Syria, Pyongyang: WTH is going on now?

[BigArn]

Hey that is a pretty cool place for a vist. The island that is.

[TheSollyLama]

Late to this thread. But let me steer back on OT-

NK is not a new threat by any means. It remains technically at war with the south and we've had many run ins over there, often without alot of fanfare. But I served a year in Korea and there is alot of that documented there. The tunnels, Freedom City, all that stuff most people never hear of.
Bush named it way back as one of the Axis of Evil, so again- for the past 60 years give or take- korea has been a threat. So badly they openly test ballistic missiles that have the range to target Japan. Only one of the most influential economic centers in the world....

Nothing new there. Plus, NK has long supplied the middle east with missile technology. Itself taken from chinese clones of russian equipment. Stuff like SA-2 and SA-4 SAM missiles. SCUD technology that Saddam used were direct purchases from NK.

NK also leads the middle east in nuclear technology, so it has a product to sell. Don't forget we actually invade the middle east and hunt down their scientists. NK has all but immunity from that, so they are free to develop weapons.

Weapons technology is NK's number one export. It's a xenophobic nation- by definition it's perfect for a dictator selling weapons for cash to barely feed the starving peasants.

No president should be as tolerant of NK as we are. But we let the UN run things and now they have nuclear capability and invasion may cost us Tokyo and tens of millions of lives in a flash.

Syria on the other hand has long been a supporter of terrorism and has a robust chemical weapons program. Obviously Saddam didn't destroy his stockpile (or he would have simply complied with the UN and saved himself from invasion) and we haven't found it- so where did it go? Most likely Syria.

Syria is also a longtime agitator with Israel. Now- I personally don't give a shit about their little holy war with Israel. But we armed Israel with nukes, and THEY WILL USE THEM. That'll dissolve the entire middle east into chaos. $20 a gallon for gas anyone? Especially after we back the country that just nuked someone.............Oh yeah, that's pleasant.

I'm not for starting new wars. We are too wrapped up in nation building to do it anyway. However- make no mistake between innocent countries and these two. They certainly both deserve scrutiny and possible military action. Don't care who is president here- these are bad places and only getting badder.

But we need to pick our targets more carefully. I was all for invading Iraq based on the violations of the sanctions and the surrender agreement. But was it the war we should have pressed? Should we have perhaps used our 'war ticket' to get someone more important? Iran? NK? Syria?

Who knows? I was an intelligence analyst, so that's my take on it. If I were to start a war in the interest of the US- it wouldn't have been Iraq. I would have bombed the living shit out of any number of nations- but actual invasion and war I would have saved for a bigger player.

I think Bush shot his load prematurely going into Iraq. He jumped on that post-9/11 wave of support and rushed into Iraq. Should have made a success in Afghanistan first and then pushed for a stronger hand dealing with NK and Iran.

That's just one analysts course of action though. Never know.

[Baldrick]

Originally Posted by TheSollyLama

I think Bush shot his load prematurely going into Iraq. He jumped on that post-9/11 wave of support and rushed into Iraq. Should have made a success in Afghanistan first and then pushed for a stronger hand dealing with NK and Iran.

That's just one analysts course of action though. Never know.

That's what many of us (most often the ones that have been called "America Haters" and "Terrorist Lovers") have been saying for years.

[SlowGoose]

Solly, are you a UN supporter? Do you think it's an effective organization?

[Gaolee]

The USA is the world's biggest exporter of weapons. Just sayin'...

[TheSollyLama]

I loathe the UN. It is just the League of Nations that failed before it.

I do not believe nations can be governed the way states are under a single constitution. It was said by smarter than I: "Countries don't have friends, they have interests"

The UN is a perfect example of uselessness. It is a bunch of blowhards that like to see themselves kings of the worlds, and yet when it comes down to brass tacks, they are a toothless tiger.

The UN is nothing without the US to back it. Everytime the 'UN' does anything, it means the US pays the bills, takes the risks, buries their young- while the rest of the UN is busy looking for backdoor deals to generate wealth.

Nothing says asinine as the son of the head of the UN caught using the UN to further sweetheard oil deals to line the pockets of member nations. Or the fact that the UN appointed Iran on the commision for human rights...........

It is a drain on our economy, utterly useless to the interests of the US except to get some kind of approval for military action. And when they withhold that- we just do it anyway and fuck the UN.

League of Nations part II and just about as useful. It's dumb enough to think that nations would put aside their own interests for the 'global whole' and not once has it happened. The UN is just a pawn in the Superpower chessgame and in the end will be dissolved and replaced like the League of Nations---just not before it becomes the posterchild for using strife and human suffering to line the pockets of the greedy.

It is nothing more than a forum for less important (mostly european) nations to whine about events they are irrelevant to anyway. In exchange they get to pretend to be the parity of the US and feel better about just not mattering on the global scene. Plus the oil for food type of payoffs.

