I can’t believe how stupid our foreign policy elites really are. I’m not going to argue that they have any good or easy choices, but Jesus:
A wide range of officials characterized the action under consideration as “limited,” perhaps lasting no more than one or two days. The attacks, which are expected to involve scores of Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from American destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, would not be focused on chemical weapons storage sites, which would risk an environmental and humanitarian catastrophe and could open up the sites to raids by militants, officials said.
Yes, definitely wise not to explode a bunch of chemical weapons to prevent the explosion of a bunch of chemical weapons. Kudos for that. But “scores” of tomahawk missiles over, at most, two days, is going to do what? We even know, roughly, the upper limit of how many missiles we can fire. We have four destroyers in the region along with an unknown number of nuclear submarines. Each destroyer has about 24 tomahawks. The submarines carry a couple more. So, we’re probably talking about 100 strikes overall. How much firepower is that?
Weapons experts said that Tomahawk missile strikes, while politically and psychologically significant, could have a limited tactical effect. The weapons are largely fuel and guidance systems and carry relatively small high-explosive warheads. One conventional version contains about 260 pounds of explosives and another version carries about 370 pounds. Each is less than the explosive power of a single 1,000-pound air-dropped bomb.
We’re talking about spending about 100 million dollars in ordinance alone to make 100 small explosions, and what do we hope to accomplish with those 100 small explosions?
The strikes would instead be aimed at military units that have carried out chemical attacks, the headquarters overseeing the effort and the rockets and artillery that have launched the attacks, according to the options being reviewed within the administration.
An American official said that the initial target lists included fewer than 50 sites, including air bases where Syria’s Russian-made attack helicopters are deployed. The list includes command and control centers as well as a variety of conventional military targets.
So, now we not only know that the Assad regime definitely carried out the chemical attacks, but we know which units are responsible. If true, can the NSA or whoever please provide some concrete evidence? If they’re targeting approximately 50 targets, they have basically two missiles per target. That’s not enough targets to do anything about artillery and it’s not enough missiles per target to take out an airfield filled with attack helicopters or destroy a military compound.
So, we hit them with this ticky-tack tomahawk onslaught that does basically nothing to their ability to use chemical weapons, does almost nothing to ground their air capability, does nothing to turn the tide of the war, and then we sit back and do what?
Does it ever occur to anyone that when your official policy is regime change and you are openly weaponizing the opposition, that you can’t plausibly, or sanely, fire 100 missiles at a country and then just stop? Or that, if the problem is a willingness and capability and record of using chemical weapons, you have to at least eliminate the problem before you stop? Or that attacking the regime without significantly setting back the regime’s standing in the war will allow the regime to boast about standing up to a great power and actually embolden them to be more defiant? Or that we don’t gain more loyal allies by making ineffectual symbolic statements to promote human rights that they don’t care about and that don’t actually help them?
This is the problem with the Do Something Caucus. They don’t want to do anything for a very good reason, but they still feel like something must be done. So they are going to do something stupid that will probably make things worse and quickly force us to do what we quite wisely didn’t want to do in the first place.
But, okay, you’re going to do something. You only have 100 small bombs to do it with. I say, blow up 100 houses belonging to the Assad family and their highest and most trusted associates. If they’re at home, good. If they’re not at home, well, now they’re homeless. Target the assholes. Destroy their property. Make them pay.
But, first, prove that they did it. Prove that they did it, and realize that, in war, the enemy has the ability to fight back. So, if you’re going to escalate, accomplish your goals. The way we talk about this, it’s like we have a helpless patient tied to a gurney and we can choose any instrument of torture we want to torment them with without worrying for a moment that the patient might find a way to break his bonds and turn us into a corpse.
For the most part, we’ve been following a prudent course with Syria. That is about to change.
“Early that morning, Ms. Rice sent the email to Ms. Power and others, officials said. “The investigation is…too late, and will actually tell us what we already know: CW was used,” Ms. Rice wrote, using the abbreviation for chemical weapons. “It won’t even tell us by whom, which we already know.””
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324906304579039342815115978.html
Don’t you think they have been monitoring troop movements pretty closely for several years now? I bet they have been monitoring communications carefully as well.
Yes, I think they have been monitoring things very closely.
But we’re talking about a few artillery pieces set up in an urban area at 2 in the morning that fired just a few CW shells amidst a larger bombardment.
If they caught people talking about it, maybe they can play the tapes. But they don’t have the degree of aerial surveillance that could identify a unit under those circumstances in those kind of conditions.
But if you are talking about artillery pieces firing binary chemical weapons I reckon you are already more than halfway to indicting the regime; I haven’t seen that capability attributed to rebel factions. “Artillery pieces” implies to me breech-loaded conventional artillery, exclusive of mortars and rockets, which I would strongly agree is the most probable delivery system.
That’s ludicrous.
If the rebels unleashed this attack, they did it with the assistance of foreign intelligence agencies. The entire point would be to implicate the regime, so all efforts would be made toward that goal.
You can’t surmise anything from the technical difficulty involved. You must have people on tape making incriminating statements, or you must have actual footage of the launches. You have to prove that the regime did it.
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, and the CIA all have the wherewithal to obtain the ingredients and the artillery needed, and to at least finance an operation that would implicate the regime.
