Russia has sent advanced antiship cruise missiles to Syria

[ScienceRocks]

American officials have been concerned that the flow of Russian and Iranian arms to Syria will buttress Mr. Assad’s apparent belief that he can prevail militarily

One wonders what it is about the wisdom of minding one's own business that seems to be disabled in people in politics?

Assad is the lawful ruler of some shit for brains country. His friends are helping him kill anti-American terrorists.

Pardon me for not seeing the problem.

It is a little like being on the Eastern Front in WW II. You had the choice of going with the Communists or the Nazis.

One of the reasons why I want to build a 100 foot tall wall around our country and withdraw from the rest of the world.

 

[Indofred]

This is terrible.
There is no excuse for it.
After all, America never sells arms to its friends.

What side do you want your country on? I'm assuming Russia.

None. If other countries stayed out of this, there would be a lot less guns around so it would be over faster and a lot less people would get killed.

It makes no odds who supplies who with arms. One country gets richer while people in the other get dead.
Russia, America, whoever - all the same.

 

[konradv]

One wonders what it is about the wisdom of minding one's own business that seems to be disabled in people in politics?

Assad is the lawful ruler of some shit for brains country. His friends are helping him kill anti-American terrorists.

Pardon me for not seeing the problem.

It is a little like being on the Eastern Front in WW II. You had the choice of going with the Communists or the Nazis.

What's wrong with Assad?

What was wrong with Saddam?

 

[Kondor3]

Russia isn't our friends. We need to understand this.

True enough. Sadly, it could probably have played-out differently today if we had been more interested in pursuing a friendship in the years immediately following The Fall of the Soviet Union - trying to help more, to shape more, to be more welcoming back into the global community of democracies... whatever. We may have missed (another) significant opportunity through Diplomatic Stupidity or leftover Cold War Angst or Paranoia. Now... between ex-KGB operatives with sugar-plum visions of Czar-dom, and a sheep-like population who won't stop the erosion of their own recently-acquired liberties... we seem to be back on the path of confrontation and one-upsmanship. Cold War Round II coming up? Christ, I hope not, but it's kinda-sorta beginning to shape-up that way.

 

[ba1614]

Kerry really put the hammer down on them didn't he? lmao, Poor America.

 

[Kondor3]

Kerry really put the hammer down on them didn't he? lmao, Poor America.

Personally, I can't stand Kerry, and voted against him in 2004, but, just out of curiosity...

What do you think that Kerry could do differently under the circumstances?

Or, alternatively, what do you think that ANY American Secretary of State could do differently under the circumstances?

Curious minds want to know... ;-)

 

[Katzndogz]

What went wrong was not Kerry, it's obama. It's his policies that have caused Syria to disintegrate.

“We’re going to keep increasing the pressure on the Assad regime and working with the Syrian opposition,” Mr. Obama said. “We are going to keep working for a Syria that is free of Assad’s tyranny.”

This is one of the stupidest and dumbest statements ever made in public by ANY state official. Syria is falling apart. He is supporting a fractured Syria and Russia will NOT stand by and let Assad lose without a fight. They WILL protect their military base.

 

[Billo_Really]

The Russians can always say some dumb ass low level sob did it without their knowlege--no harm- no foul.

Actually, it's quite the opposite!

The Russian's have made it clear, from the highest levels of their government, they will not allow Syria to fall into the hands of any western-backed rebel force.

 

[Katzndogz]

The Russians can always say some dumb ass low level sob did it without their knowlege--no harm- no foul.

Actually, it's quite the opposite!

The Russian's have made it clear, from the highest levels of their government, they will not allow Syria to fall into the hands of any western-backed rebel force.

Russia has a naval base in Syria! There is no way they are going let that nuclear naval base fall into terrorist hands. Especially when Al Quaeda is active in Chechnya.

They will help Syria disintegrate and segregate part of it for Assad loyalists first.

If the American people were just a tiny bit more knowledgable , maybe they wouldn't have elected an outright fool for a president.

 

[Dugdale_Jukes]

Kerry really put the hammer down on them didn't he? lmao, Poor America.

Personally, I can't stand Kerry, and voted against him in 2004, but, just out of curiosity...

What do you think that Kerry could do differently under the circumstances?

Or, alternatively, what do you think that ANY American Secretary of State could do differently under the circumstances?

Curious minds want to know... ;-)

Well, he might have gone to the UN and lied about Assad's WMD, lied about Assad's intent, then for good measure verbalized additional delusions about likely results; then, after the UN laughed him out of the building, built something that might be called a "coalition of the willing" to invade Syria.

White trash loved v1.0.

