[highlife]

Originally Posted by The Barbarian

Turkey, it if should lose patience, could blow Assad's forces off the map. And even worse for Syria, Turkey is threatening to invoke it's right to call on Nato for defense of Turkish territory:

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, repeated calls for United Nations action against Syria, and went on to refer to Article 5 of the Nato treaty. That calls an attack on one Nato member like Turkey an attack on all members.

Invoking the treaty would allow Nato members to take military action against Syria legally without a UN security council resolution. Article 5 has only been invoked on one previous occasion – in the action taken against Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks.

"Options are plentiful," he said, referring to shooting incidents on the Turkish-Syrian border which sent bullets spraying into refugee camps on three consecutive days earlier this week and killed four Syrians. A Turkish official and interpreter were also injured.

"Nato also has duties regarding Turkey's borders, according to the fifth article," he added.

For Nato to take action after a relatively minor border incident would be unprecedented. But the threat to invoke the treaty's legal cover will alarm the Assad regime, which has so far been confident that there is little the West can do to harm it so long as China and Russia continue to exercise their veto.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...e-article.html

It's allows a legally-defensible way for intervention to occur. Turkey would likely lead the way, perhaps aided by air support from NATO forces. And the Turks don't give a flip about what the Russians think.

The Russians can't attack Turkey without going to war with NATO. They could, of course take it to the UN. Good luck with that.

So the UN will be at war with Russia, that sounds like the makings of a world war to me.

[The Barbarian]

Assuming that Putin wants to give up all that he's accumulated, and would like to be living in a bunker.

Syria is a good customer, but I doubt if Putin's loyalty goes that far.

[eameece]

Originally Posted by Eeset

Is this more important than what is happening in Greece?

Yes, by far.

[eameece]

Originally Posted by PureX

You're forgetting that the Russians are behind Assad, and have been selling him arms. An all-out assault against him will result in a huge loss of life, and would likely fail without full modern military equipment and tactics, and what if the Russians decide to do the same for Assad?

Good points. However, since the Syrians are no longer going to tolerate a war criminal as their leader, this war will go on indefinitely with huge loss of life anyway if we don't help tip the scales in favor of the rebels. Very few people in Syria want him to stay in power. Russia is already sending arms to Assad; I doubt they will do more with the rest of the world on the other side, and persuading them to stop supporting the criminal.

[eameece]

Originally Posted by Strefanash

re the OP

probably nothing. it is extremely rich that the US condemns Assad's massacres when the US is doing the same thing itself. Not, however, face to face, but by drone strikes. As if this made a difference

Of course the US thinks it is exceptional and that anything it does it right

It would be good if a coalition of nations could stop the USA from making air strikes on civilians.

[The Barbarian]

It would be good if a coalition of nations could stop the USA from making air strikes on civilians.

Al-Qaeda made much of their tactics, hiding among civilians and then striking at innocent people, so that they could not be opposed by conventional military force.

It took a little time to craft tactics that work against people like that, but now the terrorist leadership is being shredded by drone strikes. Make no mistake about it; the howls of indignation from the terrorists is not that innocent civilians are being killed. It's that the terrorist leadership is being decimated by these strikes.

Asking the U.S. to back off is probably useless. Maybe after enough of them are killed to completely disrupt their terror operations.

[highlife]

Originally Posted by eameece

Good points. However, since the Syrians are no longer going to tolerate a war criminal as their leader, this war will go on indefinitely with huge loss of life anyway if we don't help tip the scales in favor of the rebels. Very few people in Syria want him to stay in power. Russia is already sending arms to Assad; I doubt they will do more with the rest of the world on the other side, and persuading them to stop supporting the criminal.

Why is assad killing people? Is it because his nation was flooded with arab immigrants that they dont want there and the flooding was so numerous that they are now the "majority", or is assad lagitimatly killing his own people like the russians did in WW2 (stalin was way crazyer than hitler). Baring in mind that the Jews were not native germans and the german people wanted them gone as many of them controled much of the nations money supply. "Terrorist" is kind of a subjective term. Germany actually tried to deport them but couldent.

A similar thing happened in Bosnia, the native people were tired of the influx of immigrants but they did not have the tech to keep from being bombed by the USA. I dont think this is just an issue of Russia selling arms, russia hates the influx of arabs and the further this gets pushed it will reach a breaking point and once russia is forced from playing nice guy checnia will be the first to get gassed. I dont know what china has to do with anything, who wants to use a gun thats made in china lol. Russia also hates china, China is lucky they get to play in the world affairs once the singing of kumbia is done they will be pushed out, they have not had an original idea since fire works, they are exploited for their cheap labor and thats it.

We seroiusly cant afford to get involved, however if a real deal war sparks off it will revitalize our manufacturing, weapons development, basicly everything that made this nation great after WW2, but the war needs to be MAJOR or it will pile us in so much debt we will never recover. A total destruction of chineese infrastructure as well as most of the mid east and some of russia.

If TOTAL destruction of major forign infrastructure does not occure then it will just be another pee match in a 3rd world nation wasting money. We need a leader that will send all these CEO's that built factories in china that utilized american intellectual property to a special prison where they are killed, if the world is at war they will not be safe anywhere.