I do not think the US needs to seek approval from irrelevant nations to take action in our own interests. That's what countries do- it's not a popularity contest. I don't think any nation in the UN has a moral much less legal authority to even speak as equals. This is the world- what you bring to the table is what you're measured on, not some bullshit parity you like to think you have with the big boys. There are few superpowers and everyone else is only equal in their minds.

Now I am for co-operation and building alliances and forming a unified front when possible. But I don't think the UN is required to do that, nor do I think it does a decent job of it to begin with. It holds that progress up mostly until the smaller players figure out how to skim some money out of it, then it gets a green light.

The UN also fails at virtually every endeavor. It hasn't even slowed the tide of violence in Africa, not fed people like even small charities accomplish with less overhead. It proclaims to be moral judges on the US at Gitmo, but ignores ethnic cleansing until the US comes on board to do the heavy lifting, ala Kosovo.

Thier military arm is a joke. In both Somalia and Kosovo, the US only got involved after the UN troops were shot to ribbons, ambushed, and in Bosnia, and entire bunch of them held hostage by local rebels. It's embarrassing just how bad they are as an armed organization.

I'd dissolve the UN in a heartbeat. Or at least toss their asses out of the US. Let them pretend to matter in europe. They have proven that all the UN does is allow small, insignificant countries to impose their will on larger, more powerful nations. Not bad as a check and balance- but the UN is a totally corrupt organization. It is like the Mafia on a global scale, and worse, are their own police. Yeah, no conflict of interest having the organization accused of wrongdoing, do it's own investigation...............

Fuck the UN. It's a millstone around the neck of the US. Dump it and we'd be better off building coalitions on our own rather than essentially paying the UN to play power broker.

[TheSollyLama]

The USA is the world's biggest exporter of weapons. Just sayin'...

see my quote:

It's a xenophobic nation- by definition it's perfect for a dictator selling weapons for cash to barely feed the starving peasants

Give the republicans the total control they had before for another term or two and this would be a theocracy no different than Iran. I totally agree with the fact that the US is a xenophobic, paranoid (some of it warranted, much of it not) nation run by a near dictator. He would be if he could.

But so would all the rest. Clinton will tell you what to think, what to say, etc just the same as the right. It's the same bullshit in a different package. Hence the banner in my sig line.........

[SlowGoose]

Why then did you use UN sanctions as part of you argument for the invasion of Iraq?

I see this everywhere: I hate the UN, Saddam violated UN sanctions and resolutions and that's why we went to war.

Beg pardon, but that makes no sense.

Got any links supporting your allegations that Saddam's stockpiles of chemical weapons got shipped to Syria? Or his nuclear weapons labs? Got any links that undermine Hans Blix's assertions that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction?

The fact remains that Saddam had been reduced to tin-pot dictator status and had no ability to project force anywhere accept against his own people.

The invasion was a terrible, terrible blunder by any sound estimation.

[jim schmidt]

Zing.

[HighsideSV]

Originally Posted by jerome_oneil

Comfortable with Syria having a nuclear weapon? I hate to break it to you guys, but they already have them, along with that entire stockpile of Weapons of Mass Destruction that the Iraqi's smuggled into the country in order to prevent their discovery by US forces.

The North Koreans are just there buying up the surplus.

Duh!

I realize that you are being sarcastic, but Syria DOES have a chemical weapon program that likely dwarfs Iraq's pre-gulf war I program. Remember that Syria is not subject to any weapons proliferation treaties or sanctions, and has been faced with a conflict with Israel for quite some time. Syria cannot possibly match the conventional military power of Israel, so they have developed non-conventional weapons systems to fill the gap. This program has been said to have been well supported by Iran. It is possible, but not established, that Syria may have a biological weapons program in place as well. Iran almost certainly does. A fight with Syria could get a lot nasty than their military capabilities would indicate.

This is something that would be good to remember. While the WMD threat in Iraq was a red herring, they are very real things that we would almost certainly have to face if the Gulf War were expanded to the greater Middle East. Invading Iraq was safe because we had spend a decade bleeding their military capability down to nothing, that is not the case with Iran or Syria

Chemical Weapons - Syria
Syria's Chemical Weapons - 1997
CNS - Syria's Scuds and Chemical Weapons
http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/npr/vol05/51/diab51.pdf

[Gaolee]

Good point. I guess Uncle Dick probably knew that, so he and dumb'ya decided to invade Iraq and leave Iran and Syria alone.

[SlowGoose]

Of course it would be a terrible idea to expand our war in the region.

[Gaolee]

'Course dumb'ya wants a legacy, and armageddon would be a legacy.

[jerome_oneil]

Hey! You leave my sarcasm alone!