Let’s just assume, for the moment, that we are dealing with an attack involving sarin or some other nerve agent which is delivered by artillery, as you have posited.
How is a foreign intelligence agency going to reliably and covertly a) procure weapons and delivery systems which credibly suggest their provenance is from the regime (not a trivial problem especially for chemical warheads) b) transport them to Syria c) position them around Damascus at the appropriate time d) crew the artillery with reliable and discreet actors e) get everyone out and remove all traces of their activity?
Doesn’t that seem a bit of a stretch to you? I am not accepting that, as you claim, “You can’t surmise anything from the technical difficulty involved.” I’m pretty confident that one can. And that doesn’t even begin to speak to the motive of such a foreign intelligence activity. I really don’t see whose motives would be served except maybe Israel’s or John McCain’s. And what of the risks?
The weapons and delivery system are in our inventory, and also easily manufactured or bought. Both Saudi Arabia and Turkey have borders with Syria and have imported all manner of weapons. This represents zero obstacle.
Trained crews represent zero obstacle.
The positions are established. Nothing is easier than firing at your own positions.
And there is no investigation, so why worry about that?
This is basic stuff. So easily done that it could be set in place and timed for the next (predictable) Assad artillery barrage.
No, we can do this without blinking an eye. We need proof that that the Assad regime ordered it if we want to convince anyone.
Chemical warheads, in fact most warheads, leave tell-tale fragments which forensics can usually identify by type and delivery system. One tiny shell fragment is enough to discern, say, a 122mm from a 155mm shell. And the metallurgy is often enough to identify provenance. Not to mention the agents themselves which we have seen are persistent, at least for the purposes of forensics.
So, no, you aren’t going to get away with using a US/NATO chemical warhead, which are fairly thin on the ground to begin with, unless you were absolutely positive you had the entire forensic team in your pocket. Wasn’t your whole argument based on the illogic of doing this with the UN inspection group at the arrivals terminal? Well the same applies in reverse.
As for the artillery, if we are excluding mortars and rockets, which I admit is a debate we could still have, I would need to see where the rebels have any kind of track record of deploying weapons in the 105mm/155mm range, which is what the regime would likely be using for conventional shelling of rebel suburbs. The only ones I have seen in the hands of rebels were isolated examples in vehicle parks on YouTube videos which looked captured and were of dubious operational capability. And not only would these three-ton pieces be easily targeted but supplying the ammunition would be a serious strain on their logistics. More on this if you like but I am unconvinced this is a “zero obstacle” problem.
The rebels would not have any history of firing similar rockets.
I think you fail to understand how intelligence operations work.
Everything has to be designed up front to create plausible deniability. This creates almost a tautology, I know, but that’s in the design.
So, first, Syrian rockets and delivery systems are analyzed or stolen, and then they are manufactured or delivered to specially trained crews. The instructions are to wait until Assad initiates the next artillery barrage and then fire the CW in the same area that Assad is firing.
This is an incredibly simple operation.
I’m not saying that this definitely what happened. I am just pointing out that you are asking the wrong questions.
While rockets and mortars historically were often used for delivery of chemical payloads they probably are not ideal for the scenario you describe; rockets are inaccurate and usually used in barrage and mortars have typically limited range in comparison to conventional artillery.
Not to mention the problem of registering fire; most artillery bombardments are spotted on to the target with adjustment for overs and unders before firing for effect.
There’s a lot to go wrong, especially when this must all be done covertly in and around the suburbs of Damascus. No witnesses? No defections? No tip offs? No curious onlookers with cameras in their phones? Doesn’t seem as simple as you suggest. And the risks of exposure, plausible deniability notwithstanding, seem onerous. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
The way you deal with possible witnesses is, first, to minimize them, and then to build into the operation alternate explanations, and, finally, to control or restrict the investigation.
It’s basic tradecraft.
You have a UN team arrive on the scene with a mandate to investigate but not to assign blame, and all they can say is that CW were used with a delivery system consistent with the Syrian army’s capabilities.
That’s all you need.
Here’s Jay Carney from yesterday:
That’s completely consistent with what I’m saying. He says that they have no proof that the weapons were stolen but he has no proof that they weren’t or that they weapons needed to be stolen. He says that Syria had the delivery system needed, but no one contests that.
He just argues that it’s preposterous to think that an Intelligence Agency could carry out an operation to frame the Syrians.
But, of course, that is exactly why intelligence agencies exist. If they can’t do something that simple, they should be fired.
So, we go to motive. What was Assad’s motive?
There is no conceivable motive. Not that I can think of, anyway.
So, no, what Carney is selling doesn’t work on any level except maybe the domestic one where people might still trust what our leaders say. But their argument right now is an argument for idiots who don’t understand how things work on the international stage.
They need to produce electronic surveillance or other signals intelligence that proves their case. Saying the rebels didn’t have the capability is just begging the question.
They need to produce electronic surveillance or other signals intelligence that proves their case.
And if they do, you won’t use your imagination to come up with a reason to ignore it?
No. I won’t.
I will use my common sense to assess the evidence. While it is theoretically possible to manufacture that kind of evidence, I do not believe that this particular administration would do that. If they have something, and they show it, I am likely to accept it.
I hope you can remain objective.
