Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[entropy]

Does anyone know where Syria obtained the chemical weapons? Russia? Did they make them? Was GWB correct that Iraq moved them to Syria? Someone else? Any ideas...?


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[THE_WIZARD_]

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[hack]

They finally got those drones up and running I guess?

[Jeff Buchanan]

Does anyone know where Syria obtained the chemical weapons? Russia? Did they make them? Was GWB correct that Iraq moved them to Syria? Someone else? Any ideas...?


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Good questions .......

To your first question: No, not with certainty. I'd add that the kinds of chemical weapons the Assad regime has (or had as the case may be), and that is somewhat important to the question, is known (Chlorine, Mustard, Sarin, VX).

These are common chemical weapons, chlorine also having commercial uses so, it's not possible to identify where they came from.

From Russia? Doubt it in any official, military - military exchange but, like just about any military equipment or supplies, you can buy anything and I mean anything including this stuff.

Yes, Syria could easily make all of these agents. However, it takes sophisticated technology to weaponize them and well developed processes to deliver them effectively. I'd think it possible that the Russians did provide access to the technology but it was probably well before the current political circumstances in the ME.

It is well established that non-nuclear states possess chemical weapons and Iraq under Saddam was one of them. US intelligence gathering capabilities can detect both the presence of unused and the actual use of chemical weapons. I have no doubt that Saddam moved chemical weapons from Iraq to Syria at some point. I have no idea of the details but someone in the US intelligence community knows.

Here's some good background and current information on the recent use by the Assad regime in Syria of what is no doubt Sarin or VX:

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/04/syria-chemical-weapons-attack/521883/

[Da Geezer]

If I'm reading Hack correctly, that characterization of him is wrong.

It seems, at times, you tend to argue from the extremes. When someone offers another view you characterize that view (or the poster) as taking an opposite extreme.

Fair enough.

Can you name any issue where Hack supports a "meritocracy" determined by anything other than a "wise soul" or a government? Hack believes that the private sector should be more highly regulated than it now is. When I asked him to define socialism, he said that the government controls all economic activity. Have you ever seen Hack post anything that implies, even remotely, that profit has any positive role to play in an economy?

And that brings me to the point I wanted to make. Jeff, you are not wild about profit either, but you are open to persuasion. Do you remember a while back when someone posted a list of publications ranked by their amount of liberalism on a scale of 0-100 with 0 being most conservative, and 100 being most liberal? The WSJ was ranked 85 on that scale. Jeff, I'd rank you about the same as the WSJ (and I mean that as a compliment), at 85. Can you see that if your belief system is mostly liberal or progressive, you will feel someone who is, say at 50 is more extreme than someone at 100?

What I've asked Hack is to give me an example of how capitalism and "a market economy" are a zero-sum game. I've asked him how his "meritocracy of people or ideas" comes about. I believe Hack simply states his "fact" as predicate without any concern as to whether it is correct or not. And then chastises me for not making a fact-based argument. And Hack means that to be offensive.

What do you see as my most extreme position, Jeff? "Social justice" as a synonym for income redistribution?

[hack]

I'll wait my turn in today's round of Ask the Moderator, but, Jeff, what do you make of the idea of 59 missiles aimed at an air base yet leaving the runway intact? Is that normal? Failure? An exercise in restraint?

[Jeff Buchanan]

Geezer, TBH, I don't have the desire or the energy to comb through your posts to find your "most extreme" positions but in the narrow context of what prompted my post you said, Capitalism, in every case, in every time, presupposes a free market.

Those that use terms like every and always will usually find themselves in a precarious position in any rational debate.

Then, you rejoined saying, What makes you (Hack) tick is that you want equal outcomes imposed by the force of government.

You take one extreme and then cast those holding a different view into the opposite extreme.

I guess that if you are speaking in the purest but not realistically defined terms involving Capitalism you'd have a point however ........

Adam Smith's "Invisible Hand" has never materialized to the extent that the common good is achieved in a society. Likewise, Carl Marx's socioeconomic theories where Capitalists are replaced by the working class and a blissful Communist society flourishes have in all cases failed.

The best socioeconomic systems are hybrids. They are neither fully Capitalist nor fully Socialist. We are no longer experiencing 18th century economies and circumstances. I don't think you'd disagree with this view so I find it perplexing why you try to argue as if their is black and white.

From what I'm reading here, Hack is in that camp with respect to his world view of socioeconomics and that is demonstrable when he responds to your attempt to move him to the extreme that ... We've talked enough about rent seeking and monopolists who seek their true competitive advantages in DC and not in any free market setting that I can only conclude that .... you have forgotten things you know .....

So, carry on ........

[Jeff Buchanan]

Hack, re air base attack .......

The Tomahawk Cruise missile has been around since the 70s. It's old technology. Moreover it carries a small conventional payload, much less than what multiple aircraft could deliver but a lot more than say, the best drones available.

It has the explosive equivalence of a 1000 lb bomb, maybe a little less. The advantage is that it is widely deployed aboard USN ships and has an effective range of around 850 nm. It is a stand-off weapon. You don't have to fly airplanes through an air-defense system to deliver big payloads that will bust bunkers and destroy airfields while at the same time risking shoot down and subsequent capture of US pilots.

There is a wide range of conventional ordnance available that could have leveled the target airbase but one would have to fly it in to deliver it and it would be a huge airstrike probably involving 100 aircraft. I'd have to do a load out and computers do this now so don't ask. Moreover, you'd have to involve two aircraft carriers/air wings and more than likely you'd have to marshal some land based aircraft. That gets really complicated with fly over requirements from other nations. This was simple .....a good option if optics is what you're looking for and I believe that is all it was.

