Another Middle East Crisis, Syrian Special "WMD"

[archibaldcrane]

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mi..._medium=Social

It sounds increasingly likely that ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead, likely killed by a Russian (of all countries) airstrike in June.

[Cail]

Syrian, Russian jets bomb residential areas in eastern Ghouta: witnesses, monitor

Civil defense workers said at least 17 were killed in the town of Hamoriya in an aerial strike on a marketplace and nearby residential area after over nearly 30 strikes in the past 24 hours that struck several towns in the densely populated rural area east of Damascus known as the Eastern Ghouta.

[archibaldcrane]

https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/07/polit...ria/index.html

US-led coalition strikes kill pro-regime forces in Syria

So, uh, what rationale allows us to attack Assad fighters in Syria again? I can't imagine how they could possibly fit under the 9/11 AUMF. I know this was also an issue when we bombed an airstrip after a chemical weapons attack, but I don't think that even killed anyone and WMDs are WMDs...this is just killing their dudes for, uh, being engaged in a civil war.

[Andalusian girls]

it says in your own article nay? regime forces, likely militia, crossed the de-confliction line (good God what atrocious military-bureaucratic lexicon) into the American sphere of influence and attacked a Syrian Democratic Forces headquarters where coalition advisers were present. militia promptly got a firestorm of return artillery and air strikes before whimpering back to Assad.

spoiler alert, don't want to get hit by F-22s don't fire on American soldiers.

[archibaldcrane]

So we're basically embedding our troops with Syrian rebel units as human shields so we can retaliate if Assad tries to participate in the civil war

cool strategy, are we still pretending that we are there just to fight ISIS?

[Salodin]

You say embedding our troops as human shields. I say embedding our troops to train others to fight their own wars so we don't have to send our own troops on the ground. We're basically splitting hairs though...i guess?

[archibaldcrane]

So we aren't pretending that we are there just to fight ISIS, ok.

[Salodin]

We're there to protect American interests?

[archibaldcrane]

We're there to protect American interests?

Ok, under what congressional authorization?

[Andalusian girls]

that's a p silly interpretation dear Archibald. there appears to be zero political will in Washington to overthrow the Assad regime, and the coalition units that came under attack were in territory they had recently been liberated from ISIS control, well east of the DMZish line established to prevent clashes like this. we had even alerted the Russians we were present in the area, and their Defense Ministry is claiming the attack came from a half-cocked militia that was not coordinating with them or the Assad regime and essentially stepped out of its lane.

if the goal was to provoke an attack so we could retaliate we did it in the least effective way imaginable by staying clear of pro-Assad forces, limiting our presence to the region mutually agreed upon, and broadcasting clearly to their Russian allies exactly where we were so there wouldn't be incidents of this kind.

it is true the only unifying objective of the exogenous military assets in country was the destruction of ISIS, and now that that has largely been achieved all extant forces in country, be they Russian or Turkish or American or Iranian, have conflicting goals. our present geopolitical goal is to carve out a (primarily) Kurdish autonomous zone in northern and north-eastern Syria, and we are engaged in tense standoffs with all other regional powers as essentially no one desires such beyond us and the Kurds. but if this particular event was more than one militia commander running off half-cocked it is far more probable it was the pro-regime forces testing the resolve of the coalition than it was the use of American human shields. as stated we have shown essentially no indication that our endgame is the end of the Assad regime (if Obama was lukewarm to the concept Trump seems to treat it with absolute antipathy) and it is in our interest to deescalate rising tensions and try to maintain the status quo of an autonomous region for our indigenous allies.

[archibaldcrane]

it is in our interest to deescalate rising tensions and try to maintain the status quo of an autonomous region for our indigenous allies.

Cool.

So are we going to get congressional authorization for using military force to achieve this goal, or just ignore that forever?

[Niiro]

No one gains politically from having a vote on the issue, so no.

[Zealot]

P. sure soldiers deployed anywhere in the world are allowed by rules of engagement to strike back if fired upon, and the troops in Syria are where they are with authorization.

[archibaldcrane]

P. sure soldiers deployed anywhere in the world are allowed by rules of engagement to strike back if fired upon, and the troops in Syria are where they are with authorization.

Under the 2001 AUMF? How long does that last once ISIS is gone?

[Andalusian girls]

if you desire anything more than a nod of tacit approval you may be in the wrong decade. in 2015 if memory serves Obama attempted to get Congress to pass a new AUMF targeting ISIS in particular (months after the bombings began but still) and our brave legislators refused to even debate the bill much less vote on it. our present engagement in Syria can legally be authorized by the rationale it is necessary to help our allies administrate the ISIS territory they have liberated, and to continue to target the extant ISIS cells that remain.

like you, and Secretary Mattis, of all people, i would like to see Congress come forward with a less nebulous AUMF than the post-September 11th one, one tailored to specific strategic objectives in the region, but simply put most congresspeoples are fine with the status quo and just don't want to.

No one gains politically from having a vote on the issue, so no.

damn your alacritous hide Niiro.

[archibaldcrane]

There's just a lot of "Trump is a maniac with his finger on the button...so we should (give him broader surveillance powers/provide no congressional oversight to his military activities/etc)" that fucking bothers me.

[Niiro]

Granting the executive more war powers is the continuation of a 200 year trend now, Trump doesn't have much to do with that.

[Roranora]

the problems with the AUMF and the indefinite occupation and executive reach it summoned are indeed exacerbated with a Captain Trump

[archibaldcrane]

that's a p silly interpretation dear Archibald. there appears to be zero political will in Washington to overthrow the Assad regime, and the coalition units that came under attack were in territory they had recently been liberated from ISIS control, well east of the DMZish line established to prevent clashes like this. we had even alerted the Russians we were present in the area, and their Defense Ministry is claiming the attack came from a half-cocked militia that was not coordinating with them or the Assad regime and essentially stepped out of its lane.

Apparently we ganked upwards of 200 Russian mercenaries in this attack.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-and-forgotten

[Koyangi]

As bad or evil as Assad is, his removal and the subsequent vacuum that it'll leave behind would be far worse for that region. We at least have a relatively accurate assessment of the things he will and will not tolerate, the things he will and will not do, who his alliances are with, etc. It's far easier to plan around known factors, even if most of them suck than to have an Iraq 2.0 (aftermath from Saddam's overthrow eventually leading to ISIS' rise in that country) and an unpredictable vacuum.