US sending troops to Syria

[Comrade Jacob]

"I will not put boots on the ground" -Obama, 2013-14
Why the fuck you lying?..

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/31/john-kerry-us-troops-fight-isis-not-civil-war



Guess what? It's also illegal.

[Comrade Jacob]

"but guyz it's just to train moderate rebels that really exist, I'm not lying this time"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUb8oOoU0Bk

[Antiochus]

THe word illegal doesn't mean shit as far as U.S foreign policy goes. I mean, its illegal for the U.S to have foreign troops without direct congressional approval as per the War Powers Act.

[ComradeAllende]

THe word illegal doesn't mean shit as far as U.S foreign policy goes. I mean, its illegal for the U.S to have foreign troops without direct congressional approval as per the War Powers Act.

Agreed. Historically, most interventionist instances of modern (post-Civil War) U.S foreign policy have gone without the explicit consent of Congress (apparently Congress is nothing but a rubber-stamp when it comes to foreign policy). From the Banana Wars in the early 20th century to the classic American-backed coups against leftist/center-leftist governments in Latin America to the ongoing drone war in the Middle East and Africa, Congress seems to have abdicated its role in foreign policy decision-making to the White House.

As for the intervention in Syria, I think this is the onset of "mission creep" which will eventually culminate in a low-level deployment of US troops (Special Forces, "military advisers", etc.) to the region in order to combat ISIS. The American public (as of now) won't stomach another large-scale invasion of a Middle Eastern country (whether the public Treasury can afford it is another thing), but if ISIS starts to alter its strategy (more terrorist attacks on Western cities, expanding operations to Afghanistan and the Arabian Peninsula, etc.), we may see another "surge" in the so-called War on Terror. Given the absence of a major anti-war movement in the US, the only serious opposition that will arise will be liberal Democratic doves (who could easily flip-flop if a terrorist attack strikes the US) and libertarian-ish conservatives like Rand Paul (who are being marginalized by the war hawks in the GOP). And that won't be anything near the massive anti-war opposition required to resist modern American imperialism.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

He's not "sending troops," he's sending 30-50 special forces operators from various branches to work with both the Iraqi "state," and it's "preferred" Syrian rebels. That's very different than sendin like several columns of infantry or whatever. This fucking stupid af, America is just embarrassing itself by trying to "maintain important assets in Syria." Just stand aside, everyone knows ISIS is American anyway, quit playin.

[Emmett Till]

He's not "sending troops," he's sending 30-50 special forces operators from various branches to work with both the Iraqi "state," and it's "preferred" Syrian rebels. That's very different than sendin like several columns of infantry or whatever. This fucking stupid af, America is just embarrassing itself by trying to "maintain important assets in Syria." Just stand aside, everyone knows ISIS is American anyway, quit playin.

Yeah, yeah, and the US never landed on the moon, and Elvis is alive, well, and living in Las Vegas.

Now that US "special ops" soldiers have landed, and are, according to all accounts, linking up with the Kurds to fight ISIS, the idea that the US is secretly behind ISIS has gone from absurd to double-absurd.

[Emmett Till]

"but guyz it's just to train moderate rebels that really exist, I'm not lying this time"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUb8oOoU0Bk

No, actually Obama finally gave up on that one, after the last fiasco. That's why soldiers are landing. Obama has basically given up on the nonexistent "moderate rebels," who are either lining their pockets with US dollars in Istanbul cafes, like the "Free Syrian Army," or joining up with either ISIS or Al Quaida (pardon me, "Al Nusra") as soon as the checks clear.

Now, the US is relying on bombs, drones and Kurds.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

Yeah, yeah, and the US never landed on the moon, and Elvis is alive, well, and living in Las Vegas.

Egads, crappy contrarianism, my (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/06/17/russian-official-wants-to-investigate-whether-u-s-moon-landings-actually-happened/) only weakness. Yawn (http://www.lasvegas-entertainment-guide.com/las-vegas-impersonators.html).


Now that US "special ops" soldiers have landed, and are, according to all accounts, linking up with the Kurds to fight ISIS, the idea that the US is secretly behind ISIS has gone from absurd to double-absurd.

oh (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/03/us-isis-syria-iraq) rly (http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/09/21/world/middleeast/suspicions-run-deep-in-iraq-that-cia-and-the-islamic-state-are-united.html?referer=&_r=0)? (https://www.rt.com/op-edge/168064-isis-terrorism-usa-cia-war/)

[WideAwake]

You are right, and one of the main problems I see in the whole society of America, is that there is a sort of relativism, perspectivism way of thinking, in which there are no clear boundaries of what is good and what is bad, what is true and what false, what is right and what is wrong in America, along with tons of different ideologies and political mentalities in people (libertarianism, social-democracy, capitalist-patriotism-imperialism (republican party), religions, family-narcissism, occultism, conspiracy theories, and ultra-leftists (communists, anarchists etc. but the ultra-leftists are a minority)

