Are we going to war with Syria?

You've brought absolutely nothing to this debate other typical liberal spin, not facts. Just admit that Obama got this one wrong. You ignore the fact that no additional country joined Obama after his plea at the G-20. The countries mentioned already supported the notion of military force and none of them were in any position of real strength. Otherwise, Obama wouldn't have needed to even go to the Summit if he had real support. In regards to the plan, saying we're going to launch missiles and be done in 3 months is hardly a plan. If that's all it takes...let me be president. Sorry if I was looking for something with a little more detail. This is the first time lawmakers have voted to authorize military action since the October 2002 votes giving President George W. Bush the authority to invade Iraq. It's hilarious how Obama is doing the exact same thing as George W. Bush, but liberals try to give him a pass. At least we got attacked on our soil before GWB decided to go to war. There was zero threat to our security with Syria. But you're right that we can talk about this until the cows come home. Sorry for not having anything positive to say about Obama. So here it goes:

- You did an amazing job handling the Benghazi situation!

- The Obamacare launch was fantastic! Don't let the low numbers get you down...it will pick up soon!

- Good job getting a deal done with Syria to give up chemical weapons! Who cares that you weren't even in the room for the negotiations! Anyone else worried that we had one evil leader negotiate with another evil leader? I'm not! It's perfectly normal for a leader to kill thousands of its citizens for months and have a change of heart overnight. We can make an ABC show out of it... "Extreme Dictator Makeover". At the end of the show the crowd can scream "move those stockpiles" and they will see the new nice Bashar Al-Assad.

 

If you are going to accuse Loki of liberal spin, you can at least admit that you contridicted yourself on your position with the UN. I disagree with Medulla but at least we know what his opinon is. So where do you stand with the UN? Your posts lack full disclosure but yet they reek of a strong bias.

 

James, repeating the same false claims do not make them true. Kerry was integral in the negotiations and the implementation, and he takes his marching orders from the President. There were other countries that supported the strikes from the very beginning (once again you were wrong when you initially said he had no support). Benghazi was the ultimate fake scandal, which is why nothing came of it. ACA is just getting started and the glitches were expected, lets see how it plays out over time, like or not its the law of the land. Funny how I have actual links with facts, reason and logic, and all you have brought to the discussion is far right low information hysteria.

 

I didn't contradict myself. When Obama went to speak at the G-20 Summit, he got no new supporters for the attack on Syria. The ones who agreed with him already had expressed support for a strike. But Obama knew that having the support of Canada and France is virtually meaningless. He needed the support of major players with strong military forces.

The UN strongly protested attacks and were supportive of the deal. But the UN does not do the best job of enforcing the deals because they weapons inspectors face danger from Syrian rebels. They can't properly disarm them from weapons when they are being killed off.

You don't find it a little bit strange that Assad would agree to giving up weapons overnight?

 

Loki, I can go on the net and find articles to link to as well. I don't care about the rosy picture the liberal media is trying to spin on these issues. He botched the Benghazi situation. Nothing came of it because the administration swept it under the rug and media outlets obviously aren't going to run anything against Obama.

He got stuck trying to be macho on Syria and fortunately got bailed out by Russia. But he is fooling himself if he thinks Assad will play nice now. In fact, yesterday rebels wiped out 200 more people in a town. Now they are going to go back to killing people with weapons supplied by Russia. It was the perfect deal!!

He led Americans to think ACA would be a good deal...now people realize how much it will cost them. There is no way to have sustainable low cost healthcare without a massive amount of healthy people contributing. So for every elderly person who requires $50,000 in healthcare costs, you need 25 people carrying $2000 deductibles to cover them. Good luck with that! Why would people paying nothing for healthcare all of sudden want to pay $150/month. They are going to pay the $90 penalty and the ACA will be bankrupt before it even gets going.

 

If you noticed some of the links I posted to refute your claims are from conservative sites. Of course the war in Syria was not going to be solved simply by removing the chemical weapons, but one thing you cant deny is that President Obama stood up for the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). We will have to see if Syria lives up to the provisions that Kerry an Lavrov outlined here, so far so good.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framework_for_Elimination_of_Syrian_Chemical_Weapons

We will have to agree to disagree on Benghazi when it comes to the media, Fox has been DESPERATE for a scandal to take down this administration, if something had truly been there they would still be harping on it.

As far as the ACA, we actually agree, and the administration has been quite clear on the fact that the wealthy and the healthy/younger will, in some cases, have to pay more than those are not. From Money magazine (hope that is not too liberal of a source for you )..

Myth: Young people will pay a lot more for insurance under Obamacare.

