Let's Be Clear: Establishing a 'No-Fly Zone' Is an Act of War
 

The term is a euphemism that obscures the gravity of what its advocates are suggesting -- a U.S. air attack on Syria.


"Kudos to Josh Rogin for breaking the news that "the White House has asked the Pentagon to draw up plans for a no-fly zone inside Syria." But wouldn't it be a more powerful story without the euphemism?

Relying on the term "no-fly-zone" is typical in journalism. But that is a mistake. It obscures the gravity of the news.

Here's how an alternative version of the story might look: "The White House has asked the Pentagon to draw up plans for bombing multiple targets inside Syria, constantly surveilling Syrian airspace alongside U.S. allies, and shooting down Syrian war planes and helicopters that try to fly around, perhaps for months."

The term "no-fly-zone" isn't analytically useless.

It's just that folks using it as shorthand should make sure everyone reading understands that, as Daniel Larison put it right up in a headline, "Imposing a No-Fly-Zone in Syria Requires Starting a New War." That becomes clearer some paragraphs later in Rogin's article, when he discussed the "no-fly-zone" advocacy of Senator John McCain. "McCain said a realistic plan for a no-fly zone would include hundreds of planes, and would be most effective if it included destroying Syrian airplanes on runways, bombing those runways, and moving U.S. Patriot missile batteries in Turkey close to the border so they could protect airspace inside northern Syria," he wrote.

The article also quotes Robert Zarate, policy director at the Foreign Policy Initiative, a hawkish organization. His euphemisms of choice: "No doubt, the United States and its like-minded allies and partners are fully capable, without the use of ground troops, of obviating the Assad regime's degraded, fixed, and mobile air defenses and suppressing the regime's use of airpower."

Does anyone think he'd describe Syrian planes bombing a U.S. aircraft carrier as "obviating" our naval assets? The question before us is whether America should wage war in Syria by bombing its weapons, maintaining a presence in its airspace, and shooting at its pilots if they take off. On hearing the phrase "no-fly-zone," how many Americans would realize all that is involved?

I trust "start a war against Syria" would poll poorly.

That's why advocates of that course hide the consequences of what they propose behind a euphemism. If only there were a deliberative body that the Constitution charged with declaring war, so that it would be impossible to start any wars of choice without the voice of the people being heard."

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/...of-war/276319/

Telling another country that their air force is no longer allowed to fly... Is pretty much a declaration of war.

Obeying it is a sign of surrender.

Or...? What alternative?

I'm always looking for the paragraph or sentence that begins with "A better course of action would be...." but as is usual with such critique articles this writer casually omits that part, the part containing his idea of a better more peaceful way to handle things. A plan that takes into account all the intel that the US gov't and military has at it's disposal. But it's not there, leaving the reader to assume that he simply doesn't have one.

If there's a better way to handle the Syrian situation let's hear it. I don't think a "do nothing" plan is going to cut it.

yes its an act of war and the US needs to stay the fuck out!

he just uses it as an excuse as to why his life sucks, if he starts thinking in solutions he starts to look in the mirror instead so he avoids that by aiming at others to blame instead.

Do you still live your parents? And what was The Olympic Pen??

The alternative is just to pull Al Qaeda and the rest of the terrorists we sent in back out again and leave Syria be :2 cents:

Right - because we have to power to just plug "al Qaeda" in there like a simple tool and take em back out when they've served our nefarious purposes, and anyone saying otherwise has just been indoctrinated by the New World Order propaganda machine...

You just have no idea about the political & cultural situation over there - it's way more complicated than "leave Syria be" - as usual you're just pulling stuff out of your ass.

i'd love to know how much john mccain is paid to whore for the military industrial complex in these "secret" missions.

:)

I am the result of the "pull out" method not working very well.

Always a pretty thought though!

We being the Welsh? https://gfy.com/showthread.php?t=1109379

But that's just it. There is no proper solution. We help them, we get attacked because we have Americans interfering with Muslim matters. If we don't help them, then we failed to help the Muslims. So now the proper solution is to "help them a little bit". This way when they say "you interfered with Muslim issues" we just say "but we didn't invade or put boots on the ground" and when they say "you didn't help" we can say "oh, but we did help".

Afghanistan is a great example. We helped them fight off the Russian invasion, and then years they they attacked us? Why? I read the other day that one of the reasons Osama attacked us was because of Kashmir? Did he not understand that Kashmir isn't even on our fucking radar?

Their problem is they refuse to separate religion from everything else. Take Americans out of the problem, and it's Shites against Sunnis. I don't walk into a business and say "Gee, the business owner does not share my religious beliefs so I cannot buy from him and must instead stone him to death".

Religions equal divisions.

Let's hope humans eventually evolve beyond idiotic fairy tales.

helped them fight off?

Oh yeah - it's a clusterfuck with no easy solution, no doubt about that.

Much of the problem(s) over there can be attributed to - and this is a gross oversimplification, I don't have time to discuss in detail - the current national borders in the Middle East were in many cases arbitrated by departing colonial powers (UK, France, etc) in the 1st half of the 20th century. They don't reflect historical cultural & societal boundaries so when the central power holding society together by force is weakened (Assad, Hussein, or Lebanon for decades, etc) there are just a bunch of different factions (Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds, secularists, fundamentalists, whoever) crammed together with differences on who should be in control, and where, and how. If the ME were arranged into its natural divisions the map would look very different and there would probably be a lot more stability, possibly even enough to get some breathing room & develop a real democracy in a few places. The Kurds in particular seem to have the right idea, if they could ever have a state of their own rather than getting kicked around by the dictators in the various countries they're stuck in.

