gut;1846526 wrote:There absolutely was, otherwise no future agreement would be worth a damn.

I reiterate: It isn't an actual agreement anymore than the laws in the US are an agreement between those enforcing them and those obliged to follow them. IF the agreement was that they wouldn't use such weapons or we would move in, that's not an agreement. It's more like a threat or an ultimatum. Those aren't agreements.

Beyond this, I would also reiterate that threatening to do something you shouldn't do doesn't make it okay to do it. If I told a friend I would kill any woman who breaks his heart, it doesn't give me permission to do just that. Whether or not I said I would doesn't grant me carte blanche.

gut;1846526 wrote:It's more or less a conditional surrender before an actual conflict (because the outcome is already known in advance). If you aren't willing to enforce those conditions, then your involvement in every future conflict fails before it even starts.

Where did I hear this before?

Ah, yes. I remember. Only then, we were calling it a "preemptive strike."

Using gas on 100 of his own people (for, as of yet, no reason I've heard, which certainly seems odd) hardly indicates an inevitable international conflict. It means the guy is a despot and an evil asshole.

But (and I apologize for continuing to harp on this) what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander: To justify this as necessary is to make our absence of action in the other regions with AT LEAST as violent oppression, at best, hypocritical.

This is, of course, aside from the fact that yet another military conflict costs more money.

gut;1846526 wrote:It would be like laying down rules for your kids, but having no consequences if those rules are broken...the results would be very, very obvious.

The problem with this analogy is that the example has an intrinsic hierarchy. A parent has a justifiable position for making rules the child is obliged to follow.

The difference is that we're talking about two autonomous nation states, here. So, a more apt example would be one brother telling another brother that he would have to follow certain rules, and if the latter didn't, the former would punch him in the face. The problem is, the former has no intrinsic authority to do so, and whether or not he's threatened to do so, it still doesn't make it acceptable to follow through.

Spock;1846527 wrote:Otrap a wise man once told me 'what you ignore you condone".

Wise men are apparently wrong on occasion. Certainly, what a person in authority ignores, they perhaps condone. However, I have observed parents being terrible parents, people engaged in marital infidelity, and one neighbor lying to another. I'm certainly not condoning them, but I'm also not assuming authority over those people so as to oblige or coerce them into doing the right thing, either.

The definition of "ignore" is not the definition of "condone." Beyond the technical differences, one is passive while the other is active. They're not in the ballpark of synonymous. This wise man (and I don't contend that he might not indeed be wise) was given over to a definition fallacy.

Beyond this, if one puts up a spectrum, I would submit that there is space between "ignore" and "drop bombs." To suggest otherwise is to commit a binary fallacy.

Spock;1846527 wrote:So you condone the massacre of millions of innocent people for the sake of political control? I suppose you would have just let Hitler keep doing what he was doing?

As demonstrated above, I don't condone the massacre of 100 innocent people.

Now, if we're going to talk millions of people, perhaps you should be campaigning for us to invade Myanmar, as what they've been doing to the Karen people for decades amounts to nothing less than genocide.

As to your point, you're missing the same thing as was mentioned above: the involvement of authority.

We're talking about two autonomous states. Autonomous. As in, they do not answer to us any more than we answer to them. They are not an authority to us, but we are not an authority to them.

Now, I'm certainly not saying we don't keep tabs. But threatening or carrying out acts of war in response to someone doing something we don't like ... even if they double-pinky-swear promised us they wouldn't ... is exerting an authority that we have no right to. It is the very definition of playing world police, which we would be doing according to our own conscience (which, as I've pointed out, conveniently ignores other such atrocities that are either equally violent or more so.

I'm going to ignore the argumentum ad hitlerum at the end this time.

Spock;1846527 wrote:What Asad is doing is the EXACT same thing Hitler did.

Hitler also vilified Marxism. If we had someone who believed that denouncing Marxism was evil, would you acknowledge a comparison to Trump as valid? You wouldn't, and rightfully so, as it isn't a necessary and predictive precursor to someone's desire to expand into a campaign of global dominance (see the North Korean nutjob dictators for details).

gut;1846536 wrote:Just watching a piece on CNN "Return to Mosul".

ISIS is no joke "jv team". It showed a manufacturing facility that was taken/abandoned - they were making munitions & ordinants, fake humvees out of WOOD to be decoys, and crude airplanes designed for suicide missions. Pretty amazing and scary stuff.