Reality: It's true that premiums will likely rise for some young adults, particularly men. But that doesn't take two important considerations into account: federal subsidies and more comprehensive coverage.
The Obama administration Wednesday released a first look at how much consumers will pay for premiums in 36 insurance exchanges partly or fully run by the federal government. The exchanges open for enrollment on October 1, while coverage begins in January.
The new data showed that in Indianapolis, for instance, the sticker price for the cheapest bronze plan for a 27-year-old will be $204. Right now, he can get a policy for as little as $52.50, according to eHealthInsurance, an online marketplace.
In Fort Lauderdale, Fla., the least expensive bronze plan will cost $128, compared to $66 today.
But those comparisons are very misleading because they do not take out-of-pocket costs and coverage limits into account, said Linda Blumberg, senior fellow at The Urban Institute. The cheap insurance policies today have very high deductibles -- $10,000 each for the Indianapolis and Fort Lauderdale plans -- and don't cover mental health, brand-name drugs or pre-natal care. The out-of-pocket limit in each of these plans is $12,500.
"Part of the problem with these plans is that people think they are insured until something bad happens and then they find out they aren't covered," she said. The Obamacare plans are "real insurance."

 

The U.S. foreign policy objectives in Syria were the same ones we had in Libya; provide logistical and tactical support to the rebels seeking to overthrow the regime and allow that country's own people to achieve political change.

It was never Obama's intent to invade Syria.

The point behind a missile strike was to degrade Assad's chemical weapons stockpiles to such an extent they could not be used against rebel forces and dramatically turn the tide in the civil war in Assad's favor.

Obama went through so many hoops and paperwork to get an attack approved because the Tea baggers were prepared to begin IMPEACHMENT proceedings against the POTUS for not seeking Congressional approval for a military strike that was within his authority, by calling it an illegal 'act of war'.

If this is how our Congress works, where one side feels comfortable inventing its own version of factual events, no wonder the legislative branch of our government has become so dysfunctional.


Anyone who doesn't understand that U.S. warships in the Gulf were integral to pressuring the Russians to force Assad to capitulate and admit he'd used chemical weapons in attacking his own people and turn over the locations of those stockpiles, is being blinded by their own ideology.

About Benghazi, that was a CIA run operation and nowhere near as cut and dried as many would have you believe. Our ambassador never should have been there when he was and if he hadn't been killed, the attack probably never would have been covered by the media.

There's a reason why Congress has cooled off on pressuring Obama about Benghazi.

 

The coverage option in California would be $50 cheaper per month under the ACA. But the coverage itself is inferior to my current plan through my employer where I have no deductible, cheap emergency room, and no charge for most services. But the ACA shouldn't be comparing itself to currently insured individuals because that isn't the market they're serving. The ACA is intended to force people without insurance to get covered. So the real dilemma is someone going from $0/month with no coverage going up to $500/month for a family of 4. Most people will not take this option and simply elect to pay the fine.

 

Not every dictator thinks they are one of the greatest military commanders in history like Hitler who mistakenly thought he was a better strategist than Napoleon, or like Saddam who somehow thought he was as great as Saladin. The thought of being attacked by the worlds only super power can actually be a bit intimidating to those that are not delusional enough to think they have the skills of the greatest military strategist and tacticans of all time. Especially when you consider the fact that he has had major setbacks while simply trying to win a civil war. Getting bombed by the US could have easily cost him the possibility of victory. Bat shit crazy does not always mean stupid.

 

So you really think Assad had a change of heart in 24 hours? You guys are so naive if you honestly believe that. Assad did a "wink wink" deal with Putin. Russia supplies Syria with arms. So Assad agrees to give up chemical stockpiles and Russia will just provide him with double the ammo. It hasn't stopped the mass killings in Syria. Yesterday another 200 were killed and 200 abducted (http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middl...-massacring-civilians-201310118942829540.html) I'm still waiting on the outrage from Obama. But these citizens don't matter because they weren't killed by chemical weapons. The administration is a joke! Syria did not care about our ships because they knew Obama wasn't going to strike. Syria also knows the UN poses no threat. They will just shoot at the UN weapons inspectors when they visit the weapons sites. Fortunately, this will miraculously go away just like Benghazi. Because the liberal media will do their "look over there" routine and everyone will turn a blind eye to the issue.

 

All Syria had to do was turn on the television and they could see that Obama had no support to do a strike against them. But to calm the waters, they do a deal with Russia...their #1 ally!! That's like Iraq asking us to do something and us saying don't worry we negotiated a deal with the UK...lol! Russia will continue to supply Syria with arms and Syria will continue to wipe out towns who oppose them. But we won't care because it's not chemical weapons. We don't mind 1000 people dying by bullets, but God forbid 1000 people die by Sarin gas.

 

Yes, before the ACA one of the main reasons for ever increasing costs of healthcare was the uninsured going to emergency rooms for care which was covered by all of us. The ACA forcing the uninsured to pay something is a reasonable way to help control those costs. Your family of 4 example above, would have multiple options for more affordable care including hardship exemptions and subsidies. No easy answers here, but it is a valid attempt to force people to be accountable and lower costs, I would think that would appeal to you far right types, no?