Similar dynamic happened with Yugoslavia after Tito died - and that was a bloody fucking war smack in the middle of civilized Europe, with religion playing very little role.

Now that Syria's fractured and different groups have a toehold in different fiefdoms there, I seriously doubt it can be put back together. Even if Assad can remain in power he doesn't have the strength to dislodge the rebels in the north, I have a feeling the ME map in 10 years will be quite a departure from today.

Is this a joke? Obviously the alternative to "bombing its weapons, maintaining a presence in its airspace, and shooting at its pilots if they take off" is "NOT bombing its weapons, maintaining a presence in its airspace, and shooting at its pilots if they take off".

Indeed there are lots of weird and wonderful suggestions as to why Osama did 9/11. What's lacking, of course, is a shred of evidence that he was even responsible.

If you take a look at all of the problems we have.... They can all be traced back to colonialism...

I say we put fluoride in their water and wait 100 years

We being The West

This is nothing new.. We have done it before with a civil war..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Deny_Flight

NATO which largely meant the US enforced a no fly zone over Bosnia and Herzegovina back in the 90's.

As always with any of these third world shit holes you are damned if you do and damned if you don't.

We sent them in, we can bring them out, if we stop paying them they will get bored and go home :2 cents:

You really just have no idea what you're talking about, do you?

LOL, okay show me some evidence you actually understand what's going on in Syria.

Sorry, creating vaccine advice website now

makes no sense

what about evidence that we're actively paying al qaeda to act as a proxy army

also in libya

shit's getting loose these days

You're an asshole, you know that?

Oh, we're for sure supporting Islamic extremist groups in both those conflicts, no argument there. In Libya that really bit the West in the ass as relatively secular Tauregs were armed to help overthrow Qaddafi, then allied with Islamists in common cause but then were bumped aside & losing many of their weapons to the extremists who had bigger ideological goals. Hence the trouble in Mali and Algeria.

In Syria they're funded by many many sources, including multiple Sunni nations, to say they're fully under US/West control is ridiculous. The cat's out of the bag at this point, they're not just going to go home. There's no easy answer to the mess over there right now.

fair enough, but if that is the case, why continue/increase funding, and arming them?

Especially considering SUnni nation'al funding, which is honestly new.. quick google or you have something direct for info?

Sure, here's a NYT piece from back in February about the Saudis funneling Croation arms left over from the Yugoslav war to the rebels, with probable assistance from Jordan & the UAE. There are other well-researched stories on this out there, but this one gives a decent glimpse how they're probably being funneled:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/26/wo...-in-syria.html

Those countries have accelerated military buildup in recent years pretty dramatically to counter an ascendant Iran, in a way the Syrian conflict is a proxy war for all of them.

As for "us" arming & supporting them, I agree it opens a whole can of worms. If we could somehow only support the Kurds and the other few secular groups I might be in favor, but again in Libya that didn't work whatsoever and it seems like the Islamists have etched out a dominant position among the rebels. And that's why everyone's treading *very* carefully there right now, there's no easy way out & it could turn into a regional war that dwarfs anything going on so far.

Da FuCk!! I'm agreeing with YOU???

I'm not even drinking Olde English EITHER!!!!

:1orglaugh


Seriously, you're right on this. Totally.

I start to feel uncomfortable when people are agreeing with me, I better head over to David Icke's site and then return with something to post about reptilians :winkwink:

:thumbsup

ahh that's why, sorry. Say "Saudi" and you might as well be saying "USA". same with kuwait etc

people are treading carefully due to the Arab Spring.. was very hard for 'them' to spin that in a way that could be deemed beneficial, and yet the lid keeps popping off. (renewed egypt protests etc)

Think in the next 2 years you're gonna see another series of immolation, and this time replacing your puppets with x-cia agents isn't going to go over so well

I see what you are saying in the big picture and some others are focusing on "what to do about Syria".

I understood it as you just saying "Just call it was it is".

It is what it is.

.

This was the point exactly :thumbsup

Well, I was referring to Sunni governed nations in the ME and Saudi Arabia, Jordan, UAE, etc, are indeed the primary ones at the moment regardless of their alignment to the West. And their motivation was most likely again countering Iran rather than simply toadying up to the West. Was the support done with tacit support of the West & USA? Almost definitely. Done with *active* support of the West? Debatable, but I'd be surprised if there wasn't covert assistance there.

I think on this topic we're pretty much in agreement though. Where I might diverge is - what do we do from here? IMO totally walking away from this conflict isn't going to result in "they'll just all pack up and go home" as WHP claims, this has real danger of blowing up into a regional conflict. At the same time, a No Fly Zone is fairly unpalatable too and yeah it's rightfully not going to go over well with certain parties. Yet the factions involved seem to have no interest in reconciling or giving up whatever power they've gained or still possess. So where do you go from here?

It's a sticky situation, in some ways over a century in the making.

:1orglaugh

they hate your guts and want you dead because your corporate government is exploiting and robbing them blind...also you are dirty dirty players who create conflict and arm the opposing side to keep everybody fighting and then you move in like locusts...


"you didnt help" :1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh :1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

seriously....no seriously...where did you guys ever "help"??? :1orglaugh

hint: you try to "help" yet everybody still hates your guts and wants you dead??? it must be the "help" that is at fault LOL

delusional americans...its sad that 3rd world countries must develop superweapons to be left alone by the US corporate government...if you want to not become a borg state like the USA you actually have to steer money away from health and education and invest in nukes or bacteria or what ever just to have a chance to define what "freedom" really is and not be told by some US mercenary society drop out...

oh and you dropped more bombs than hitler since ww2 :winkwink: