Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[Old Man]

Syria is not really a winnable situation especially with Russian forces there. It's way more complex than a three-way Assad-ISIS-rebels arrangement. Each of those groups is really a loose agglomeration of barely-allied warbands--even Assad has very few regular military forces left; much of his "army" is made up of militias that have gone mercenary. Guess he has enough air assets to drop some Sarin, though.

[Iuz the Evil]

Russian soldiers reportedly on base that was attacked. Russia now deploying a warship to region in response.

[Old Man]

The Russians were warned (and no doubt warned their Syrian buddies) so if they were still on the base, they were there on purpose.

 

I don't know that Russia adding one more ship to the ones that are already deployed there really makes a whole lot of difference.  Still looks like theater to me.  The initial strike killed no one, wrecked a handful of SyAAF jets (but by no means all of them), and did no long term damage to the airfield itself.  We didn't even hit the sarin. 

[Iuz the Evil]

Oh, I agree that it's still theatre at this stage. The movie quote pretty much sums up my concerns... bad things can happen when military operations involve posturing in close geographic proximity.

 

We will see what happens, but it's not desirable from that aspect. I'd rather not expend the resources and lives an active military engagement in the region will consume, and even less if a world power (at least militarily) is on the opposite side, directly or indirectly.

[Michael Hopcroft]

I'm not surprised that Russia and Iran feel that ISIS must be counterbalanced. Just about everyone agrees on that. But is Assad the right horse? Given his brutality, probably not. Even if he "wins" his war, his ability to govern is permanently crippled.

 

So why is Putin so enamored of him? Is the Russian dictator playing some geopolitical game that practically matters only to him?

[DasBroot]

The Russians were warned (and no doubt warned their Syrian buddies) so if they were still on the base, they were there on purpose.

 

I don't know that Russia adding one more ship to the ones that are already deployed there really makes a whole lot of difference.  Still looks like theater to me.  The initial strike killed no one, wrecked a handful of SyAAF jets (but by no means all of them), and did no long term damage to the airfield itself.  We didn't even hit the sarin. 

 

6 military personal, 9 civilians (4  children) died in the strikes ... according to Syria. 

[megaplayboy]

Why would 4 children be on a military base in the middle of the night? Dubious.

[womble]

Why would 4 children be on a military base in the middle of the night? Dubious.

 

Aunty says the Syrians are claiming the civs were off base. They are also asserting that the Syrians are claiming that not all the TLAMs made it to the target area. It is conceivable that there were civilian casualties from cruise missiles that fell out of the sky short of the boundary fence for whatever reason. Syria does have a pretty good air defense network, IIRC, courtesy of Mr Putin, and Tomahawks can be shot down.

[Old Man]

I'm not surprised that Russia and Iran feel that ISIS must be counterbalanced. Just about everyone agrees on that. But is Assad the right horse? Given his brutality, probably not. Even if he "wins" his war, his ability to govern is permanently crippled.

 

So why is Putin so enamored of him? Is the Russian dictator playing some geopolitical game that practically matters only to him?

 

The Soviets and Syria go all the way back to Soviet support for Syrian independence after WWII.  Since then there have been economic and defense treaties, educational relationships, the opening of the Soviet naval base at Tartus, and plenty of economic and military support for Syria in exchange for providing a staunchly pro-Russian presence in a strategic region.

 

I suspect that protecting the base at Tartus figured prominently into Putin's original decision to get involved, but it also gave him an opportunity to make an impact on the world stage, give his military some real world experience, and tweak America's nose a bit.

[Old Man]

As for the strike itself, I can't find any source for casualty claims other than "Syrian officials" so far.  Interestingly, Syria launched more airstrikes out of that base today.  On top of that, the strike does not fall under the War Powers Act and was therefore illegal, though decades of drone strikes have desensitized all of us to that.  And evidently the Russians were told about the strike before anyone in Congress, NATO, or the State Department.

 

Russians are making a lot of noise about this "outrageous provocation" and the resulting "setback in relations".  It's almost as though they want people to think they don't own Trump.

[megaplayboy]

Indeed, Roger Stone was on Alex Jones and the first thing he pushed out of his mouth was that this "proves" that the allegations about Trump and Russia are false. Ergo, via the reverse-transitive property, all of the allegations about Trump and Russia must be true, including the pee pee tape.

[Old Man]

$0 for Meals on Wheels, $94 million for one hour of bombing Syria

[Pattern Ghost]

We've spent trillions on pointless conflicts in the Middle East that could have gone to a great number of more worthy causes, why start counting now?

[Pariah]

This is why we need renewable energy, IMHO. Without the lure of petroleum, we'd really have no compelling reason to be involved in the Middle East any more. They want us out; we'd be able to oblige and not have to send billions of dollars to nations with hostile and abusive governments. Win-win.

[Old Man]

CNN reports that US intelligence agencies are investigating whether Russia instigated the sarin attack.

