Trumped

[tennischmp]

If you need a popularity boost, start a war

[mtangelsfan]

7 hours ago, UndertheHalo said:

if we're hell bent on sending troops into Syria all of us better hope that it's with Putin agreeing to abandon Assad. 

I'm not finding anyone hellbent on sending troops to Syria.  I'm not finding almost anyone who wants us to send missiles into Syria.

I wonder how long it will take for the Russians to accidentally kill some Americans or for us to kill some Russians.  Those will be good times.

To hell with these guys.  

[Make Angels Great Again]

Since the spin forum has gone into hysterics, i'll post here what I posted in the Syria thread.

 

From what I read the 50+ missiles all hit the airfield responsible for deploying the chemical weapons.

Syrian government also reported zero casualties. This was a calculated effort.

[Blarg]

4 hours ago, arch stanton said:

Topple Assad in favor of....................?

Yeah, it would be leaving a giant void in Syria for leadership. We saw what that did for Iraq. Assad is an asshole but he keeps all the other assholes in line. That region seems to require brutally strong governments to hold off chaos. 

Not certain if there is a sophisticated cultural solution for Syria or most of the Mid East given the struggle the region has in separating church and state. 

[Amazing Larry]

38 minutes ago, Make Angels Great Again said:

Since the spin forum has gone into hysterics, i'll post here what I posted in the Syria thread.

 

From what I read the 50+ missiles all hit the airfield responsible for deploying the chemical weapons.

Syrian government also reported zero casualties. This was a calculated effort.

We're not the world's police. We need to stay the hell away from the Middle East. 

[Jason]

29 minutes ago, Lawrence said:

We're not the world's police. We need to stay the hell away from the Middle East. 

As bad as it is seeing what chemical weapons do to people, I agree that we should just stay away until it DIRECTLY affects our national security. 

[arch stanton]

53 minutes ago, Blarg said:

Yeah, it would be leaving a giant void in Syria for leadership. We saw what that did for Iraq. Assad is an asshole but he keeps all the other assholes in line. That region seems to require brutally strong governments to hold off chaos. 

Not certain if there is a sophisticated cultural solution for Syria or most of the Mid East given the struggle the region has in separating church and state. 

Assad and the Ba'athists were about as secular as it gets in the region. After 5 years of civil war only the hardest of the hardcores are left there. When your homeland is a giant pile of dirt and rocks it's hard to get enthusiastic in your patriotic duties.

So do we let the Iranian/Hezbollah-backed faction take over? That would piss off the Saudis and Emiratis who have paid very well for our support. We could try to separate the Sunni leadership from IS. That would be a tough knot to untangle and lead to another minority government. We still have to deal with the Turks and the Kurds.

[Jason]

http://abc7.com/news/swedish-pm-says-stockholm-truck-crash-was-an-attack/1845743/

Wasn't Trump given crap for suggesting Sweden has a problem?

[arch stanton]

1 minute ago, Jason said:

As bad as it is seeing what chemical weapons do to people, I agree that we should just stay away until it DIRECTLY affects our national security. 

You mean like allowing the Taliban to take over Afghanistan and turn it into Terrorist U affected our national security?

[Jason]

1 minute ago, arch stanton said:

Assad and the Ba'athists were about as secular as it gets in the region. After 5 years of civil war only the hardest of the hardcores are left there. When your homeland is a giant pile of dirt and rocks it's hard to get enthusiastic in your patriotic duties.

So do we let the Iranian/Hezbollah-backed faction take over? That would piss off the Saudis and Emiratis who have paid very well for our support. We could try to separate the Sunni leadership from IS. That would be a tough knot to untangle and lead to another minority government. We still have to deal with the Turks and the Kurds.

So you're saying it's a mess?

[UndertheHalo]

1 hour ago, mtangelsfan said:

I'm not finding anyone hellbent on sending troops to Syria.  I'm not finding almost anyone who wants us to send missiles into Syria.

I wonder how long it will take for the Russians to accidentally kill some Americans or for us to kill some Russians.  Those will be good times.