Relativism, perspectivism (meaning that if Obama kills thousands of people in the name of US patriotism, Obama is a hero. But if a crazy guy in a city kills 10 people in a mass shooting, that crazy guy is a monster. That way of thinking of on the one hand supporting the evil that US government does. And the non-existance of a clear-cut morality codes in America, is what enables not only US government to be evil, immoral, but there is a sort of institutionalized evil and immorality in America. Of people doing lots of immoral things, like people buying stuff at 10 dollars and selling them at 100 dollars on e-bay. People stealing from their own families

The whole USA is a corrupt anarchy, there is lots of institutionalized corruption and evil not only in the US government, but in the private sector as well (and since the general american society is very relativist, people have no problem and feel no shame, when people in America are doing something evil, immoral and abusive, if it leads to economic benefits or any other kind of benefit (this is the way this country has been for many years)

If most americans were not relativists and did not think according to consensus reality, conventional wisdom, argumentun ad-populum and the bandwagon effect. But according to a moralism, ethical way of thinking in which bad is bad and good is good, the great majority of people would already have overthrown the current capitalist imperialist system or at least would've voted an anti-war third party into the US government

Having said all this about the institutionalized murder, stealing, and cheating in the whole USA, it is no wonder that there is no anti-war movement in America, because millions of americans (even progressive liberals) support US wars, even Thom Hartmann from The Russia Today News

Here is an article from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy about relativism

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/relativism/

Relativism, roughly put, is the view that truth and falsity, right and wrong, standards of reasoning, and procedures of justification are products of differing conventions and frameworks of assessment and that their authority is confined to the context giving rise to them. More precisely, “relativism” covers views which maintain that—at a high level of abstraction—at least some class of things have the properties they have (e.g., beautiful, morally good, epistemically justified) not simpliciter, but only relative to a given framework of assessment (e.g., local cultural norms, individual standards), and correspondingly, that the truth of claims attributing these properties holds only once the relevant framework of assessment is specified or supplied. Relativists characteristically insist, furthermore, that if something is only relatively so, then there can be no framework-independent vantage point from which the matter of whether the thing in question is so can be established.

Relativism has been, in its various guises, both one of the most popular and most reviled philosophical doctrines of our time. Defenders see it as a harbinger of tolerance and the only ethical and epistemic stance worthy of the open-minded and tolerant. Detractors dismiss it for its alleged incoherence and uncritical intellectual permissiveness. Debates about relativism permeate the whole spectrum of philosophical sub-disciplines. From ethics to epistemology, science to religion, political theory to ontology, theories of meaning and even logic, philosophy has felt the need to respond to this heady and seemingly subversive idea. Discussions of relativism often also invoke considerations relevant to the very nature and methodology of philosophy and to the division between the so-called “analytic and continental” camps in philosophy. And yet, despite a long history of debate going back to Plato and an increasingly large body of writing, it is still difficult to come to an agreed definition of what, at its core, relativism is, and what philosophical import it has. This entry attempts to provide a broad account of the many ways in which “relativism” has been defined, explained, defended and criticized.



THe word illegal doesn't mean shit as far as U.S foreign policy goes. I mean, its illegal for the U.S to have foreign troops without direct congressional approval as per the War Powers Act.

[ckaihatsu]

I think the more realistic assessment might be that the U.S. has been *officially* supporting the moderate rebels (FSA) -- with an eye toward toppling Assad, as has been a standing meta-presidential national foreign policy objective, as from the neoconservatives -- while the CIA at the same time could conceivably be *hedging* this official strategy by *covertly* backing the extremist forces of ISIS, still with an eye towards toppling Assad.

However this kind of strategizing has *resulted* in a geopolitical contradiction, that of the U.S. (possibly) backing religious fundamentalists, while having to *combat* those same fundamentalists, for the sake of political propriety.

[Burzhuin]

I think toppling Assad is a very stupid idea. But the problem with politicians they never learn. It was with Saddam Hussein, Muamar Kaddafi, Anvar Sadat...

[ACME_MAN]

Intelligence sources I have read indicate that these troops are there to keep ISIS propped up. The latter have been taking a beating from the Russians as of late. It's all about oil and gas here folks.



"I will not put boots on the ground" -Obama, 2013-14
Why the fuck you lying?..

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/31/john-kerry-us-troops-fight-isis-not-civil-war



Guess what? It's also illegal.

[Comrade #138672]

I think toppling Assad is a very stupid idea. But the problem with politicians they never learn. It was with Saddam Hussein, Muamar Kaddafi, Anvar Sadat...Toppling Assad is not necessarily a bad thing. It just depends on who is doing the toppling.

[Guardia Rossa]

Toppling Assad is not necessarily a bad thing. It just depends on who is doing the toppling.

And who do you think should do it? Not many choices.

[Comrade #138672]

And who do you think should do it? Not many choices.The working class itself. But you are right, there are not any real choices and the situation in Syria is hardly revolutionary (more like the opposite).

[Emmett Till]

The working class itself. But you are right, there are not any real choices and the situation in Syria is hardly revolutionary (more like the opposite).

The Syrian working class, once fairly powerful, has now by and large fled to Europe. The country has been destroyed, largely courtesy of Uncle Sam, a much bigger problem for Syrians than ISIS. So getting US hands off Syria, and then all the other foreign visitors as well, is a precondition for any positive changes.