[Armitage]

This is why we need renewable energy, IMHO. Without the lure of petroleum, we'd really have no compelling reason to be involved in the Middle East any more. They want us out; we'd be able to oblige and not have to send billions of dollars to nations with hostile and abusive governments. Win-win.

 

 

Off on a tangent...I saw a similar claim in an RPG book (Wild Talents), in a section on creating alternate histories for a game.  In the example history, the development of cheap and efficient fusion power caused the global demand for petroleum to vanish, crippling the economies of the Middle East.  The problem is that most oil consumption is in the form of gasoline and diesel fuel.  If cheap renewable energy led to internal combustion engines being abandoned in favor of electric vehicles, it would work, but that extra step is needed. 

[Pariah]

Off on a tangent...I saw a similar claim in an RPG book (Wild Talents), in a section on creating alternate histories for a game. In the example history, the development of cheap and efficient fusion power caused the global demand for petroleum to vanish, crippling the economies of the Middle East. The problem is that most oil consumption is in the form of gasoline and diesel fuel. If cheap renewable energy led to internal combustion engines being abandoned in favor of electric vehicles, it would work, but that extra step is needed.

This is true. To kill the demand for fossil fuels, we need to find a method other than combustion for getting people and things fron Point A to Point B.

 

Petroleum would still have some uses, of course. It's the starting material for most polymers, for example. So the demand probably would never go away entirely.

[Michael Hopcroft]

This is why we need renewable energy, IMHO. Without the lure of petroleum, we'd really have no compelling reason to be involved in the Middle East any more. They want us out; we'd be able to oblige and not have to send billions of dollars to nations with hostile and abusive governments. Win-win.

 

 

Off on a tangent...I saw a similar claim in an RPG book (Wild Talents), in a section on creating alternate histories for a game.  In the example history, the development of cheap and efficient fusion power caused the global demand for petroleum to vanish, crippling the economies of the Middle East.  The problem is that most oil consumption is in the form of gasoline and diesel fuel.  If cheap renewable energy led to internal combustion engines being abandoned in favor of electric vehicles, it would work, but that extra step is needed. 

 

 

This is true. To kill the demand for fossil fuels, we need to find a method other than combustion for getting people and things fron Point A to Point B.

 

Petroleum would still have some uses, of course. It's the starting material for most polymers, for example. So the demand probably would never go away entirely.

We would still have the problem of how to generate the electricity if we're not going to use fossil fuels to do it. Nuclear power is too expensive, and the consequences of technical failure are too catastrophic, to be seriously considered. Solar requires the mining of rare earths to make solar panels, with all the environmental and social problems that entails. Wind farms require land -- lots of it -- if you want to fill in most of the gap. Hydroelectricity, as Oregon and Washington are discovering, brings its own environmental and social costs. So where do you get your power?

 

I saw a web page yesterday, in fact, that claimed that "sustainability" is too damaging a goal for the benefit of the planet. The alternative they proposed was a sort of extreme Luddism that entailed literally destroying technological civilization -- all of it. Which means I probably need to change my search habits, because it was not what I expected to find on that particular search.

[Old Man]

This is true. To kill the demand for fossil fuels, we need to find a method other than combustion for getting people and things fron Point A to Point B.

 

Petroleum would still have some uses, of course. It's the starting material for most polymers, for example. So the demand probably would never go away entirely.

Plastics accounts for less than 3% of global petroleum consumption.

[Pariah]

Hmm. I knew it was low, but I didn't know it was that low. You learn something new every day, I guess.

[Ternaugh]

A bigger worry would be food production. Our current agricultural methods are heavily dependent on oil for production, processing, and distribution.

[Old Man]

A bigger worry would be food production. Our current agricultural methods are heavily dependent on oil for production, processing, and distribution.

 

Definitely a big concern, but there's nothing impossible about converting the machinery over to electric over the next decade or so.  I'm a bit fuzzier on the fertilizer requirements but it seems as though non-fossil-fuel-based fertilizers exist.

[Old Man]

Interlude:

 

[Michael Hopcroft]

A bigger worry would be food production. Our current agricultural methods are heavily dependent on oil for production, processing, and distribution.

 

 

Definitely a big concern, but there's nothing impossible about converting the machinery over to electric over the next decade or so.  I'm a bit fuzzier on the fertilizer requirements but it seems as though non-fossil-fuel-based fertilizers exist.

One of the most popular ideas of the tinfoil-hat crowd is that Someone Evil wants to reduce the human population on a huge scale. Now, there are legitimate arguments that the human population is too large and the planet cannot continue to support eight billion human beings. But even if you do want to bring down the total population, there is no imaginable way to ethically decide who to cull because culling the human race on a massive scale is evil virtually by definition.

 

Everyone seems to believe they are the ones facing the chop whenever this subject is brought up.

[Old Man]

(Shh! Guys, don't tell him!)