To hell with these guys.  

hey man i'm with u on this.  but theres some powerful people that do want it.  John McCain for one. His buddy Lindsay Graham, Marco Rubio was out last night talking about how wonderful it is.  These idiots have never seen a war that they didn't want a piece of.

[mtangelsfan]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-ups-ante-freezing-communications-us-syria-131416324.html

Things are going swimmingly.  Is this really the direction we want to go?

[mtangelsfan]

Just now, UndertheHalo said:

hey man i'm with u on this.  but theres some powerful people that do want it.  John McCain for one. His buddy Lindsay Graham, Marco Rubio was out last night talking about how wonderful it is.  These idiots have never seen a war that they didn't want a piece of.

I figured you were referring to folks here.  Hell yes there are plenty of people with dollar signs in their eyes or that just plain think our first reaction to most anything is to react militarily.  It is scary stuff.

I used to like McCain but now I think he is a bad person.  I would have liked Rubio except for his mega-hawk nature.

[mtangelsfan]

22 minutes ago, arch stanton said:

You mean like allowing the Taliban to take over Afghanistan and turn it into Terrorist U affected our national security?

So what you do think the response should be?  

[arch stanton]

Just now, mtangelsfan said:

So what you do think the response should be?  

No idea but to me the missile strikes are just swatting at the hornet's nest. Hindsight being 20/20 we were best off keeping Assad in power at the beginning. We learned nothing in spending all that time and money fucking up Iraq

[Jason]

19 minutes ago, mtangelsfan said:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-ups-ante-freezing-communications-us-syria-131416324.html

Things are going swimmingly.  Is this really the direction we want to go?

Doesn't quite sound like Trump and Putin are butt buddies

[mtangelsfan]

2 minutes ago, arch stanton said:

No idea but to me the missile strikes are just swatting at the hornet's nest. Hindsight being 20/20 we were best off keeping Assad in power at the beginning. We learned nothing in spending all that time and money fucking up Iraq

I agree.  I think it all boiled down to Russia, since Asaad was in their pocket, the U.S. wants to get him out.  

[Blarg]

1 hour ago, Lawrence said:

We're not the world's police. We need to stay the hell away from the Middle East. 

You are about 70 years late on that.

[Amazing Larry]

34 minutes ago, arch stanton said:

You mean like allowing the Taliban to take over Afghanistan and turn it into Terrorist U affected our national security?

Well we sure fixed that place didn't we?

[Amazing Larry]

4 minutes ago, Blarg said:

You are about 70 years late on that.

So we'll just stay the course until we run out of money or people to kill.

[Blarg]

He is talking about letting Afghanistan go to shit after the Russians gave up. We could have done more to stabilize the country and offer economic assistance but instead we pulled back and let it deteriorate.

[Brandon]

22 hours ago, Glen said:

Every fucking day it's something else...

http://www.masstransitmag.com/press_release/12322126/220-cities-losing-all-passenger-train-service-per-trump-elimination-of-all-federal-funding-for-amtraks-national-network-trains

how the fuck did you end up on masstransitmag.com?

[Blarg]

1 minute ago, Lawrence said:

So we'll just stay the course until we run out of money or people to kill.

Walk to work, never take a vacation that is out of the range you can bicycle, stop using your air conditioning, that will lessen the need for foriegn oil.

Or insure our oil isn't cut off from the Mid East by outside forces.

Choices.

 

[Amazing Larry]

Just now, Blarg said:

He is talking about letting Afghanistan go to shit after the Russians gave up. We could have done more to stabilize the country and offer economic assistance but instead we pulled back and let it deteriorate.

We could go all the way back to the Battleship Maine talking about this shit. The point is we need to quit getting involved in various conflicts around the world.

[Amazing Larry]

1 minute ago, Blarg said:

Walk to work, never take a vacation that is out of the range you can bicycle, stop using your air conditioning, that will lessen the need for foriegn oil.

Or insure our oil isn't cut off from the Mid East by outside forces.

Choices.

How about we use our own oil?