Do you support Joe Biden's strike on Syria?

[OwenBurton]

Not long after a month into his Presidency, Joe Biden has attacked Iranian-backed militants near the Iraq-Syria border in retaliation for an alleged recent attack which killed an American contractor in Iraq.

For some reason, this attack has deeply divided public opinion in both mainstream parties, with prominent Democrats and Republicans alike supporting and condemning the attack.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/bid...blicans-praise
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/...s-syria-strike
https://www.wicz.com/story/43417527/...r-syria-strike
https://www.bozemandailychronicle.co...7efac8fa5.html

I understand the rationale of the strike. And the Iranian government is honestly not a positive force for humanity or the Middle East. But I am not personally sure if I support it myself. What do most Americans generally think of Biden's recent strike?

[Breccia]

Biden defended his strike in a letter to Congress which seems to be summarized by "the US stands by its allies". And the Pentagon said it was to retaliate against attacks agains US forces, including the death of a US contractor.

I'm...not sold. Put me down for "it's complicated" until we get more info...which I don't think we will...but based on what minimal info we had, I'm not thrilled with this.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

For now, I'm gonna set up camp in the "it's complicated" zone.

[Stormspark]

Doing nothing tells the militants that they can strike the US and that the US won’t strike back, so I can understand why he had to do it, especially considering that it killed an American.

I’d rather the US just leave the Middle East completely... but it doesn’t look like they can just yet.

While I would agree...the US is responsible for the existence if ISIS (thanks Bush), so I can see why we have the responsibility of cleaning it up.

As far as this particular strike, I don't have enough information to know if it was justified or not. I'll have to look into it more.

[PC2]

Most likely yes. They initiated an attack which means they chose to become hostiles and combatants.

I could change my mind though, like if I found out the majority of the militia condemns attacks on US troops and that it was just a few bad apples who went rogue. The militia would also have to hunt down those bad apples from within their own ranks and imprison them. I highly doubt that applies to this militia though.

[wunksta]

Isn't the US military just protecting the illegal oil drilling in Syria?

An American company has inked a contract with Kurdish authorities in northeastern Syria to develop and export the region’s crude oil under a secretive deal approved by the U.S. government months after President Donald Trump announced he was leaving U.S. troops to “secure the oil,” multiple people familiar with the project told POLITICO.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/0...ian-oil-391033

Biden dispatched some 200 troops and 40 trucks of mostly military supplies to support Kurdish factions in eastern Syria.

https://www.cato.org/blog/bidens-folly-bombing-syria

[Blur4stuff]

Difficult to judge given that we don't know what Biden knows. It may have been a good call. It was much harder to apply that thinking to Trump given how thoroughly rotten and corrupt he was on top of being incompetent.

[PC2]

Isn't the US military just protecting the illegal oil drilling in Syria?

I don't know, it may very well be the case that the oil drilling is illegal and that US troops defending it is unethical. However that doesn't change the fact that killing a person is not an appropriate response to an unjust drilling operation. If it's actually true that it is an illegal and/or unethical situation then that means American voters can be convinced of that through dialogue and then we can vote in people who will order the troops to leave.

[Freighter]

No, why would I? I think USA should stay out of the region. They only destabilize.

[Underverse]

Yes in light of alternatives which are:
- Let enemies kill our people with no fear of retaliation
- Completely abandon the region and let Iran establish a regional hegemony which will give them very substantial control over trade routes

[Lynarii]

It's tough to say. With everything that was reported on the reasoning and targets I would at first blush say that it was an acceptable strike, but I simply don't know that I trust the US intelligence agencies enough at the moment to actually believe what they're saying without question. Their primary goal is to protect dollars, not people, and that's been true for far longer than I've been alive. The name at the top won't change it.

[Slant]

Honestly? This is just clickbait bullshit by the media to rile people up. Nobody gives a shit about some bombing in the ME, that's just a regular Tuesday...

[ABEEnr2]

Not even a month and he already going back to the Obama era...that's a new record.

[postman1782]

Not even a month and he already going back to the Obama era...that's a new record.

Funny, Trump literally did an attack 9 days into his presidency. He killed 14 Jihadists, which was good, but he also killed 10 civilians and got a fucking SEAL killed and destroyed a $75 million aircraft. Trump killed more civilians in his first 9 months, than all 8 years of Obama combined.

Did you complain then?

[ParanoiD84]

Funny, Trump literally did an attack 9 days into his presidency. He killed 14 Jihadists, which was good, but he also killed 10 civilians and got a fucking SEAL killed and destroyed a $75 million aircraft. Trump killed more civilians in his first 9 months, than all 8 years of Obama combined.

Did you complain then?

Obama also only took 3 days to start bombing killing 20 civilians in 2 strikes in Pakistan.

Biden: 37 days strikes #Syria
Trump: 9 days launches Op in #Yemen
Obama: 3 days strikes #Pakistan
Bush: 27 days strikes #Iraq

So not like any of them waited very long lol.

Can call it the right of passage for the presidency.

- - - Updated - - -

Anyways I say good call can't just let militants attack your forces without doing anything.

[Wilfire]

Yes. The more the US plays "world police", the faster they will overspend their limited resources and leave the rest of us third world countries alone.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Funny, Trump literally did an attack 9 days into his presidency. He killed 14 Jihadists, which was good, but he also killed 10 civilians and got a fucking SEAL killed and destroyed a $75 million aircraft. Trump killed more civilians in his first 9 months, than all 8 years of Obama combined.

Did you complain then?

Of course not. That's why he has a golden statue that carries a magic wand.

[downnola]

It's crickets on this forum when Assad's army bombs a hospital but America airstrikes an Iran backed militia that routinely targets coalition troops and we get a long whine about imperialism.

Syria has long been a pile of rubble that nobody cares about. It's people were abandoned by the rest of the world and America has never had moral authority to act by itself as the world police. It's a no win situation for anyone but Assad and his apologists. The United States should worry about the problems in it's own back yard and the rest of the world should be ashamed of itself for turning a blind eye.

[Deja Thoris]

Funny, Trump literally did an attack 9 days into his presidency. He killed 14 Jihadists, which was good, but he also killed 10 civilians and got a fucking SEAL killed and destroyed a $75 million aircraft. Trump killed more civilians in his first 9 months, than all 8 years of Obama combined.

Did you complain then?

That was just a warm up, he killed more in year 4 than most wars America has participated in.

[Milchshake]

It's crickets on this forum when Assad's army bombs a hospital but America airstrikes an Iran backed militia that routinely targets coalition troops and we get a long whine about imperialism.

Syria has long been a pile of rubble that nobody cares about. It's people were abandoned by the rest of the world and America has never had moral authority to act by itself as the world police. It's a no win situation for anyone but Assad and his apologists. The United States should worry about the problems in it's own back yard and the rest of the world should be ashamed of itself for turning a blind eye.

Similar to what happened with Environmentally Concerned posters.

It's an object lesson of how some movements were mostly abandoned. The only people that stuck around were the hardcore types without much else to do. And all of the KGB/Stasi recruiters, that would use Anti-War and Greens groups for recruitment.
It's a mix of people crying out for attention, and other people trying to get their boss to keep signing their expense reports.


It was comical to watch in realtime in the 70s and 80s. Seeing it reoccur in 2020 is just weird.