It’s good to see you say that, no, John Kerry and Dick Cheney do not deserve the same level of benefit of the doubt. That notion has been floated here constantly for days, and this is the first time I’ve seen you dispute it.
I want to know more about the “the types of rockets that were used to deliver chemical weapons on August 21.” Because that would tell us something.
If you qualify your narrative to say that an unknown intelligence agency procured genuine Syrian chemical warheads and launching equipment from Syrian stockpiles without tipping them off and, at some later date, after concealing this equipment somewhere, deployed them covertly in populous rebel-held areas and fired them accurately into the same suburbs that the Syrians were shelling at the time and managed to do so without being witnessed at any stage and covered their tracks after the fact, disposing of the launchers and other evidence and did so without leaking the details through defection, discovery, disloyalty or misadventure then, yeah, it’s possible. But I’m thinking I need to go resharpen Occam’s razor.
My guess is that the warheads wouldn’t be truly genuine. If a weapon was stolen, it was probably used to build prototypes. I also think you are placing too high of a priority on accuracy. I doubt that whoever fired these thing, whether the regime or the rebels, was overly concerned with the exact location where they would land. Anywhere in the neighborhood would do.
Finally, you are insisting that they were no witnesses and no one talked. You don’t know that. If you’re sympathetic to the regime, you have every reason to lie , and if you’re not sympathetic to the regime you have every incentive to keep your mouth shut. The people who live there are not free to just say whatever they want without fear of reprisals. And, in any case, who is there to interview them?
The UN might stumble upon an actual witness, but that doesn’t mean they’d know they were credible.
You’re making this harder than it would have to be.
Well, not trying to be difficult. I think you might be underestimating the challenges of engineering a phony warhead that would stand up to a forensic examination; most chemical warheads with a fairly small bursting charge, of none at all, provide many opportunities for subsequent analysis.
I take your point about dealing with witnesses but a chaotic environment such as you describe has inherent risks for a conspiracy and the internecine competition and indeed violence among rebel factions might be considered an operational challenge. Historically, the truth often tends to seep out regarding operations with a large operational signature or logistical footprint.
But speaking of motive, what was the motive for this elaborate false flag operation by this hypothetical foreign intelligence agency? Are we really building a hypothetical where someone is creating a justification for invading Syria as in the Iraq analogy? Because that doesn’t seem to be the direction in which this is heading.
It’s all speculative. But I doubt the Syrians designed or manufactured their warheads, and I doubt they are the only customer for them. So, once you know what they have, it’s probably not a big task to find some in storage or on the black market. The Americans are sophisticated enough to build exact replicas, but I’d be more inclined to suspect the Saudis in an operation of this type, and they’d probably just buy them.
As for the direction this is headed, it’s headed toward increasing American commitment to ousting Assad. Obama’s resistance is admirable, but he’s lost the tug o’ war.
That we should wait to hear the evidence of the UN inspection team and whatever intelligence the administration sees fit to publish regarding evidence of complicity of the regime. I want to know exactly what warheads were involved and what delivery system was therefore used; that can potentially exclude a range of speculation.
Whatever evidence we get, it better be good. It is pretty clear that the administration has a high bar to clear and that is all for the good. On the other hand if there is a credible case that the regime did this, say ‘beyond a reasonable doubt,’ I would be very disappointed if public opinion dissuaded a response.
The use of nerve agents, basically pesticide for human beings, without consequence sets a very bad precedent, especially in the context of a fractious domestic conflict involving ethnicity and religion. I realise it can be argued the precedent has already been set but it seems to me we would regret any encouragement of this behaviour through inaction.
I sense you agree with that underlying premise; we are just arguing over the validity of the evidence that it has occurred, which is fair enough, and what constitutes an appropriate response and by whom.
Well, weighed against any evidence (short of the outright smoking gun type), is the total lack of motive for the Assad regime. So, all arguments that rely on some version of “the rebels couldn’t do this” are pretty suspect to me.
Cameron is talking now.
I realise this thread is getting stale but here is exactly the kind of thing I was alluding to in this dialogue with you:
The people who do this for a living have potentially quite a bit of evidence they could work with for forensic analysis. And fakery would not be so easy. Looks like rockets or mortars are the more likely delivery system, however, so you were right about that.
This and this. Looks pretty much like we’ve identified the warhead, at least.
If someone’s standing around it like that and not being harmed, it excludes a lot of chemical agents. Who is the “we” who did the identifying?
Follow the links. There’s a lot there, nothing definitive but very interesting stuff indeed. Including circumstantial links to earlier attacks with, in some cases, similar warheads.
Also, too, although I hadn’t considered it, a rogue officer could do this, although they’d have to be willing to defect or die for the cause.
I noted that earlier as an interesting twist. So I guess if the regime surrendered the rogue officer to an international court and gave up the chemical weapons it clearly could no longer manage responsibly we would forget the whole thing? It makes one wonder.
Other reports are blaming Assad’s brother.
Exactly. And that would cause the chatter from the Syrian Military that would be overheard by the our intelligence folks.
“…although they’d have to be willing to defect or die for the cause.”
Are you serious? It would essentially be a suicide bomber on a genocidal scale. Not outside the realm of possibility.