From factcheck.org

Claim: All of the uninsured will pay less on the exchanges than they could now on the individual market, even without federal subsidies.

President Obama made this claim at an Aug. 9 press conference, saying that beginning Oct. 1, the 15 percent of the population that’s uninsured would be able to “sign up for affordable quality health insurance at a significantly cheaper rate than what they can get right now on the individual market.” Obama went on to emphasize that that was before including federal subsidies. “And if even with lower premiums they still can’t afford it, we’re going to be able to provide them with a tax credit to help them buy it,” he added.
But even Obama’s secretary of health and human services, Kathleen Sebelius, has acknowledged that young persons would likely pay more and older Americans would likely pay less on the insurance exchanges. As we explained, the reason is that the ACA changes how insurance companies can price these policies on the individual market — it forbids insurance companies from charging more for persons with preexisting conditions or based on gender, and limits them to charging older policyholders no more than three times what they charge to younger policyholders. Premiums can also vary based on geography and smoking — but smokers can only be charged 1.5 times the rate for nonsmokers.
There won’t be any super-cheap plans for the young and healthy, nor sky-high premiums for older folks or those with health conditions. (High-deductible catastrophic plans, however, will be available to those under 30, or older Americans with hardship exemptions. They can be purchased only without federal subsidies.) Some on the exchanges will pay less; some will pay more than what they could get now. Economist Jonathan Gruber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was a paid adviser to both the Obama administration and then-Gov. Mitt Romney’s administration on health care plans. Gruber told us a “small share” of the uninsured would pay higher premiums on the exchanges. “The president is right for the average uninsured person, but not for all uninsured people,” he said.

 

You still don't understand the concept of WMD, chemical weapons and why they've been banned universally from the theater of war, yet bullets have not.

Every U.S. modern President of whatever party would have had the same vocal response and outrage to Assad using chem weapons against his own people. The last administration probably would have launched a full scale invasion.

The human destructive capability of chem weapons is just a step below nukes and on par with the neutron bomb.

Believe it or not civilized nations still make a lukewarm effort to follow the rules laid down in the Geneva conventions.

Your problem is obviously with Obama, and not how he's responding to international crises.

Following your argument, if Assad ends up killing 1 million of his own people to preserve his regime, what's the difference if he used a couple of nukes to do the same thing??
The people are still dead right??:smt120

 

Bullets are for wars. The sciences like biology, chemistry, and nuclear physics are supposed to be for the advancement of people, not the destruction of them. If chemical weapons are allowed its easy to loose sight of this simple logic. Our solar system is full of lifeless planets, earth can also become likewise, unless we keep things in perspective. Young pateawan.

 

Guess what? We are the country in the history of the world to drop a nuclear atomic bomb...and we did it twice! So when we tell other countries it is dangerous and you need to give up your weapons, it's kinda like the pot calling the kettle black.

 

If your uncle sold drugs in the past is he wrong for telling you not to do it? Would that be calling the kettle black? You do realize some people have never had anyone to tell them that selling dope is wrong? Do you realize how bad that is??

Do you know that there are plenty of scientists that will sell the secrets of WMD to the highest bidder? (AQ Khan for example) You do know that North Korea has weaponized bubonic plague right?? The same illness that killed 100 million people?? How much money do you think it would take to pay some scientists to find a reservoir for the Ebola virus and turn it into a weapon?? 50 million?? 100 million?? You do realize that Saddam was estimated to be worth about 20 - 40 billion??

But because the US used WMD in 1945 every country in the world should get their chance to do the same. It is the only way to be fair. After all, it is just awful to call the kettle black.

 

The point I'm making isn't that every country should use them. Of course...no country should have them. The point is that America looks super hypocritical telling other countries to get rid of their nuclear weapons since we're the only one who has ever used them. Please understand that there are other countries that hate us and will always hate us...even for things we did in 1945! If Barack thinks that Assad has suddenly had a change of heart, then I've got a bridge I want to sell him. No amount of diplomacy can deter a radical leader.

 

I hate to say this, but many liberal Iranians i know agree with me, the United States is the cause of the fascist government in Iran today. If American did not meddle in their democracy back in the 1950's and replaced it with the Shah a dictator, it is a possibility things could have been different, the same goes for countries such as Sudan.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/cia-assisted-coup-overthrows-government-of-iran

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'état

I am not blaming everything on the United States, but forces within the United States government did orchestrate events.

 

I totally agree with this post and you do have a point if you are suggesting that ideally it is better for the UN to handle most situations on the world scene, due to the fact that this country is far from perfect. If only it could work like that fam. If only it could.

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