Dozens of U.S. diplomats have urged bombings of President Bashar Assad's forces in Syria in order to make him more likely to step down. The memo, sent to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, was not necessarily intended to be public, and was sent through a "dissent channel":
More than 50 U.S. State Department officials have signed an internal memo calling for a change in the way the United States approaches Syria — specifically, advocating military pressure on Bashar Assad's regime to push him toward the negotiating table.
The diplomats expressed their opposition to the current U.S. policy through a cable on the State Department's dissent channel — which exists for just that reason. But NPR's Michele Kelemen reports that it's unusual for so many officials to sign on to such a cable. "Secretary of State John Kerry says he respects the process and will study their views," Michele tells our Newscast unit.
"The cable reportedly calls for targeted military strikes against the Assad regime, something the Obama administration has been reluctant to do," she reports. "Such action would also put the U.S. on a collision course with Russia at a time that Moscow is backing the Assad regime — and working with Secretary Kerry on a cease-fire and a diplomatic path that has faltered."
The New York Times , which has seen a copy of the memo, reports that the diplomats say they aren't advocating a confrontation with Russia. But a credible military threat against Assad is necessary to pressure him to negotiate, the officials argue. "The moral rationale for taking steps to end the deaths and suffering in Syria, after five years of brutal war, is evident and unquestionable. ... The status quo in Syria will continue to present increasingly dire, if not disastrous, humanitarian, diplomatic and terrorism-related challenges," the cable says, according to the Times.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday June 18 2016, @03:03PM
Don't care how many officials signed it. Don't care how highly they rank. Don't give a damn how special the little snowflakes are. The stupid sons of bitches didn't learn ANYTHING from Iraq.
We go in with a hardon for some evil sumbitch. We fuck him to death. We pretend to be doing some "nation building" while we are actually enriching some well connected freinds. Then, we abandon the nation, sit back, and watch while an even MORE EVIL sumbitch drives the nation into hell. Finally, we respond to this even more evil sumbitch by dropping more bombs on the civilians who live there.
Christ on a crutch - how do morons get these offices at the state department? I'm fairly sure that Hillary didn't appoint ALL OF THEM!
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 18 2016, @03:57PM
When Assad was elected, I caught an interview with him, and the thing that struck me the most was that he was a pragmatist- very lucid on what it would take to keep Syria away from a theocracy, and one of the saner voices in the region.
10 years later, he is Satan incarnate.
So what has changed?
I'm not certain anyone else trying to maintain stability in the region wouldn't also end up with some blood on their hands.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Username on Saturday June 18 2016, @07:53PM
So what has changed?
Presidency.
Obama needed an easy win against someone in order to create better ties with his arab "allies," but was tricked into supporting ISIS. He made the mistake of surrendering the war in Iraq before seeing what his proxy fighters in Syria were doing, and now lost the Syrian proxy war, and created an enemy far more dangerous than Hussein or Assad.
These politicians are just trying to find a way to call it a win, no matter the cost.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2016, @07:14AM
Bush signed the troop exit agreement, not Obama. Some argue he should have renegotiated, but we can't stay forever.
(Score: 2) by Username on Sunday June 19 2016, @09:26AM
Bush didn’t train and arm a portion of ISIS to overthrow Assad, or plan on the next president doing that. Most people would see how that ended in Afghanistan, and not attempt it again. Obama decided to roll that dice, and should have stayed in Iraq until the dust settled. There will be blowback from it as well, which Trump or post-trump would have to deal with.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday June 18 2016, @03:59PM
More than 50 'x' officials have signed an internal memo calling for a change in the way 'x' approaches the United States - specifically, advocating military pressure on the Presidents' regime to push him toward the negotiating table.
It works both ways, but for the second way, x solves to 'Terrorist'/'Terrorists'.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 5, Insightful) by jmorris on Saturday June 18 2016, @03:18PM
So what is the post Assad plan? What is the Plan B when that doesn't work? Assad is a monster, but only a monster can rule in that part of the world so again, what is the plan? Has nobody at the State Dept ever even studied the reasoning behind Sykes/Picot? You should understand a thing before setting out to dismantle it. That is one of the basic Conservative Ideas, Chesterton's Fence.
The opposition to Assad is an assortment of terror groups, sit them down at a negotiating table with Assad and things will get better how? Continuing to backdoor fund terror groups to keep the civil war in Syria going is going to help who? How? What the F*ck are they thinking? What is their actual goal?