I’ve mentioned several times a possible motive for the regime; to incite a predictable response from the US or NATO nations in the form of an attack which would derail the possibility of US détente with Iran or a diplomatic resolution for Syria brokered with Russia. It seems to me both of these are entirely plausible threats to Assad’s autonomy, freedom of action and continued support, both logistical and political, and could arguably be considered a worse outcome than enduring the consequences of a punitive strike.
In that scenario, incidentally, the proximity of the UN inspection team, which led you to doubt the regime’s involvement in the first place, would fit in place neatly.
The scenario you propose here is anything but simple and easy. Moving artillery around and coordinating fire is not the province of intelligence agencies or of ad hc rebel groups. It is the stuff of trained military units. and it is very hard to do against an opponent that controls the air. These are not things troops carry aounr or even the mules pull. They require trucks to move or are self-propelled armored vehicles themselves.
The old Soviet stand-by mass-produced towed 122mm howitzer weighs in at 3,210 kg or over 7,000 lbs. Ammo not included. Those things don’t waft in on the evening breeze and vanish with the morning dew.
How does a light infantry insurgent army do that against a Syrian military with recon planes and helicopters – without anyone detecting them? Including US, Russian, Chinese, European, Israeli and other orbiting spy satellites?
Answer: It doesn’t.
Not to mention the leftover shell casings and such which would be scattered all over the field. There’s no way to cover up all that evidence… especially for a home-grown guerrilla force.
Not to mention the problem of feeling every single person involved from being captured ot otherwise leaking key info.
Looked at from the other side of the coin… if the Syrian rebels were able to deploy significant numbers of heavy artillery, why would they not be using such effective firepower routinely?
None of this foreign-spies-smuggled-in-heavy-artillery scenario adds up.
Has anyone determined that a 122mm howitzer was used or is necessary?
The experts is see cited don’t even mention that as a constraint.
The problem is, they lack imagination. One says that the rebels wouldn’t attack their own sympathizers and that a military barracks would make more sense. He’s an idiot.
Another says:
But, of course, there’s no need for them to steal a Syrian stockpile except in a dim person’s universe who cannot conceive of outside assistance.
It was you who brought up the notion of artillery. A 122mm howitzer is just an example of an artillery piece in the middle of the likely caliber range and of Soviet design. Syria is armed extensively with Soviet/Russian arms so using such a piece would all but certainly be needed to attempt a false-flag operation. So it serves as a good example for the point: such ordinace is big, heavy, and hard to move around. moving it w/o detection against an enemy with air superiority (Syria) adds much more difficulty. Moving it around w/o detection from various national spy satellites adds yet more difficulty.
If a Russian recon satellite had spotted rebel units armed with heavy weapons do you not think they would be trumpeting this information right now?
This is not a matter of lack of imagination. This is a matter of practical limitations narrowing the probability window from all sides, shrinking it to very close to zero.
But why argue over it? Before long the gist of the case for Syrian culpability will be made public.
In all fairness, I would have thought the narrative of rebels looting a regime chemical weapon store and covertly placing the warheads a much more credible scenario. But that poses some problems too; apparently in Iraq insurgents tried blowing up an Iraqi binary chemical warhead but it failed to do much damage because the agents were designed to be mixed in flight by the spinning shell.
Perhaps revealing intelligence tapes would also inadvertently reveal the method of surveillance as well. I have a problem with all of this hand wringing before anything (if anything) has happened. Name a time when we have announced to the enemy in advance exactly what weapons and tactics we’ll use before we execute an attack. Maybe there is an advantage in publishing false information in order to completely throw the Assad regime off. They prepare for Tomahawks and then we drop 1000 lb bombs from Stealth fighters. I really doubt that our government is unsophisticated enough to place our strategy on Facebook prior to the strike.
If they caught people talking about it, maybe they can play the tapes.
Or maybe they’ve decided that not blowing their sources is more important than convincing people who consider it a point of principle to never be convinced.
And talking about the individual battery-level “unit” that fired the shells misses the point to a rather ridiculous degree. The units that are relevant here are corps level and higher, the ones commanded by people who might plausibly decide to ignore an order, and whose decision to do so won’t be made utterly irrelevant by the ability to turn to the next first lieutenant and say, “OK, you fire off these six shells.”
Could it not be argued that a proportionate response to a regime which commits democide against its own citizens using prohibited chemical weapons is still within the scope of ‘prudent?’ It seems to me what we should be discussing is the validity of the evidence for this use and whether it is appropriate for the response to originate outside of an international mandate.
Those are both arguments which need to be made before making judgement on official policy. I would be surprised, gauging international reaction, if the evidence wasn’t forthcoming, and probably soon, which would render that question moot. The international mandate seems to be the problem. Any thoughts on that?
I’m irritable, so forgive me.
What comes to mind is a situation where you are stung by a wasp so you decide to take a baseball bat to a wasp’s nest.
Is that prudent?
I can see your point, especially in regard to the risks of unilateral action. But an appropriate international response does not seem forthcoming, does it? Doing nothing has its own downside, it seems to me.
And I just don’t agree that a baseball bat is our only option; sure we are talking about applying some kind of pre-emptive military force but, assuming it is against the regime, they would likely have a number of vulnerable spots in their military infrastructure after two years of civil war that would hurt them badly enough to discourage a repeat performance.
