard to power dynamics.

Do you want to help defenseless people or not? From the beginning of the conflict:

faithful_servant said:

They lack the strength of will and willingness to use power and fear to ever take power. The moderates are the sheep among wolves and expecting the sheep to take over means expecting the wolves to stop being wolves - AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN.

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Oh please. Are you claiming the moderates are sheep and the terrorists are the alpha males? What kind of idiocy is that? The moderates and terrorists are in the positions they are for one reason - power. Not because terrorists are intrinsically better than moderates.

ecofarm said:

A democratic transitional government. Why does it need to be a cult of personality for you?

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Made up of who? ISIS?

You want the US to go on another 15 year nation building exercise?

rocket88 said:

Made up of who? ISIS?

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You're denying the existence of moderates? You think everyone is Syria is a terrorist or supports mass-murdering dictatorship?

You want the US to go on another 15 year nation building exercise?

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Better than 15 more years of innocent Syrians being slaughtered by terrorists and a mass-murdering dictator.


But you don't really give a **** about Syrians, do you? As long as you have your x-box, Syrian women and children can live in torture and agony, it's no skin off your back.

ecofarm said:

You're denying the existence of moderates? You think everyone is Syria is a terrorist or supports mass-murdering dictatorship?

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The moderates don't have the power to fight off ISIS. If you were being honest you'd know it too.

Better than 15 more years of innocent Syrians being slaughtered by terrorists and a mass-murdering dictator.


But you don't really give a **** about Syrians, do you? As long as you have your x-box, Syrian women and children can live in torture and agony, it's no skin off your back.

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That's not really the point, the point is what the United States can or should do. From a foreign policy standpoint, it's a disaster that wouldn't end well for us. If our last decade long nation-building had gone so well, ISIS wouldn't be in the position they're in.

Do you not care about American soldiers? Because you're willing to have them slaughtered to save Syrians.

rocket88 said:

The moderates don't have the power to fight off ISIS. If you were being honest you'd know it too.

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With the West's support, they will.

That's not really the point, the point is what the United States can or should do. From a foreign policy standpoint, it's a disaster that wouldn't end well for us. If our last decade long nation-building had gone so well, ISIS wouldn't be in the position they're in.

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Nation building is tough, but fledgling democracies struggling against terrorists is better than genocidal dictatorship.

Do you not care about American soldiers? Because you're willing to have them slaughtered to save Syrians.

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I served. I put my ass on the line, beyond the front line - airborne infantry.

Did you?

Don't lecture me about caring for the troops while you didn't have the balls to support them personally. You got the balls to talk **** now, right? But where were you when they needed you? So spare us the BS about how much more you care.

ecofarm said:

With the West's support, they will.

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They're doing so well in Iraq, aren't they?

Nation building is tough, but fledgling democracies struggling against terrorists is better than genocidal dictatorship.

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That's all fine and good, but at this point there's two sides and neither are the good guys.

ecofarm said:

False.

Moderates came out in droves to support a democratic revolution. It's not their fault that they have no weapons and Assad used chemical weapons to slaughter them.

This is like blaming a child for not taking down a gang, in regard to power dynamics.

Do you want to help defenseless people or not? From the beginning of the conflict:

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Lets' start with my whole quote, instead of taking part of it out of context:

The moderates aren't willing to take the steps that lead to power and as such they would get slaughtered in short order. This is an Arab/Persian nation where strength and power are what is respected. The people who lead these countries are not the reasonable people, they are the violent extremists because they are the ones willing to do whatever it takes to take and keep power. Remove one guy and the next most ambitious guy will step forward walking through the blood of the people who got in his way. That's the simple fact about Arab/Persian culture.

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Protestign doesn't get jack done in the Arab/Persian culture, taking what you want is what gets things done. Protests are meaningless unless you are willing to step and TAKE what the signs are asking for. Anything short of that is a waste of time for them.

Please don't accuse me of not caring about the innocents in Syria, because I do care and have people that I know living there in fear of being killed by the extremists. All I'm doing is pointing out the reality of what's happening there. Sorry if that doesn't sit well with you , but without knowing the truth, your ideas are simply a waste of time. If you want to help those people, you have to change the culture or get them to willing to become what they are fighting against.

ecofarm said:

Oh please. Are you claiming the moderates are sheep and the terrorists are the alpha males? What kind of idiocy is that? The moderates and terrorists are in the positions they are for one reason - power. Not because terrorists are intrinsically better than moderates.

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You can tell that the moderates are the sheep by the simple fact that they are among those getting slaughtered instead of those doing the slaughtering.

faithful_servant said:

Protestign doesn't get jack done in the Arab/Persian culture,

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Tell that to Qaddafi and Mubarak.

taking what you want is what gets things done.

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Now we're gonna denigrate the entire Arab and Persian "cultures" (read: people)?

Protests are meaningless unless you are willing to step and TAKE what the signs are asking for. Anything short of that is a waste of time for them.

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We must take those steps. They are weaponless, powerless and under the tyranny of a mass-murdering dictator. What you're suggesting is like standing aside while a dog mauls a child and saying "well, the kid should have stood up for himself if he really believed in his freedom".

Please don't accuse me of not caring about the innocents in Syria, because I do care and have people that I know living there in fear of being killed by the extremists.

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Fair enough, without your qualifications.

All I'm doing is pointing out the reality of what's happening there. Sorry if that doesn't sit well with you , but without knowing the truth, your ideas are simply a waste of time. If you want to help those people, you have to change the culture or get them to willing to become what they are fighting against.

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We do not need to ask Syrians to become terrorists for their freedom. We need to support moderates in the creation of a democratic transitional government, for which a constitution including human rights will be written.

