Senate Committee Authorizes Military Force in Syria
34 replies, posted
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;42080982]My fucking senator voted for it.
This isn't surprising, though. Kerry was part of the Foreign Relations Committee for the longest of times. Of course his little group is going to give him what he asks for.
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Maybe they went for it because they were convinced by the argument and evidence?? Is this not a possibility for you? Does everything have to be sneaky and deceptive / back room deal sounding?
[QUOTE=Jsm;42085677]Maybe they went for it because they were convinced by the argument and evidence?? Is this not a possibility for you? Does everything have to be sneaky and deceptive / back room deal sounding?[/QUOTE]
You are naively optimistic.
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;42086339]You are naively optimistic.[/QUOTE]
I could say you are naively cynical. Then again, this is politics, even with something that [I]shouldn't[/I] be overtly political or partisan will have a lot of back room dealing going on,
[QUOTE=agentalexandre;42082229]Sectarian conflict between Sunnis and Shias in the county will only increase. The weakening of Assad will mean that the many players of the game in the Syrian civil war (whether regime or opposition) will step up their use of Lebanon as a mailbox. Because the politicians here can easily be classified as either pro or anti Assad, Lebanon is highly intertwined with Syria. The reality is that its much easier to retaliate to an attack in Syria by sending a message to your attacker through Lebanon.
If you're in the opposition, you give a call to your mates in Beirut and tell them to plant a bomb in Dahiyeh. Dahiyeh being a Hezbollah 'stronghold' (I don't particularly like to use that word as it's a civilian neighbourhood and its definitely not infested with Hezbollah militiamen) means that Assad gets a strong message that we can still hit you where it hurts despite what you've done to us. Vice versa with the Syrian regime ordering attacks. Nearly 100 people have been killed and over 1000 people have been injured in August in Lebanon because of two attacks which happened exactly because of what I just described. If a strike occurs to weaken Assad, Hezbollah will not be happy and it's very, very likely that they will do one/both of the following: retaliate by striking sympathisers of the opposition in Lebanon or retaliate by striking Israel. Obviously, neither one of these is any good because it just exacerbates the situation and continues to allow the civil war across the border to spill in.
And I realise that its very easy to say that this is Hezbollah's fault, and the Lebanese should do something about Hezbollah's arms. Unfortunately it doesn't work like that. Hezbollah, despite what the international community may think of it, is the only force that is actually any good at protecting Lebanon. The military is not very large and badly trained, the airforce next to non-existent(this page always makes me chuckle: [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanese_Air_Force[/url]) and I don't think I've even heard of a Lebanese navy. Getting rid of Hezbollah might fix Lebanon's image and help stabilise the country but it's not very easy.
The country has no money, no government - no one could come to a decision on the formation of the new cabinet so they violated the constitution and extended the parliament's term i.e literally no legislation is taking place because the parliament is not allowed to meet. We have nearly 800,000 Syrian refugees and the population of Lebanon was around 4 million before the crisis, there is simply not enough economic resources and infrastructure to care for such a huge increase in population. The country is quite literally dying and it doesn't need a strike on Assad. I sympathise with the Syrians and they are brothers and sisters to me but unfortunately its too late for the country. It's, however, not too late for Lebanon. We came out of a brutal civil war 20 years ago and slowly the country has been trying to rebuild but there's been too many setbacks that bring us to square one again. We're all sitting everyday watching the debates going on around the world, praying that the final verdict is a no.
I live in London but I've been in Lebanon on holiday for the past 4 months and I'm going back next week. In this situation, I don't want to leave. I can't imagine waking up in the UK to find out that my country, my family and my girlfriend are in trouble. What the fuck am I going to do then? What are the innocent Lebanese going to do when the time comes that they have to pay dearly for a situation they have so desperately tried to keep themselves out of. What will happen to the millions of Syrian and Palestinian refugees if Lebanon falls into war? Yes, someone must be punished for the crimes that have occurred in Syria, but not anyone outside the borders of the country.
[editline]5th September 2013[/editline]
Shit, I typed an essay. tl;dr Lebanon is fucked yo.[/QUOTE]
Lebanon was fucked the moment Assad started shooting Civilians.
[editline]5th September 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;42086339]You are naively optimistic.[/QUOTE]
I'd rather be optimistic and do something than be cynical to the point of nihilistic.
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