They're not. They didn't seem to be that big a threat until after the whole "war on terror" thing, though ... or, at the very least, they didn't get the airtime and column inches before that.

tl;dr

O-Trap;1846561 wrote: The problem with this analogy is that the example has an intrinsic hierarchy. A parent has a justifiable position for making rules the child is obliged to follow.

To use your contract analogy....Contracts have penalties and provisions for when one party unilaterally breaks the contract. In some cases, performance of the contract can be forced.

If there are no penalties for compliance, then contracts are a complete waste of time and money. This was the right move, and the only move.

friendfromlowry;1846534 wrote:I specifically remember you saying that about the South Sudan episode last month.

Assad gases and kills dozens and you say it can't be ignored. Two regions, but people being killed in both. What's the difference in your mind? Trump attacked one but not the other and you need to defend him?

Completely different. One is being done by a countries puppet government backed by Russia. One is being done by rebel militia in a civil war between the people. No government involved.

Con_Alma;1846530 wrote:The Syria strikes are a political story.

The real military story right now is a complete Naval Strike Force group heading towards the Korean Peninsula.

C'mon Navy Man that's routine. Vinson Strike Group has been in the vicinity since March.

The concentration of force, barring planned exercise, moving to the Korean Peninsula is not routine. Lol It's a pretty hefty flexing of muscles. In concentrating this amount of firepower you reduce the readiness and ability to reach other potential areas should need arise.

The strike group includes the destroyers USS Wayne E. Meyer and USS Michael Murphy and the cruiser USS Lake Champlain, along with the carrier and its embarked air wing. An unannounced submarine presence often transits with carrier strike groups as well.

https://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/pacom-chief-orders-carl-vinson-strike-group-to-move-toward-korean-peninsula-1.462734#.WOocSme1uM9

O-Trap;1846561 wrote:I reiterate: It isn't an actual agreement anymore than the laws in the US are an agreement between those enforcing them and those obliged to follow them. IF the agreement was that they wouldn't use such weapons or we would move in, that's not an agreement. It's more like a threat or an ultimatum. Those aren't agreements.

Beyond this, I would also reiterate that threatening to do something you shouldn't do doesn't make it okay to do it. If I told a friend I would kill any woman who breaks his heart, it doesn't give me permission to do just that. Whether or not I said I would doesn't grant me carte blanche.



Where did I hear this before?

Ah, yes. I remember. Only then, we were calling it a "preemptive strike."

Using gas on 100 of his own people (for, as of yet, no reason I've heard, which certainly seems odd) hardly indicates an inevitable international conflict. It means the guy is a despot and an evil asshole.

But (and I apologize for continuing to harp on this) what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander: To justify this as necessary is to make our absence of action in the other regions with AT LEAST as violent oppression, at best, hypocritical.

This is, of course, aside from the fact that yet another military conflict costs more money.



The problem with this analogy is that the example has an intrinsic hierarchy. A parent has a justifiable position for making rules the child is obliged to follow.

The difference is that we're talking about two autonomous nation states, here. So, a more apt example would be one brother telling another brother that he would have to follow certain rules, and if the latter didn't, the former would punch him in the face. The problem is, the former has no intrinsic authority to do so, and whether or not he's threatened to do so, it still doesn't make it acceptable to follow through.



Wise men are apparently wrong on occasion. Certainly, what a person in authority ignores, they perhaps condone. However, I have observed parents being terrible parents, people engaged in marital infidelity, and one neighbor lying to another. I'm certainly not condoning them, but I'm also not assuming authority over those people so as to oblige or coerce them into doing the right thing, either.

The definition of "ignore" is not the definition of "condone." Beyond the technical differences, one is passive while the other is active. They're not in the ballpark of synonymous. This wise man (and I don't contend that he might not indeed be wise) was given over to a definition fallacy.

Beyond this, if one puts up a spectrum, I would submit that there is space between "ignore" and "drop bombs." To suggest otherwise is to commit a binary fallacy.



As demonstrated above, I don't condone the massacre of 100 innocent people.

Now, if we're going to talk millions of people, perhaps you should be campaigning for us to invade Myanmar, as what they've been doing to the Karen people for decades amounts to nothing less than genocide.

As to your point, you're missing the same thing as was mentioned above: the involvement of authority.