Honestly I don’t see how Russia and Iran, privately, are not a bit disconcerted over this development themselves. I don’t see how it advances any of the regional ambitions of either, unless tormenting Obama is simply an end in itself.
It’s my understanding that we have intercepted signal intelligence that literally contains the order to gas, identifies the commander and that it was done against the supposed wishes of Assad, who apparently is not quite in total control of his ruling coalition whether or not that is true.
Since our goal is not (yet) to effect regime change directly and we don’t trust whom we are arming to be able to produce an inclusive political resolution even if they won, the idea of decapitating and disarming the perpetrators themselves seems like a proportional response that would disincentivize further shenanigans by similarly inclined elements of the Syrian regime but limits our commitments to any particular outcome of this nasty mess.
A tidy tale indeed.
There is no benefit occupation of Syria, so ground invasion is pointless. I don’t believe we’ll see that unless the eventual ‘winners’ of this mess start massacring the losers and we can’t find another dog to fight for us.
And yes, Raytheon gets to make scads of cash any which way.
That’s an interesting twist. Don’t suppose you have a link for that?
The intercept was supposedly made by both the IDF and/or US intelligence. You can google ‘gas attack signal intelligence’ for a million links. Non-warmonger news sources only obliquely refer to this since it comes from intelligence agencies that obviously are in the business of lying.
Taken with a nice sized grain of salt, but this takes care of the need to wait for inspectors to discover what you already ‘know’. The idea that Russia would do anything but veto in the security council is laughable. Hence we do what we want, when we want to.
Per usual.
The water is already too muddy to see clearly and will not be clearing up.
Citing IDF Unit 8200 but it didn’t say anything about an unauthorised use by a subordinate commander. That’s the angle that seems interesting.
Here we go, thanks:
Interesting stuff. “We don’t know exactly why it happened,” the intelligence official added. “We just know it was pretty fucking stupid.”
Was the phone call routed through and underwater cable that’s tapped by GQHC? Or have US intelligence operations built special rooms in Syrian phone switching stations?
Not buying this story any more than I did the “yellowcake from Niger.”
Don’t know at this stage. Just for the record, Marie, and with all due respect, what evidence would you buy? Just askin’.
Many questions come before the one you’ve posed. First is why we’re even involved in a civil war in a sovereign nation. Why are we supporting the involvement by KSA, Qatar, and Turkey? Syria has done nothing to us. In fact, it was helpful to us in protecting Iraqi refugees fleeing from out clusterfuck in Iraq.
Second, if this is about “duty to protect,” we have to ask at what point are we compelled to act? Surely not a few hundred deaths considering that we didn’t act militarily in Dafur where hundreds of thousands were killed.
Third, acting unitarily is a really bad idea.
UN weapons inspectors are perfectly capable of investigating the situation and determining a) the chemical released and b) the most probable source. If it was from the Assad regime, then it most properly should be turned over to the World Court that can indict for war crimes. A slow process but better than having blood on our hands.
I can see where you are coming from and respect that point of view; but so long as Russia has a Security Council veto the road to the World Court will be slow indeed. I’m back to my hypothetical question in the previous thread; if a few hundred deaths are insufficient cause than how many? Don’t mean to put you on the spot here, I agree there seem few clearly ‘good’ outcomes.
Geopolitically I want to see Obama do what puts the most daylight between Syria and, respectively, Russia and Iran. This incident strikes me as possibly a rare opportunity to do that.
Why?
Because that seems to be in the highest interest of the most concerned. Frankly re-establishment of cordial US relations with Russia and détente between the US and Iran as well as Israel and Palestine would be a welcome relief. I see the lack of a diplomatic resolution to Syria as an obstacle to all of these aspirations with the Ba’ath regime as an unpredictable wild card.
You bring up a lot of good points to the discussion Shaun. Thanks.
if this is about “duty to protect,” we have to ask at what point are we compelled to act?
Well, first of all, the President during the Darfur crisis didn’t believe ina duty to protect.
But more relevantly, this isn’t about duty to protect. There have been hundreds of times as many people killed by conventional means in this war than by chemicals.
This is about chemical warfare, and whether it will be allowed to come back as an element of modern warfare and security policy. As Secretary Kerry’s statement made perfectly clear.
Also, yes, acting unilaterally is a very bad idea. That is probably why we’re not going to act unilaterally.
UN weapons inspectors are perfectly capable of investigating the situation and determining a) the chemical released and b) the most probable source.
The UN weapons inspectors’ mandate does not include identifying the source. This is something to keep in mind when tempted to make the arguments “Let the weapons inspectors decide who did it,” or “Why would Assad regime launch an attack with inspectors in the country.”
It occurs to me that in today’s world not all “phones” use land-lines. Some use over-the air microwave carriers, for example. And tapping foreign cables is old news for US intel services.
In the midst of all this NSA as Goliath controversy, it’s not very convincing to hear suggested the US is incapable of monitoring Syrian electronic communications.
With copious attribution links on background:
I’m guessing the administration will make a fairly comprehensive release of this evidence soon; it is certainly in their best interests to do so.
And no doubt the people who’ve spent days insisting that they do so will turn on a dime to insist that we shouldn’t believe a word of that intelligence.
Because Dick Cheney, so therefore John Kerry.