[hack]

This was simple .....a good option if optics is what you're looking for and I believe that is all it was.

That was going to be my guess. If they really wanted to curtail Assad they'd take out the runway. If you shot 59 missiles at it and didn't take out the runway, then you didn't want to take out the runway. They did hit the planes parked there, which perhaps has the potential impact of forcing Syria to buy more planes.

[Jeff Buchanan]

In my estimation this was an effective use of military power as von Clausewitz would have viewed it ..... "a continuation of politics by other means."

My view is that you are seeing a redefinition of US geopolitical activity. There is no question that BO's administration saw interaction between nation states and select other actors as placing negotiation above all other forms of political interaction.

BO's administration was Wilsonian minus the interventionism of Clinton and GW. Bush. I believe you can argue that BO's administration of Foreign Policy had it's positives, but I think it was, to a certain extent, naive. I'd reference Putin's annexation of the Crimea as an example. The "line in the sand" crap that he ended up having Kerry negotiate his way out of military action is another.

BO should have undertaken military action last round of chemical weapons use by Assad. Instead Kerry and Larionov did this chemical weapons deal. Turns out that was a complete failure and Trump was right in pulling down BO's pants although it was crude and lacked the kind of detail for the every man to understand exactly why it was a failure.

We'll see Trump's admin of FP as it evolves as more closely aligned with paleoconservativism. This has it's pluses and minuses (i.e., the Cheney crap as the underlying reason for Desert Storm). Doc Hodgeman and I had some great discussions about opposing FP views of the neocons and liberals at the time of the Iraq invasions. I've gotten a lot more pragmatic and skeptical of neoconservativism since then. Exactly like he told me I would.

[Ghengis Jon]

I also don't understand the lack of runway ordinance. We took out some outdated MIGs and a few choppers. Meyer-Assad has been using choppers with barrel bombs to deliver both sarin and chlorine gas. If MIGs were used in the attack that Trump responded to, then I would speculate that the regime still has a few binary delivery systems left over, probably modified artillery ordinance. All sides agree, Syria turned over everything they declared they had...everything they declared...

Of course, nerve agent is easy to make with a dumptruck load of castor beans. Chlorine is widely used in a number of applications. Syria can produce crude posion gas at a moments notice, just like every other nation in the world.

But why no runway hits? You can still launch and recover aircraft, exactly what we saw in the Syrian follow-up airstrikes. We took out a bunch of aircraft but replenishment is easy. Why did we leave the runways operational? There has to have been a reason. It's not that the base could now be easily taken by ragtag ground forces.

The Russkies have about 100 special operations troops stationed at that base as forward operating units. Thats probably what made Russia so nervous about the US bombing attack. How, if at all, does that play into not bombing the runways?

If we can figure why the runways were left intact, then we might a clue as to the US strategy has morphed into. It almost seems reducing the airfield's effectiveness (through reduction of aircraft) was more important than preventing future attacks from that launch point. Does the cheeto-in-charge think that Assad will now limit his attacks to ISIS?

[hodgkal]

Doc Hodgeman and I had some great discussions about opposing FP views of the neocons and liberals at the time of the Iraq invasions. I've gotten a lot more pragmatic and skeptical of neoconservativism since then. Exactly like he told me I would.

Glad to hear it Jeff. I've been ardently anti-war since the Reagan era and all the Star Wars crap. Before that I was on the fence, and in the beginning I was a Goldwater conservative. With the advent of nuclear weapons my thinking has changed. I remember my Air Force indoctrination on the effects of nuclear weapons. Most people have no idea how devastating they really are. I shudder at the possibility of a misstep could put the survival of humanity in jeopardy.

Even Reagan came to his senses and worked out a rapprochement with Gorbachev. I don't see the same instincts in DJT.

The current ME fiasco traces back to 9/11 and our resulting obsession with revenge. The only problem is we attacked the wrong people (Iraq) and now were in quicksand up to our hips. And actually 9/11 was payback by the Saudi plotters for our insult of stationing US military bases on religious (Wahabbi) Saudi soil. It didn't help that we had, and still have, a cheering section for more intervention in Israel. (just so we do the fighting).

[hack]

Trump tweeted that you don't bomb runways because they can be fixed fast. Is that really the case? There's a nearby cement plant and you can get a cement truck in? Engineers sitting around ready to spring into action? At the very least you'd think that takes a few weeks. I have no idea. Just guessing. But even if you expect it back operational within a week, that's a week without use, and an expenditure of resources to restore it. If you're lobbing 59 missiles in, one to five to service that goal seems reasonable. But I really don't know very much about this at all.

It does make you wonder. Maybe the goal was to help Vlad sell some MiGs to Meyer. I highly doubt it, but the official version makes no more sense than that alternative.

[Wild Hoss]

Runways can be patched pretty quickly, unless you blast pretty deep holes. Otherwise they keep mounds of filler material readily available, patch the top, and roll.

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[hack]

Which suggests, well, blast some deep holes. You can't do that with 59 missiles? Are they paper missiles, or pretend missiles? Do we have any missiles that blast deep holes? Why do we want missiles that don't?

I'm perhaps missing something here. War on the Rocks isn't bugged about it, so, fine. Others do seem to be, but if it was a thing, it would be more of a thing. Might be one of those things where common sense really just doesn't apply.