We're talking about two autonomous states. Autonomous. As in, they do not answer to us any more than we answer to them. They are not an authority to us, but we are not an authority to them.

Now, I'm certainly not saying we don't keep tabs. But threatening or carrying out acts of war in response to someone doing something we don't like ... even if they double-pinky-swear promised us they wouldn't ... is exerting an authority that we have no right to. It is the very definition of playing world police, which we would be doing according to our own conscience (which, as I've pointed out, conveniently ignores other such atrocities that are either equally violent or more so.

I'm going to ignore the argumentum ad hitlerum at the end this time.



Hitler also vilified Marxism. If we had someone who believed that denouncing Marxism was evil, would you acknowledge a comparison to Trump as valid? You wouldn't, and rightfully so, as it isn't a necessary and predictive precursor to someone's desire to expand into a campaign of global dominance (see the North Korean nutjob dictators for details).



They're not. They didn't seem to be that big a threat until after the whole "war on terror" thing, though ... or, at the very least, they didn't get the airtime and column inches before that.

O-Trap in all of his brilliance rejecting the social contract theory at the foundation of legitimate liberal representative government and ably showing why libertarianism will always fall short of broad appeal.

Con_Alma;1846574 wrote:The concentration of force, barring planned exercise, moving to the Korean Peninsula is not routine. Lol It's a pretty hefty flexing of muscles. In concentrating this amount of firepower you reduce the readiness and ability to reach other potential areas should need arise.



https://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/pacom-chief-orders-carl-vinson-strike-group-to-move-toward-korean-peninsula-1.462734#.WOocSme1uM9

They were just there in March and are returning following exercises out in the pacific. Your post and the media created the impression that this was an escalation and it is not.

gut;1846567 wrote:To use your contract analogy....Contracts have penalties and provisions for when one party unilaterally breaks the contract. In some cases, performance of the contract can be forced.

If there are no penalties for compliance, then contracts are a complete waste of time and money. This was the right move, and the only move.

Gut astutely making the case for the individual mandate on a social co,tract analysis! Nice job!

like_that;1846398 wrote:Pancreatic?! Damn, she is one tough SOB.

A little stubborn with a side of hubris too (modern liberalism?) - they begged her to step down in 2012 after Obama won but bragged that Democrats can win in presidential years...

gut;1846567 wrote:To use your contract analogy....Contracts have penalties and provisions for when one party unilaterally breaks the contract. In some cases, performance of the contract can be forced.

If there are no penalties for compliance, then contracts are a complete waste of time and money. This was the right move, and the only move.

I agree with your point that contracts are a waste if they aren't able to be enforced. Perhaps we shouldn't get into contracts where our end of the bargain is "we won't bomb you." That notwithstanding, there are three general consistencies in examples fitting the ones you've described which still don't apply here:

1. Fulfillment of the agreement is usually forced when the other party has already fulfilled their end of the agreement. Since there really isn't a completion of not bombing someone, that wasn't the case here.

2. This wasn't forcing the fulfillment of the agreement, anyway. This was punishment for failure to uphold the agreement. The toothpaste was already out of the proverbial tube. Our efforts weren't for the purpose of trying to get them to put it back in.

3. Whether a the terms of a contract are being forced OR whether punitive measures are being taken for failure to do so, it is still only justified if it is done by the authority who affirmed and upholds the terms under which that can take place. We're still dealing with two autonomous nation states. No matter how you slice up the contract issue, that still doesn't implicitly allow for one to play parent to the other if the agreement goes to hell.

BoatShoes;1846909 wrote:O-Trap in all of his brilliance rejecting the social contract theory at the foundation of legitimate liberal representative government and ably showing why libertarianism will always fall short of broad appeal.

I'd like to hear this teased out. You say I'm showing why, but how am I, in fact, showing why?

BoatShoes;1846910 wrote:They were just there in March and are returning following exercises out in the pacific. Your post and the media created the impression that this was an escalation and it is not.

They have never left. I'm not sure what you mean by they were just there in March. It's the concentration of a complete strike force that's the significant piece of information. Combined with the movement to the Korean peninsula and you have a presence and action that is not like any exercise nor readiness assignment.