So we punish Assad for the actions of a rogue unit acting against his direct orders? What fine diplomacy!
So Russia would have been justified in launching missiles against our troops in Vietnam because of My Lai? Or in Iraq because of that squad that kidnapped and raped that 15 year old girl? Or the Japanese Defense Forces would have been justified in shelling our base in Okinawa because of those three neanderthals in US uniform that raped that Japanese school girl?
Obama wants history to show him as a victorious war President. He failed in Afghanistan, now he’s reaching for Syria.
Assad is not the only one that could be punished. Did you notice the part about hitting the chemical-capable units?
And Russia could certainly have launched missiles against our troops in Vietnam. Why not? They were already engaged in the war in other ways.
I wouldn’t recommend that they do that, but why not?
And Obama will go down in history as the President who killed bin Laden, first and foremost, when his record as Commander in Chief is considered. Kindly make and effort to keep the psychobabble to a minimum.
I think you accidentally left a comma in the title of this post.
Could just be a glitchy keyboard, but unfortunately Our Lords and Masters in DC seem to use the same model.
Perhaps Prince Bandar bin Sultan has offered to foot the bill for acting on behalf of the KSA.
More on the princeling’s dealings:
Maybe it’s time to consider KSA’s role in all these terrorist activities.
James Fallows weighs in:
There’s more and worth reading.
A sensible and cautionary take:
Worth a read.
I got so obsessed with this topic today that I yelled impatiently at my son for hogging all our bandwidth when I couldn’t access the New York Times site for a piece on the CIA and Syrian gunrunning; turns out I was blaming him for a hack by the Syria Electronic Army. Sigh. I will never hear the end of this.
So it looks like we’re planning on launching an attack that can’t possibly accomplish anything in furtherance of goals that we don’t actually want to accomplish. It’s just a shame we’ll have to blow the shit out of a bunch of people while not accomplishing anything.
This is an embarrassing bad post.
I think BooMan has given up trying to actually make an argument, and has just decided to rile people up.
That’s too cynical. It’s probably just that BooMan himself is all wound up.
One of the habits of war bloggers around 2002 was to think up a question or argument, and then decide it couldn’t possibly be answered, so suck on that, libs!
And then, when someone could answer it, their answer couldn’t possibly be valid, because it’s unanswerable, so “That’s absurd!”
Arguing with yourself,Joe? Try some Thorazine.
Imagine that, going back and revising your thoughts after some consideration.
You should try it sometime. It doesn’t have quite the thrilling kick of writing a meaningless insult to That Guy You Hate So Much On The Internet, but some people find it delivers longer-lasting benefits.
Imagine that, a megatroll rating from the guy noted for gratuitous insults. I must have struck a nerve.
Gratzie. Vendetta e dolce.
I defy you to quote the last comment you made that contained anything but an insult.
Reading this reminds me of watching a pitcher called up from the minors who can’t quite handle major league hitting. Anti-war bloggers who came of age during the Bush administration got fat and happy. Sloppy intellectual habit, like shouting out the first thing off the top of your head, substituting your uninformed judgment for those of people who know a great deal more than you, and assuming that everyone in government are rank incompetents and liars, were good enough back during the Bush administration, so they never refined their skills.
General BooMan decides that destroying 50 high-value targets can’t accomplish anything. Why? Because he wants to believe.
He decides that the administration can’t know which units in Syria have access to chemical weapons, can’t know what the command-and-control system for giving the orders is. Why? Because he wants to believe.
He’s decided that the ‘official policy’ that these strikes are based on is regime change, not chemical weapons deterrence, so there’s no way we’d limit ourselves to strikes designed to provide deterrence for chemical weapons use. Why? Because he wants to believe.
I say, blow up 100 houses belonging to the Assad family and their highest and most trusted associates. If they’re at home, good. If they’re not at home, well, now they’re homeless. Target the assholes. Destroy their property. Make them pay.
Well, I’m certainly going to take your target selection advice over that of the Pentagon and White House. Um. This isn’t, in any way, like the fantasy of nuking Mecca to really show those Muzzies what’s what.
It’s strange to see anti-war bloggers in the position of pro-war bloggers under Bush, simply assuming that adhering to the right ideology is all they need to be right.
The mistake that Boo is worried about–overestimating the potential impact and precision of a limited campaign of air strikes, and the responsiveness lot a regime like Assad’s to that sort of punishment–is something of a persistent theme in Amsrican public policy going back at least to the Reagan administration. Pointing that out is hardly lazy post-Iraq thinking, in part because the series if blunders that got us involved in Iraq were, in fact, totally different. Boo isn’t talking about the rank amateurism of Rumsfeld, Cheney and the PNAC crowd, here–deciding to solve a problem with a dictator by hurling some cruise missiles or smart bombs at them is the way the pros fuck things up.
The sloppiness comes in with the assumption that this will be a 100 cruise missile strike, and that’s it.
In the assumption that nobody in the government is thinking about this question.
And, particularly, in the phrase “the problem with a dictator.” What problem? BooMan decides that a 100 missile strike isn’t enough to cause regime change, and that points and laughs at the administration, based on the assumption that they do think a 100 missile strike can accomplish regime change.
Limited air campaigns aimed at “behavior modification”, while leaving the misbehaving regime in place have, if anything, a worse record than protracted air campaigns aimed at regime change.