Without human rights and representation, we'll be in the same place any number of years from now. It's about time Syria began developing and joined us in the developed world. It will require generations and the longer we wait to get started the more difficult it will be.

For example: the US underestimated the damage Saddam had done to Iraq's social capital. After he was removed from power his party was disbanded and barred. The West expected other players to come to the table, but guess what... they were all dead. There was no other trained social servants to be found. Saddam had killed (or caused to flee) just about every last free critical thinking professional in the country. The utter destruction of Iraq's social capital is the cause of what we see today with ISIS. The "power vacuum" is not so much a Dear Leader as it is a capacity and social infrastructure to maintain human rights.

It will take a generation or two for Iraq to regrow that social capital (especially given the post-war brain drain). In the meantime, it will not be easy. But when we get there, us and the Iraqis together, it will have been worth it.

The Syrians deserve to join us.

The Western powers have been screwing countries up around the world for centuries now. They invade or help overthrow countries and make them worse (Vietnam, Cambodia, Iraq, Libya, Egypt...) at huge monetary and human cost, and don't protect citizens of the world when they should, ie, Rwanda, Nigeria...

So the reluctance to help Assad makes the US look pretty stupid. We should have left the 'iron men' of the Middle East alone, unless they directly threatened us, but now we truly have good reason to destroy ISIS, because they are a direct threat to Western countries, and morally because we in effect created them.

TheDemSocialist said:

Like all of us know the options are on the table for the USA to bomb ISIS in Syria. With that in mind if If the we are going to bomb ISIS in Syria should the we work With Syrian State?

**When I say "We" I mean the US gov**

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No, unless he makes a power-sharing agreement or truce with the rebels. If we simply support him and abandon all support for the moderate rebels, he'll just kill people en masse - we can probably anticipate massive "collateral damage" from his attempts to seize Raqqa and other Syrian cities, if not a bona fide massacre. He'll then be in a better position to defeat the opposition and violate the human rights of against anyone who fought against his regime. Because his rule has been sectarian in nature, we will not have fixed the root cause of ISIS: namely, authoritarian and sectarian leadership that marginalized the Sunnis in Iraq and Syria.

From a practical standpoint, his assistance would be questionable. I wouldn't trust any intelligence that the Syrian regime gives us in regards to ISIS bombing targets, since there's a good chance that many of those would be areas controlled by the opposition who fight against ISIS.

ecofarm said:

Tell that to Qaddafi and Mubarak.



Now we're gonna denigrate the entire Arab and Persian "cultures" (read: people)?



We must take those steps. They are weaponless, powerless and under the tyranny of a mass-murdering dictator. What you're suggesting is like standing aside while a dog mauls a child and saying "well, the kid should have stood up for himself if he really believed in his freedom".



Fair enough, without your qualifications.



We do not need to ask Syrians to become terrorists for their freedom. We need to support moderates in the creation of a democratic transitional government, for which a constitution including human rights will be written.

Without human rights and representation, we'll be in the same place any number of years from now. It's about time Syria began developing and joined us in the developed world. It will require generations and the longer we wait to get started the more difficult it will be.

For example: the US underestimated the damage Saddam had done to Iraq's social capital. After he was removed from power his party was disbanded and barred. The West expected other players to come to the table, but guess what... they were all dead. There was no other trained social servants to be found. Saddam had killed (or caused to flee) just about every last free critical thinking professional in the country. The utter destruction of Iraq's social capital is the cause of what we see today with ISIS. The "power vacuum" is not so much a Dear Leader as it is a capacity and social infrastructure to maintain human rights.

It will take a generation or two for Iraq to regrow that social capital (especially given the post-war brain drain). In the meantime, it will not be easy. But when we get there, us and the Iraqis together, it will have been worth it.

The Syrians deserve to join us.

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Without changing the culture, you won't make any progress. As long as the people will accept the use os violence to take power, you will have violent men running things over there. As far as my "denigrating an enitre culture" is concerned. I got my informationfrom three sources: The first is my Dad's cousin who was on the last plane out of Iran when the Shah was deposed. He worked for as a intermediary between the US state dept. there and the oil cos. The second was a guy I worked with who was born in Syria and who would tell you very plainly that he was a "Persian, dammit, not some stinking Arab". The third is a friend who is hiding in Syria because he's a Christian and his life is in constant danger as a result. So my perspective comes not from wanting to denigrate anyone, but from having access to people who have been there, are there and understand the culture.

faithful_servant said:

Without changing the culture, you won't make any progress. As long as the people will accept the use os violence to take power,

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How else does one take power from a dictator. The "culture change" to which you refer is merely developing representative infrastructure - that's how other countries establish power without violence.

ecofarm said:

How else does one take power from a dictator. The "culture change" to which you refer is merely developing representative infrastructure - that's how other countries establish power without violence.

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..and then MAINTAINING that structure in the face of people who want to subvert it and take over. There hasn't been any Arab/Persian nation that's had a long term representative gov't and it's doubtful that we will see any soon. Egypt was probably the closest this part of the world has seen and it was a dicatorship with a rubber stamp legislature. Show us an Arab/Perian nation that has a strong, long term representative gov't. An argument might be made for Pakistan, but it's a nation that is strongly influenced by Indian culture and would at the very fringe of the Arab/Persian sphere.

TheDemSocialist said:

Like all of us know the options are on the table for the USA to bomb ISIS in Syria. With that in mind if If the we are going to bomb ISIS in Syria should the we work With Syrian State?

**When I say "We" I mean the US gov**

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I say no. It would feel kind of dirty.It would feel like a bully and the nerd that is being picked on by that bully teaming up to beat up another nerd.