Seoul (AFP) - North Korea denounced the US deployment of a naval strike group to the region Tuesday, warning it is ready for "war" as Washington tightens the screws on the nuclear-armed state. ... "This goes to prove that the US reckless moves for invading the DPRK have reached a serious phase," a spokesman for the North's foreign ministry said according to state news agency KCNA.
"The DPRK is ready to react to any mode of war desired by the US," he said, using the country's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. ..."We will take the toughest counteraction against the provocateurs in order to defend ourselves by powerful force of arms," the foreign ministry spokesman said.
"We will hold the US wholly accountable for the catastrophic consequences to be entailed by its outrageous actions." ...

https://www.yahoo.com/news/n-korea-vows-response-reckless-us-navy-move-010359634.html

Korea sure didn't have this response in March.

Watch for activity on April 15th....the birth date of Kim Jong-un's grandfather. The buzz is that his next missile test is aiming for that day and the U.S. is prepared to shoot it down either on the way up or on the way down.

BoatShoes;1846910 wrote:They were just there in March and are returning following exercises out in the pacific. Your post and the media created the impression that this was an escalation and it is not.

You have to understand that Con Alma sits around masturbating about sending our young men to die in worthless conflicts.

superman;1846921 wrote:You have to understand that Con Alma sits around masturbating about sending our young men to die in worthless conflicts.

This x1000.

superman;1846921 wrote:You have to understand that Con Alma sits around masturbating about sending our young men to die in worthless conflicts.

Really???? Hmmmm. That's the first time anyone has ever had that opinion of my thoughts. I appreciate you sharing that's the view I'm portraying though. Now I know.

Con_Alma;1846960 wrote:Really???? Hmmmm. That's the first time anyone has ever had that opinion of my thoughts. I appreciate you sharing that's the view I'm portraying though. Now I know.

Not sure if you're being facetious or not but that is exactly how you come. I've never seen someone who claims to have sons be so excited about the prospect of war.

superman;1846967 wrote:Not sure if you're being facetious or not but that is exactly how you come. I've never seen someone who claims to have sons be so excited about the prospect of war.

I have but one son. I don't know that I have expressed any excitement at all....just information. I haven't even offered my opinion on the issue so I was a little surprised by the perception offered.

superman;1846967 wrote:Not sure if you're being facetious or not but that is exactly how you come. I've never seen someone who claims to have sons be so excited about the prospect of war.

I've never gotten this opinion on C.A.

Con_Alma;1846970 wrote:I have but one son. I don't know that I have expressed any excitement at all....just information. I haven't even offered my opinion on the issue so I was a little surprised by the perception offered.

You always seem to be in favor of military spending and military action.

superman;1846984 wrote:You always seem to be in favor of military spending and military action.

Military spending? Yes. Military action? Not always...in some cases yes when needed or warranted. I certainly haven't expressed that in this case with North Korea. I'm still not sure how that may equate to being excited about prospects of war....but it is the reader's opinion so I accept it as offered.

Con_Alma;1846986 wrote:Military spending? Yes. Military action? Not always...in some cases yes when needed or warranted. I certainly haven't expressed that in this case with North Korea. I'm still not sure how that may equate to being excited about prospects of war....but it is the reader's opinion so I accept it as offered.

Maybe I misunderstood your meaning but you come off as really excited about the potential of conflict with Korea. Did you not also applaud Trump hombing Syria over the supposed chemical attacks?

superman;1846987 wrote:Maybe I misunderstood your meaning but you come off as really excited about the potential of conflict with Korea. Did you not also applaud Trump hombing Syria over the supposed chemical attacks?

All I have posted about North Korea was information that has been released. I'm not excited about a potential conflict with North Korea. I'd rather we not have a conflict with North Korea. I also do not want to see the continued development of a missile with the capability of reaching the U.S. with a nuclear tip. I personally wouldn't categorize it as being excited about prospects for war.

Regarding Syria, I responded to another person's post by saying we had some 1,000 troops in the area and I'd be pissed if the CIC didn't respond to the use of chemical weapons there.

Con_Alma;1846988 wrote:All I have posted about North Korea was information that has been released. I'm not excited about a potential conflict with North Korea. I'd rather we not have a conflict with North Korea. I also do not want to see the continued development of a missile with the capability of reaching the U.S. with a nuclear tip. I personally wouldn't categorize it as being excited about prospects for war.

Regarding Syria, I responded to another person's post by saying we had some 1,000 troops in the area and I'd be pissed if the CIC didn't respond to the use of chemical weapons there.

Who used the chemical weapons? And why did we respond by barely damaging an airbase that was still able to function the next day?