 

[Kondor3]

"...White trash loved v1.0."

Hmmmmm... you're not a Hate-Whitey type, are you?

In the interests of Equal Opportunity, I suppose we should also then ask whether Black Trash loved v1.0 as well, correct?

And, oh, by the way, that was a really terrible segue - grasping onto a serious question about alternatives in order to vent against Shrub and company 5 years after their departure and 10-12 years after they played-out that hand. At the very least, some new material seems in order. ;-)

None of this helps us with the Russia-Syria missiles theme...

 

[Billo_Really]

Russia has a naval base in Syria! There is no way they are going let that nuclear naval base fall into terrorist hands. Especially when Al Quaeda is active in Chechnya.

That's a true statement!

They will help Syria disintegrate and segregate part of it for Assad loyalists first.

Time will tell on this one.

If the American people were just a tiny bit more knowledgable , maybe they wouldn't have elected an outright fool for a president.

Why do you say that?

The last one did the same thing!

 

[velvtacheeze]

Democrats preparing excuses...

-------------------------


WASHINGTON — Russia has sent advanced antiship cruise missiles to Syria, a move that illustrates the depth of its support for the Syrian government led by President Bashar al-Assad, American officials said Thursday.

Russia has previously provided a version of the missiles, called Yakhonts, to Syria. But those delivered recently are outfitted with an advanced radar that makes them more effective, according to American officials who are familiar with classified intelligence reports and would only discuss the shipment on the basis of anonymity.

Unlike Scud and other longer-range surface-to-surface missiles that the Assad government has used against opposition forces, the Yakhont antiship missile system provides the Syrian military a formidable weapon to counter any effort by international forces to reinforce Syrian opposition fighters by imposing a naval embargo, establishing a no-fly zone or carrying out limited airstrikes.

“It enables the regime to deter foreign forces looking to supply the opposition from the sea, or from undertaking a more active role if a no-fly zone or shipping embargo were to be declared at some point,” said Nick Brown, editor in chief of IHS Jane’s International Defense Review. “It’s a real ship killer.”

Jeffrey White, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a former senior American intelligence official, said Syria’s strengthened arsenal would “tend to push Western or allied naval activity further off the coast” and was also “a signal of the Russian commitment to the Syrian government.”

The disclosure of the delivery comes as Russia and the United States are planning to convene an international conference that is aimed at ending the brutal conflict in Syria, which has killed more than 70,000. That conference is expected to be held in early June and to include representatives of the Assad government and the Syrian opposition.

Secretary of State John Kerry has repeatedly said that it is the United States’ hope to change Mr. Assad’s “calculations” about his ability to hold on to power so that he will allow negotiations for a political solution to the conflict. Mr. Kerry indicated that he had raised the issue of Russian arms deliveries to Syria during his recent visit to Moscow, but declined to provide details.

“I think we’ve made it crystal clear we would prefer that Russia was not supplying assistance,” he said. “That hasn’t changed.”

American officials have been concerned that the flow of Russian and Iranian arms to Syria will buttress Mr. Assad’s apparent belief that he can prevail militarily


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/17/w...th-advanced-missiles.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Democrats have are reply already prepared: "So what?"

 

[hortysir]

Kerry really put the hammer down on them didn't he? lmao, Poor America.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaHLlGtOZbg]Three Stooges Curly Kills the Clam Soup - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Dugdale_Jukes]

"...White trash loved v1.0."

Hmmmmm... you're not a Hate-Whitey type, are you?

In the interests of Equal Opportunity, I suppose we should also then ask whether Black Trash loved v1.0 as well, correct?

And, oh, by the way, that was a really terrible segue - grasping onto a serious question about alternatives in order to vent against Shrub and company 5 years after their departure and 10-12 years after they played-out that hand. At the very least, some new material seems in order. ;-)

None of this helps us with the Russia-Syria missiles theme...

Your points are well made and well taken. To your first point...

My familiarity with the term "white trash" began in first grade, 1955. At home at dinner I asked what "white trash" meant and explained that a boy had called me that on the playground. We had two farms and hundreds of acres of land and we lived in a 3000sf house, but we took baths at night instead of morning showers.

As a ninth grader a guidance counselor asked me why I wanted to take a space from someone else in pre college because "No one in [my family had] ever did anything."

In both cases action was in fact taken in our own interest, but my point is my family are the kind of people media and aspirational conformists used to describe as white trash. We made moonshine, we farmed, we did what it took. Five generations are combat veterans. We could buy and sell half the people in the county but we were nonconformists with little tolerance for government. We walked the walk.

Today's white trash couldn't carry our boots.