Define “limited.”
The only limit I’ve seen anyone discuss is BooMan’s mistaken belief that the mission will be limited to a few dozen cruise missiles.
So far the only solid report we have is the MSF report, which is clear that a chemical attack occurred but unclear about the chemical agent other than patients had neurotoxic symptoms — “convulsions, excess saliva, pinpoint pupils, blurred vision and respiratory distress”. The MSF treated the patients with atropine, which although unstated in the article seemed to be an antidote. The fact that first aid workers were exposed to the substance and had symptoms led to the MSF conclusion that there had been a chemical weapons attack.
A reasonable first action that does not require anyone’s approval would be to massively supply MSF hospitals with atropine.
The fact that the agent was not readily identifiable indicates to me that it was not the most frequently found chemical weapons agent. That opens a range of possibilities. Syria has retained chemical weapons and is not a signatory to the Chemical Weapons Convention; it is possible that the Syrian military has developed a complex nerve agent as a way to mask its identity and make treatment more difficult. It is also possible that the agent used in this attack is not a Schedule 1 substance under the Chemical Weapons Convention, meaning that it would be available outside of military chemical weapons facilities. A Schedule 2 or Schedule 3 chemical has dual uses.
The Syrian government has been trusted by Israel to be prudent in its handling of chemical weapons. Syria has understood the consequences if it was not. And there has not been the international pressure on Syria to become a signatory of the Chemical Weapons Convention that there has been on other countries. Why would Syria be reckless now?
The question of who benefits is one of the most puzzling ones. The rebels of the FSA who actually are Syrians certainly would not benefit from an attack on their own people just to force the US hand. The Syrian government does not benefit from the possibility of outside intervention. Other parties benefit only to the extent that the attack gets pinned either on the FSA or the government of Syria and not them.
All of the anonymous background leaks must be seen for now as war propaganda and not reporting. Any information sourced to Israel intelligence operations must be suspect on two counts — reliability of Israeli intelligence or that it came from Israeli intelligence at all. Even the “Syrian Electronic Army” could be neither Syrian nor part of the Syrian Army nor allied with the government of Syria. It is highly likely that the US, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, and maybe more countries have special operations personnel within Syria. It is hard to see how any of these benefit from this attack outside of sucking the US into another quagmire.
We have seen over and over since World War II that decision-making confined to the foreign policy-national security bubble and without public debate has led to disaster. Often because they are being played by partisan fears or ambitious bureaucratic operators. And we have seen where involving the public in a reasoned calm debate has produced a wiser policy.
Why would Syria be reckless now?
Because this is the latest escalation, after getting away with two smaller attacks. Someone pointed out to me yesterday that I’ve been wrong in saying Obama knocked down the earlier charges of chemical weapons usage. The knocked down the drive to intervene that surrounded them, but the White House put out a statement saying that they were confident the regime did use chemical weapons in June 2012.
Those Tomahawk warheads by your figures have the explosive force of an old 5 inch Naval shell, good for anti-ship use but not for area saturation, which explains why they are on destroyers. We used Tomahawks in the Iraq invasion. I remember seeing impressive footage of a night launch from USS Wisconsin. But those attacks were launched against Baghdad. I’m sure they did a fine job of destroying military office buildings (an army runs on paperwork).
I held my nose and voted for Kerry in 2004. I’m glad he lost.
BooMan, think back to the Libya operation. Were the initial Tomahawks strikes used to A) knock out the targets that were the main purpose of the mission, or B) suppress the air defense network so that air forces could knock out the targets that were the main purpose of the mission?
When you read this and get angry, you might response by shouting back the first thing that pops into your head, your very next obviously-unanswerable argument (obviously unanswerable because you can’t answer it, so therefore nobody can). Or you could sit back, read a little, think a little, and try to consider what’s going on, and then write not as a defensive exercise, or as a lobbying exercise, but in the spirit of seeking a true understand of what’s going on, and helping your readers achieve one.
From al Jazeera America:
From Strongpoint Security (UK):
Revised Thoughts on Damascus (PDF, 9pp)
Broken link. Could you post a paragraph or two of the relevant ideas this guy has?
Revised Thoughts on Damascus
This link should work.
John Mueller, Foreign Affairs: Erase the Red Line
Seems even the foreign policy establishment has its doubts.
“We Have to Do Something, Stupid”
I really have come to believe the real course of action is “We Have to Do Something Stupid” when it comes to this kind of thing.
Like Bremer sending the Iragi army home when the Iraqi army was about the only job to be had? Unemployment is a sure recipe for civil war. Or providing Saddam with the Huey helicopters that he then gassed his own people with? Are these people stupid or just brain dead?
It is truly cringe-worthy for what is about to happen. Nothing good can come of this, and Obama has talked himself into a corner. Why, just exactly, do WE, the United States, have to do something? It didn’t seem to bother anyone that Saddam was killing his people day and night. Just as long as he wasn’t selling his oil on the open market, everyone was fine with that!
By the way, speaking of Iraq, they just about had that country blockaded for a decade for Saddam’s troubles. Why is Syria so urgent they are going to shoot first? Are Syrians more worthy than Iraqis?
Syria used chemical weapons. Used them, in anger, and conducted a massacre of men, women, and children.
