Steve wrote: “And no doubt she has a very high opinion of herself.”

Sgt. Mom wrote of “Samantha’s smug, airy academic and elite administration assurance…”
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I recall seeing Ms Power on CSPAN several years back, flogging her book, “A Problem from Hell”: America and the Age of Genocide, all puffed up with pride and conceited sanctimony over her stance on genocide (she’s against it!). And I thought with disgust what a shallow, facile moral universe these people inhabit, a place where the mere pose of fighting genocide entitles one to a serene, complacent, holier-than-thou self-regard.

How many of you out there are in favor of genocide?

Bush already put Power’s ideas into action with the Counterinsurgency “surge” in Iraq. It worked.

But instead of supporting Bush and working within the Obama administration to make peace operations (actually the technical term for our post-war mission in Iraq) a permanent US capability, Power played the partisan and joined in the denunciation of Bush, instead. And now she is toeing the party line that the humanitarian crisis in Syria is not our problem. Replacing her advocacy for intervening in Rwanda, Power supports the idea that we won’t do anything to confront the deadly forces grinding away at the Syrian people – yet we’ll commit a direct US military action on Syria that will have a direct impact on the Syrian conflict but, like in Libya, we will do little to nothing to mitigate the consequences of our actions. According to the White House’s own briefing on Syria, we haven’t stayed out of the Syrian conflict. We just haven’t acted in an any effective way, and certainly not in any way that helps solve the suffering of the Syrian people.

As a liberal, the illiberal hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy of the Obama administration following the genuine ethical liberal leadership of Bush is stunning even for the cynical.

Back in the day (Vietnam) that was considered to be a big plus. That is, many in the Puzzle Palace on the Potomac wanted to know the true capabilities of Russian and Chinese radar, AA weapons, etc. Given what we encountered in Iraq, (mostly Russian technology) and looking at the Israeli’s takedown of the Syrian nuclear plant against mostly Russian technology, I would say there wouldn’t be too much to worry about.

While operating over North Vietnam our mission was ECM. The equipment we had then was Stone Age compared to what we have now. Yet, we managed to thwart 90% of the radar guided AA we came up against. We now have aircraft that can fry air defense radars, send missiles into the antennas of fire control radars, and (this one is really cool) track movable missile launchers like Syria uses for their chemical weapons. (They can run but they can’t hide.) The Russkies have been frustrated that their air defense systems have been so ineffective against U.S. and Israeli forces. I believe that’s one reason we hear so much about Russian tech reps in Syria. They are probably sure (and not without good reason) that the Muslims don’t know how to use their gear.

I was in Russia in 2006. One of the more interesting places I saw was the Baltic Fleet headquarters base on an island SW of St. Petersberg. At one time this was an important part of the USSR’s Naval Forces. In 2006, it was a rusting derelict of a facility. The Russians may have their better ships in the Black Sea, but everything Naval I saw in northern Russia indicated a distinct lack of money – a near Third World capability. I don’t want to underestimate them, but I think it is good to remember that we badly overestimated their capabilities all through the Cold War.

All that said, a series of probing strikes to map their air defense MO preparatory to going after the Iranian nuke facilities might make some sense.

If we do this, I think we’re going to find out what the latest in Iranian and Russian anti-aircraft and anti-missile defense looks like.

You seem to forget that Iran under the Ayatollahs has been at war with “The Great Satan” since the hostage crisis under Jimmy Carter and the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut under Reagan. That, and their constant threats to use a nuclear weapon once they obtain one would be sufficient reason to destroy the installation.

Note too that the successful Israeli attack on the Iraqi Osirak nuclear reactor was preceeded by an Iranian attack on the same facility http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Opera. They were both preventative strikes out of fear of Saddam Hussein. There was enough precedent for us to destroy the Iranian centrifuges after 9/11.

It is my opinion that limited military action will not prevent Assad from doing anything. What would prevent him from using his chemical weapons would be to take down his military infrastructure, and send in enough U.S. troops to find and destroy all his chemical weapons. Is there any overriding national security interest in doing that?

Any strike that fails to significantly cripple the regime will not change our enemies’ view of American credibility. But crippling Assad could lead to regime change. I don’t see a regime change from Assad to “al Qaeda, Inc” as in the strategic interest of the U.S.

I don’t see any way to promote stability in Syria short of occupation (boots on the ground) and an extended period (25 years) of supervision and training in the basics of democracy. Who, at this point, favors that?

Yes, we could help the Free Syrian Army if they committed, in a concrete manner, to protect the rights of all religions, a representative form of government, and to support a non-Sharia based Constitution with a Bill of Rights. Based on our experience with “moderate Muslims” in Iraq and Afghanistan I don’t believe that is much of an option.

Our true strategic interest in the area is to keep Iran from going nuclear, keep the Suez open, and keep the oil flowing. We have the tools to do that, if only we had a realistic foreign policy.

Russia, often backed by China, has blocked every relevant action in the Security Council, even mild condemnations of the use of chemical weapons that did ascribe blame to any particular party. In Assad’s cost-benefit calculus, he must have weighed the military benefits of using this hideous weapon against the recognition that he could get away with it because Russia would have Syria’s back in the Security Council.

And on August 21, he staged the largest chemical weapons attack in a quarter-century while U.N. inspectors were sitting on the other side of town.

It is only after the United States pursued these nonmilitary options without achieving the desired results of deterring chemical weapons use that the president concluded that a limited military strike is the only way to prevent Assad from employing chemical weapons as if they are a conventional weapon of war.

I am here today because I believe – and President Obama believes – that those of us who are arguing for the limited use of force must justify our position, accepting responsibility for the risks and potential consequences of action. When one considers pursuing nonmilitary measures, we must similarly address the risks inherent in those approaches.

At this stage, the diplomatic process is stalled because one side has just been gassed on a massive scale and the other side so far feels it has gotten away with it. What would words in the form of belated diplomatic condemnation achieve? What could the International Criminal Court really do, even if Russia or China were to allow a referral? Would a drawn-out legal process really affect the immediate calculus of Assad and those who ordered chemical weapons attacks?

Much more in that vein in her remarks — the full text is here.

General Dempsey, Chairman JCS, must have nearly bitten his tongue all the way through by now.