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At 5/14/13 11:19 PM, Lumber-Jax12 wrote: So If you advocate sitting back and letting the Syrians handle this on their own, what are you saying we as the American Government should do?

Non-interference. Look, as I've said we've tried to play the regime change game, that's a two part game (topple the existing, set up a new one that serves our interest but has popular support locally) and we're only good at part 1. I say we let this thing play out, and see if the winner is amenable to being a friend, or a frenemy.

Have talks with these people, and tell them how best to govern once they depose Assad?

Not so much no. I'm saying we talk to them, and try to get them on our side. I'm a fan of these kinds of assholes getting toppled and democracies set up but unless that's what the populace wants, there's just no forcing it.

I'm all for that and think it's a good idea, but we can't also be naive and think as soon as the dust does settle they'll get together and sing kumbaya.

Oh hell no. Revolutions are always messy. Even ours had it's problems (lots of people like to forget the first stab at government failed, then we wrote the Constitution), difference is we had a collective mindset towards making it work and knowing what we ultimately wanted at the end of it. I think that's a bit of the problem with the Arab Spring. You have a very mobilized segment of the populace that wants real change, and then another segment that just wants things to stay mostly the same and don't care about grander principles really.

That doesn't mean we turn a blind eye to them, or that we discriminate the new government in any way, but we should keep tabs on certain groups, and monitor who it is that's coming to power, such as an Al-Qaeda affiliate or radical Islamist.

Absolutely. I'm not saying hands off totally. Just hands off with trying to effect the outcome or nation build. We suck at that, so lets stay away from that and stick to an intelligence gathering and negotiating role.

I mean we should offer help to them in any way possible but it has to be done in the shadows as odd as that sounds. Because honestly involvement whether good or bad is what gives these guys ammo.

Bingo.

We really can't tell and honestly sometimes we have to stop this whole world policing, I know giving aid to oppressed people and deposing dictators sounds good on paper and in theory, but in practice it might not be seen as such to others, and we may cause more harm than good.

Yep, we tend to assume the Western way is the best way, and we can just present it to people and make them see it. But we forget that that part of the world still holds to some very old (and in many cases terrible) belief systems that are completely incompatible with ours.

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At 5/22/13 10:17 AM, Tony-DarkGrave wrote:

I know but we're just gonna send aid and see how it turns out (which is the most logical).

ever wonder how our 'super intelligent lawyer type politicians" are so stupid? they have no common sense, only book smarts.

the more aid we send, the more aid our enemies get. when Assad falls, the islamists will raise their flag over damascus and join the likes of Iran and Egypt in the rule of Islam

The only problem with the 'Extremist' (aka Pious) Muslims if without a fight the whole organization will fall apart. they must have someone to fight against in order to keep the aggression focused, or else they'll turn on each other. They already do really, but it'd be a lot worse if they didn't have infidels do battle with.

It's lot like Europe from 1100-1300, without an enemy to fight the stupid barbarians slaughtered each other until the pope came up with a great idea to take all that aggressive anger and turn it on the middle east.