Up until, oh, last Thursday, there was a universal consensus that chemical warfare was a special category of horror that needed to be treated differently from the use of conventional weapons.
“Up until, oh, last Thursday…”
Saddam gassed the Iranians AND the Kurds before last Thursday. Obama is doing exactly what Bush did: He is getting on the crazy train, only this time it’s high speed mag-lev.
Yeah, Reagan sucked.
Let’s not be like Reagan. Whaddya say?
He is getting on the crazy train, only this time it’s high speed mag-lev.
OK, even if you oppose this mission, do you really think that comparing it unfavorably with the invasion and occupation of Iraq demonstrates reality-based thinking?
I’m not talking about Reagan. Or Bush, or Obama, per se. I’m talking about the deux ex machina that is our government that starts rolling when intelligence data starts rolling in to support some action or another that the Presidency feels it HAS to act on for political reasons alone.
“Up until, oh, last Thursday, there was a universal consensus that chemical warfare was a special category of horror…”
The conventional wisdom has been getting challenged lately:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57600290/why-are-chemical-weapons-the-red-line-for-syria/
Yep. Lately.
I’m appalled.
I don’t think it’s entirely the consequence of hypocrisy and lack of principle, though. I think we are privileged people, who have been living in a world protected by the norm against chemical warfare for so long that it is possible to be ignorant of why it exists.
It’s a thorny issue and there are interesting, intelligent comments from all round on the Syria situation and chemical weapons. The link I gave ended on this note:
Our track record in the Middle East has been anything but stellar. It’s all of a piece, as the saying goes. It isn’t the Assad regime that stands to gain anything from having the world rain hell from above for its actions, it’s the Syrian Rebellion that stands to gain from that.
That series of conditions should give anyone pause before we go riding in with guns blazing. My point about the clusterfuck of the Iraq campaign is that it wasn’t just the clusterfuck that Dubya conducted that I’m considering, Saddam was being sanctioned for what, 3 administrations? That’s a long time to wait before you finally decide enough is enough. Now they are impatient after 2 years?
Something stinks as far as I’m concerned, and I have potential skin in the game in the form of 2 draft aged sons.
No one is happy about the situation. There are only bad and worse choices.
But in your concern about the “deux ex machina” point you were making, I think your choice of historical analogies/comparisons between Iraq and Syria are too faulty to help the point at all.
What, that we didn’t learn from Iraq that anything we do is going to have consequences? That we didn’t learn from installing the Shah in Iran that there wasn’t going to be consequences?
I could go on…but I’m just citing Iraq as one long point in the marvelous spectrum of our meddling in the Middle East, which has worked out so, so well for everyone. I’m not saying we should do as we did for Iraq.
I think you know what I meant. If you truly don’t, I haven’t got time to explain it to you.
No I don’t know what you meant. Pretend I am as stupid as Paul Bremer.
Or are you trying not to bring up the oh so un-mentionable, that is, the proximity to Isreal?
Isn’t that special.
First of all, I remember all the caterwauling about the quagmire in Libya. Replace Syria with Libya from a couple of years ago and it all reads the same.
The Obama Administration has seen the Princess Bride and will not get involved in a land war in Asia. And it will be more than ship-based cruise missiles. Expect some from B-2 bombers.
Finally, there are two types of strikes: Coercive and punitive. Libya and Kosovo were coercive strikes designed to force a result. Punitive strikes like Desert Fox are simply designed to punish.
If they are talking about a short window like this, then they are talking and punitive strikes designed solely to discourage continued use of chemical weapons and deterring the next Assad from using them, too.
Thanks for this Boo
Not trying to be pro or con on the strike question here. Just hoping to offer some information. The estimate in this essay of some 100 cruise missiles available to strike is probably very low.
Three of these destroyers can carry as many as 90 cruise missiles each with the 4th (newest) able to carry as many as 96.
Most US subs have 12 vertical launch tubes for cruise missiles, but room to stow another dozen at a minimum.
The US also has 4 converted subs that once carried nuclear ballistic missiles. These were converted to carry guided missiles. A single one of these subs can carry up to 154 cruise missiles!
It is unlikely the destroyers and subs carry as many missiles as their maximum load because some of the launchers must be reserved for anti-ship and anti-sub missiles or for torpedoes in the case of the subs. But it’s likely there could be well over 200 cruise missiles available on just the four destroyers and a couple subs. If one or both of those subs are the special guided missile boats (and who knows?) that number could be at 400 or more. The absolute hypothetical maximum would be 674 Tomahawks.
OTOH perhaps these ships were just the ones which happened to be in the area and they are not carrying close to their maximum arsenal. But even at one-third of capability that still amounts to about 150 cruise missiles on the 4 destroyers and two standards subs.
Also the published warhead size seems to be wrong. I just checked three sources and each puts the single warhead version at 1,000lbs of high explosive.
The variant with the sub-munitions (“cluster bombs”) carries 166 small bomblets each with about 2/3s of a pound of explosive. That totals about 110 lbs of explosive overall.
So the US could potential blow a billion dollars in a a week or so by running through a lot of cruise missiles. How expensive is the stamp on this message anyway?
Yeah, that’s for sure. Blow a billion dollars in a week – or overnight.