Let Assad stay on an unstable throne depending on the Russians. It is the least bad option. If you don't like that idea, I really don't give a damn because I don't like it either. Suggest a alternative and if I can't shoot it down, maybe I'll agree.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Saturday June 18 2016, @03:34PM
Both of the two earliest posts here are completely correct. There is no good option here, and did we learn nothing at all from Iraq? Even if we think some harebrained plan to eliminate Assad is a good idea, when it doesn't work out so great, guess who's to blame? "You break it, you own it" applies here.
Where are these morons coming from who think it's a great idea to back Al Qaeda and ISIS just so the "monster" Assad can be overthrown? All the groups opposing him are even worse than he is, usually far far far worse.
And now they want to put us in a position directly opposing Russia? Yeah, that sounds like a great idea!
This is what we'll get if we elect warmonger Hillary.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 18 2016, @04:35PM
The USA is one of the main parties responsible for the mess in Syria (and the region in general):
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-syria-wikileaks-idUSTRE73H0E720110418 [reuters.com]
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/world/middleeast/cia-said-to-aid-in-steering-arms-to-syrian-rebels.html?pagewanted=all [nytimes.com]
Thing is, the mess seems to be what they expected and wanted from their actions (I'm not very sure why).
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/03/us-isis-syria-iraq [theguardian.com]
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/05/newly-declassified-u-s-government-documents-the-west-supported-the-creation-of-isis.html [washingtonsblog.com]
Yes the washingtonsblog etc are spinning it a bit - but doesn't take a genius to know what would happen (not like similar stuff hasn't happened before) and they still went for it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 18 2016, @09:33PM
business, what they really mean is 'chaos and uncertainty.' Outright war is a good method for steady income if you are an impartial third party either selling weapons or 'offering assistance' in exchange for future favors. However when you ensure chaos and strike uncertainty into the hearts of the indigenous populace, you in addition gain the ability to manipulate a region for much larger goals, be they inciting rebellion or terrorism, keeping your adversaries (regional or abroad) busy quelling the conflict, or simply creating many opposing groups with which you can negotiate ruthlessly to get the best deal over the local resources, be it now (in exchange for military aid), or later in exchange for ending the conflict (usually by replacing it with a government far more restrictive than your own, thus allowing you to benefit both from totalitarianism while you officially spout the opposite as well as uncontested control of the resources because dissenting against you will have you reincite the chaos you previously fomented allowing a new organization to replace the rebellious previous one.)
(Score: 1) by pvanhoof on Sunday June 19 2016, @11:35AM
Divide et impera.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by tisI on Sunday June 19 2016, @12:10AM
You are not alone in asking WTF is going on with Syria, America, and US political rhetoric.
Unfortunately you will not get any truth out of the american political propaganda media stream.
Syria is the last obstacle in American efforts to get a natural gas pipeline through the middle-east to European gas supply hubs in Turkey. The US is funding ISIS (yes, those wacky lovable terrorists that want only to kill your children) and the soviets are backing Assad's regime. The largest remaining gas pocket on the planet is below Iran and Qatar. American corporations want to tap out of Qatar. The Soviest want to tap out of Iran. It all boils down to a pissing contest between the US & Russa.
None of this has anything to do with "fighting terror".
Your favorite elected official (actually every last cocksucker in DC) is actually a puppy on a leash. A whore if you will. The holder-of-the-leash/master is Monsanto, Dow Chemical, General Mills, Exxon, Carlyle Group, Halliburton, the entire collective insurance industry, Utility Corporations, Kroch Bros, etc, etc. All the important people are being well taken care of, corporations are people now, by the bastards you cast your ballots for.
Were does that leave you?
Your favorite republican asswipes this last go-round handed Americans a turd called "Healthcare Reform" that the insurance lobby wrote. You are now obligated to pay the insurance industry an insanely high monthly fee for absolutely nothing in return. Even if your job has been off shored to China by the same bastards, and you're unemployed. Now you have the most expensive and shittiest health care system in the world. Pretty sweet deal the the insurance corporations though.
So, basically you are being sodomized every-single-day by the government you allowed to happen, right before your eyes, while you were busy catching all the latest episodes of Dancing with the Stars, The Real Bush People Of Alaska, and letting Fox and Fiends turn your mind into mush.
.. the short version
"Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself."
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bradley13 on Saturday June 18 2016, @03:47PM
US intervention in the Middle East has already made things soooo much better. What would the world do without American "help"?
