Do you support military action against Syria?

The Bundeswehr is NOT an offensively capable force. By design it's a defensive conscript Army. And basically unless there is an invading force IN GERMANY, it is near impossible to move the conscripts from their home station. At one time they had a decent sized force in Afghanistan (I believe third behind the US and France early on) but again they had pretty heavy restrictions.


As you say some countries in Europe (for some reason especially the Netherlands) would have a problem with an offensively capable military but that isn't even possible right now. There are moves to end conscription and make them a professional force (more b/c the people are against military conscription than anything else) but even then they don't have the capabilities to BE an offensive force. After Kosovo (when they were forced to move their troops by train, taking weeks) there moves to acquire some Heavy Lift but nothing happened, except they made some plane leasing agreements with the Russians for their transports. But then the Tsunami happened and they didn't put in their orders so others scooped up all the transports. The Germans got embarrassed b/c they had pallets of supplies and aid sitting on their runways for weeks. Eventually the US helped them out. Last I heard they were talking about actually buying some planes but that's been a while and I haven't heard anything recently.

No. They're behaving like terrorists. Civilized human beings shouldn't sympathize with terrorists.

As for Germany buying aircraft - doesn't Volkswagen make any? My car is engineered great!

Just curious.

What are the Syrian rebels supposed to do with captured Syrian soldiers?

I DO NOT condone executing them (must less torturing them) but.

Is there any system for returning those soldiers with some reasonable assurance that they will not be used against the rebels in the future? Do the rebels have any kind of infrastructure to detain any number of Syrian soldiers they capture without endangering themselves?

Do they have the means of safely restraining them? Offering them food? Or medical care?

Yes. I think people forget that they shouldn't look at the American Civil War as a blueprint for civil wars. A true civil war is a bloody take no prisoners type of war. The American civil war was and still is a anomaly.

But we won't ignore you're retardation in make such a claim.

No one will ever mistake me for being a supporter of the CSA but what you just wrote was retarded.

























































If he's going to execute them it's going to be for something that happened in the Second Civil War.

Agreed. We use the term "civil war" for the American Civil War and it technically was one.

But from a practical standpoint the two sides were so distinctly divided in territory and the emphasis being on set piece battles between trained militaries (after the first several months anyway) that the American Civil War did in fact much more closely resemble a war between two rival nations. As southerners often insist it was of course.

From what I recall of the American Civil War, neither side was very kind to prisoners anyway.

I'm impressed that you remember those times.

There are interesting comparisons to be made between posts about the actions of people fighting in real conflicts like this, and posts by the same users about the actions of people fighting in fictional situations such as The Walking Dead.

Translation: If you're unable to abide by the Geneva Conventions, just ignore it.

Especially if you're not a signatory to them. Think any rebel groups have ever signed the GCs? I seriously doubt it.

It is not whether or not you've "signed" on to the Laws of War. But if you do not follow them you are not protected by them. If your side is shooting prisoners you have no expectation of fair treatment.

Maybe with a dictator like Assad that is a risk they're willing to take, but they lose any consideration in the world court if they don't follow the Laws of War.

[edited to add: Here's the bottom line: Assad, unlike Saddam, has not invaded another nation (Kuwait) or waged war against another nation (Iran). He is likely sponsoring terrorism but I think he's been smart enough that they can't pin it on him. Unless he has signed some kind of treaty that he would not have or use WMDs there really isn't anything we can do.

I suppose we could argue that the nation is unstable enough that we want to keep WMD out of anyone's hands an that we'll do a DESERT FOX-style campaign to take them out, but that is a bit of a long shot.

The next thing I'll say is that Obama was so desperate to become more like Europe, he should have paid attention to European foreign policy. You don't hear the French or the Germans threatening other nations with "Red lines" and such, Hell, the French of the Germans probably are selling stuff to Assad. You don't set about undercutting your military and your credibility as the 800# gorilla and then make unilateral statements. You wind up looking like a stuttering clusterfuck of a miserable failure. ]