According to CBS:
CBS News has learned that the Pentagon is making the initial preparations for a cruise missile attack on Syrian government forces. We say "initial preparations" because such an attack won't happen until the president gives the green light. And it was clear during an interview on CNN Friday that he is not there yet.
Launching cruise missiles from the sea would not risk any American lives. It would be a punitive strike designed not to topple Syrian dictator Bashir Assad but to convince him he cannot get away with using chemical weapons
Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey is expected to present options for a strike at a White House meeting on Saturday.
http://www.cbsnews.com/...
Let's count the number of ways this is a bad idea.
1. As the President himself notes in the article linked above, there has been no such UN approval for such a strike, which would make the action ILLEGAL under international law.
2. There is evidence that the Syrian rebels have used chemical weapons too.
Carla Del Ponte, a leading UN human rights investigator, said on Sunday that a UN commission of inquiry had gathered testimony from casualties of the civil war and medical staff indicating that rebel forces had used the nerve agent sarin.
3. Assad is a bloodthirsty dictator, but the rebels aren't any better. The rebels are dominated by the
Sunni majority of Syrians and have waged a brutal campaign against religious and ethnic minorities. Al-Nusra, the dominant rebel group, is a branch of Al-Qaeda.
He said the Kurds feared attacks by various armed rebel groups including al-Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra.
“Jabhat al-Nusra are killing and threatening us every day. They want the Syrian Kurds out of Syria. We have nothing left in Syria to live on,” Noursheen Nowzad, a refugee who fled Syria with six family members, told Al Jazeera.
4. There are no vital
US interests in Syria.
Though I have some reservations about Green's second point -- i.e., there is a lot of survey evidence suggesting that "what we do" does have a big impact on perceptions of the United States, especially in the Middle East -- I thought his basic comment was brilliant. If something as momentous, turbulent, and bloody as the "Arab Spring" can erupt and fester for several years, and yet have hardly any observable impact on the life expectancy or economic well-being of the overwhelming majority of Americans, what does that tell you about the true scope of "vital U.S. interests?"
Green's closing comment is also well-worth pondering: if genuine "vital interests" (as opposed to our assorted preferences and discretionary desiderata) are few in number, why do so few people in the foreign policy establishment see it this way? Could it be that endlessly expanding the sphere of "vital interests" is just a good way for ambitious policy wonks to give themselves something to do?
5. Such blatant US involvement could spark a
regional war.
The introduction of all sorts of collective sanctions bypassing international institutions does not improve the situation in the world while reckless military operations in foreign states usually end up with radicals coming to power,” he told an international legal forum in St. Petersburg.
“At some point such actions, which undermine state sovereignty, may well end in a full-blown regional war and even - I’m not trying to spook anyone - the use of nuclear weapons,” he said.
Fri Aug 23, 2013 at 10:10 PM PT: http://www.cbsnews.com/...
UPDATE: Per a separate report posted this evening
The Pentagon is moving naval forces closer to Syria in preparation for a possible decision by President Barack Obama to order military strikes, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel suggested on Friday.
Hagel declined to describe any specific movements of U.S. forces. He said Obama asked that the Pentagon to prepare military options for Syria and that some of those options "requires positioning our forces."
Fri Aug 23, 2013 at 10:27 PM PT: UPDATE x 2: 1:26 AM EDT:
Thanks for the rec list on first diary, although I hope it would have been for something other one this.