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Dr John on Saturday June 18 2016, @04:32PM
Face it, the war dept. really wants the cold war with Russia back in case the terrorism bogeyman starts to wear thin. Plus, it is hard to argue that we need a trillion dollar upgrade to our nuclear arsenal to go after ISIS or whichever terror group is in fashion in Washington. This is a gift to Hillary, who desperately wants to show she can be tougher on Putin than Obama. The US has completely lost its way, and now is nothing more than the world bully, using our oversized military to push a neoliberal/neoconservative agenda of regime change and intimidation. I wonder when the lack of jobs, crumbling infrastructure, failing schools, and the extreme waste, fraud and corruption in military spending is finally going to make working Americans revolt and say no more. The Trump and Sanders campaigns indicate that the pitchforks are starting to be brandished at both ends of the political spectrum, at least by people who are paying attention.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 18 2016, @05:52PM
I wonder when the lack of jobs, crumbling infrastructure, failing schools, and the extreme waste, fraud and corruption in military spending is finally going to make working Americans revolt and say no more.
The Occupy Movement was five years ago. It consisted entirely of young Americans complaining loudly that their phone bills were too high. Where's your Occupy Movement now? They must have gotten those Obama Phones they wanted so badly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 18 2016, @07:17PM
This is doubling down on the dumb after what we saw in Iraq and Libya.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday June 18 2016, @04:41PM
One has to wonder if this is for real, or just an internal revolt to poison Hillary's well.
On the one hand, it might be just to put the fear of god in Assad as well as the Russians. Assad's feeling pretty good about now since the Russians flew in to his rescue, and started attacking the Kurds and everyone in site. All of that becomes moot if Assad gets taken out. It would amount to a checkmate against the Russians.
On the other hand the diplomatic core is still stinging from being hung out to dry in Benghazi, and Hillary taking all the Saudi money. This might be revenge. If so expect heads to roll.
On the third hand it might be a carefully planned Trump Trap, with Hillary calling in favors.
However, the US currently just added another Carrier task force to the Mediterranean, and it might be an Obama trial balloon.
In any event it is a stupendously bad idea, not only for the reasons others have mentioned above, but also its just dumb to telegraph your punches, which suggests to me it was never intended to happen.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 18 2016, @05:06PM
The Overseas do as they are told or else they get the drones again.
(Score: 2) by bziman on Saturday June 18 2016, @06:55PM
"Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity." - George Carlin
Truer words were never spoken. Want people to stop attacking us? Let's stop dropping bombs on them and killing their leaders!
Of course, we're not ACTUALLY fighting for peace or security or any nonsense like that... we're fighting because every gallon of gas we burn, every bullet we fire, and every bomb we drop is dollars taken from the public and placed into the pockets of the super rich.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Saturday June 18 2016, @10:15PM
Yeah, that's what I think too. Some people stand to get richer if particular courses of action are taken, and don't care what deaths and damage those actions cause, as long as they can evade responsibility. Some arms merchant and oil company villains get richer, the military boys get to play with deadly toys and maintain a grip on crucial energy supplies needed to run a mighty military, maybe get some promotions and pay grade increases, some politicians and diplomats get some kickbacks, the mainstream media gets more dramatic fodder to crank out "good" (as in, sells the news) copy, and the US takes the rap. The Military Industrial Complex is alive and growing.
I'd like to see plans for bringing peace to Syria and the whole Middle East, and credible reasons with analysis for why those plans will work. And it starts with understanding what went wrong in Syria. It's just amazing the complicated bull some of these biased analysts produce, when the problem is fairly simple: bad drought + population at the edge of sustainability = food shortages and the Arab Spring. The Arabs didn't suddenly decide they'd had enough of their stupid, crony governments out of some sudden political enlightenment and noble vision of a "more perfect union", no, they got hungry. The Assad government's response to their struggling farmers who asked for help was particularly stupid, declaring that the farmers were traitors for failing to grow food.
One footnote I found particularly striking from the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait was how ignorant the Iraqi soldiers were. When they plundered a Kuwaiti grocery store, they found all kinds of things that were novelties to them. They didn't know what toothpaste was. They ate it. For centuries, the Middle East has been wobbling towards the collapse of civilization and sinking into a dark age. US military action serves mainly to strengthen that trend. Barbarism will not help prevent barbarism.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Saturday June 18 2016, @10:22PM
Good thing General Eisenhower never heard Carlin, otherwise we would be writing this all in German. Violence never solved anything is something dumb people say. Violence can solve problems.
Just don't see how it could help in Syria since there isn't really a good side to help. Kill em all would work though. We might not want to do that for a multitude of very sound reasons but it would solve the problem. So it is more accurate to say no application of violence that is politically viable is likely to improve the situation in Syria. The importance of the distinction is that there ARE plenty of situations, even in the Middle East, where violence or the threat of it can be useful.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bziman on Sunday June 19 2016, @03:36AM
Carlin was funny. Eisenhower was serious. You want to know what Eisenhower thinks? Check out his "Chance for Peace" speech where he said what is probably the truest thing ever said by a politician in all of history:
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."
It was Eisenhower who warned us of the Military Industrial Complex.
I have no doubt about how he'd feel about all these meaningless conflicts - it's all about profiteering, and has nothing to do with peace, freedom, or security.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Thexalon on Sunday June 19 2016, @04:13AM
Or there's also the peacenik who wrote this:
Sounds like some sort of left-wing academic peacenik type, maybe coming out of the anti-Vietnam movement. Someone like Noam Chomsky or Howard Zinn.
If you think that, you'd be wrong, because it's actually written by one of the most celebrated soldiers in US history, General Smedley Butler of the US Marine Corps, one of 19 people to have received not one but two Medals of Honor. He goes on to explain exactly who profits, and why.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by Grayson on Saturday June 18 2016, @08:32PM
I don't think we really want to start a pissing match with Russia that includes shooting at their ally in a country that they have a large amount of military forces in.
That could quickly get out of hand.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by tisI on Sunday June 19 2016, @12:49AM
That's why the US is funding and arming ISIS.
Think back a couple years. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" logic. Yep that one. It's back.
Think of it this way:
The US and the USSR are having a chess match and the game is ISIS vs. Assad.
The US is backing OUR favorite terrorist organization and the Soviets are backing their friends in Syria.
It's a proxy war. Much like the 80's when Raygun was selling both Iraq and Iran boatloads of bullets, bombs and WMDs, so they could fight it out amongst themselves, for whatever end Raygun felt.
The end game here is control over supply of natural gas to Europe. The Soviet Union currently supplies Europe.
Corporate America wants to interfere with that notion and Syria stands in the way of C.A.
The Soviet Union is also not much of a fan of Corporate America's intentions.
Clear as mud?
"Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 18 2016, @08:57PM
Finally. The situation in Syria has been going on for too long. Everybody is suffering, because Assad and his terrorism and nobody is doing anything, except Russia doing the wrong thing. Assad needs to get got, and i don't care who does it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 18 2016, @09:20PM
You do know the alternative to Assad is theocracy, right? If he falls, it won't be a hippie who'll take his place.
(Score: 2) by fnj on Saturday June 18 2016, @09:03PM
How about NO?!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2016, @03:09AM
What did the bloody soldiers do to warrant bombing? IF they have that big a problem with Assad, why don't they bomb him instead of a bunch of grunts who realistically, have very little chance of effecting much change?
"If you would kill a snake, cut off its head, don't tickle its tail"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2016, @06:35AM
Everybody look up "The Yinon plan", Erez Israel, the "promised Land" and you have all your answers, you will understand why there is no stable new government in Iraq.
The Neocons are pushing because they are scared of Trumps peace driven agenda.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 19 2016, @03:31PM
http://www.thedailystar.net/the-yinon-plan-and-the-role-of-the-isis-31469 [thedailystar.net]
The picture thus being unfolded to the world is that Iraq is on the verge of being divided into three small states: Sunni Iraq, Shiia Iraq and an independent Kurdistan....
The division of Iraq into three separate entities had also been strongly advocated by US Vice-President Joe Biden....
Iraq, which was not only the most mechanised and urbanised state in the Middle East, possessing the largest oil reserve in the Middle East (tapped and untapped), but also cohesively united as a state with diverse ethno-linguistics and sectarian groups was the biggest strategic challenge to the plotters of this balkanisation plan.... Although Iraq has been represented to the world as a Shiite-majority state, Sunni Iraqis form the majority since the Kurds in Iraq are also Sunnis. The existence of the two major ethno-linguistics groups, the Arabs and the Kurds and the two major sectarian groups within the Islamic faith, the Sunni and the Shiia in Iraq allowed the balkanisation planners to foment tensions leading to total disintegration of the social fabric of the Iraqi society since the US-UK led invasion in 2003....
http://muslimvillage.com/2014/08/13/56742/the-yinon-plan-greater-israel-syria-iraq-and-isis/ [muslimvillage.com]
Some graphics.
One might remember that it was PNAC that also published the now infamous document “Rebuilding Americas Defenses” in which the following statement was made:
Further, the process of transformation [of the military], even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event––like a new Pearl Harbor”....
[ISIS] are not engaging the Kurds and have stopped North of Baghdad, thus effectively dividing Iraq into three states as pictured on the map: Free Kurdistan, Sunni Iraq, and the Arab Shia State....
Either the Yinon Plan is actually being implemented, using the sectarian animosity within the Muslim community as the vector or it is phenomenally coincidental that from Sudan, to Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Iraq the essential tenets of the Yinon Plan are being implemented.
It would certainly explain many of incongruities that we see in US foreign policy, especially with regard to our decision to arm and fund radical Islamic groups in Syria.
Compare with area of operations map in sidebar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_Levant [wikipedia.org]