An ad for Prime Deceit by straightlinelogic should come up whenever a discussion about Syria comes up. If you want to understand why, buy his book.

"And that is why you fail."
- Yoda

You rail on and on about me how I should listen to "both sides" of the story, yet you do not "have the time" to read through my post and consider it. What a hypocrite. I'm done with you. Never PM me again.

If you read my entire comment, you will find the elucidation you asked for.

"By the way, NATO, and possibly the EU, is DITW."

NATO is a strategic alliance centered in common defense. The EU is a geo-political alliance centered in governmental similarity and economic solidarity. They aren't comparable institutions.

Is the EU dead in the water? I would tend to agree. Why? Because it is an attempt to subvert not only culture and identity, but currency and market behavior under a single socialist banner. Socialism is a defunct ideology - it will always fail and collapse in on itself if given time. I will be surprised if it lasts another 15 years to be honest and the flood of Muslim immigrants is going to hasten that fall.

Is NATO dead in the water? What really matters is whether or not the US takes the lead and that is entirely dependent on the Commander in Chief. Bush was a strong CinC and led NATO to invade Iraq. Obama never wanted to lead in a conflict and bailed out in Egypt, Syria, Iran, and the Ukraine. We'll see if Trump is different. The other problem with NATO is not that their #1 historical target isn't still a danger, but that only the US really has the economic and political will necessary to do anything. Most of the rest of the NATO members aren't carrying their own weight because their socialist policies are destroying their economies and their will to defend freedom. The US effectively is NATO at this point, and that, I agree, does not bode well for the continuance of that institution - especially when for the last eight years our own government has been pushing the same failed ideology which is crippling our NATO partners.

"Where, and when, has the Russian Federation been the aggressor?"

Good grief - when they invaded Crimea, perhaps? Or their cyber attacks on our infrastructure? Or their aggressive air patrols over Syria that killed Allied troops? We could also look at their military buildup along other portions of the border, such as Poland. Remember that Russia was very much against the ballistic missile shield we offered to Poland (and which Obama reneged on). Or we can look at the oil pipeline to the Baltic. Or their arms sales to Iran right after Obama funneled them $400 billion. If you choose to ignore the evidence, that's up to you. There are plenty of signs - you just have to choose not to ignore them. Russia has just been more circumspect than the Chinese in openly challenging the US, but they are far from out of the picture.

It is a democratic form in name only. Chile, Mexico, and many other South American nations are "democratic" forms which are in fact run by cartels and oligopolies just like Russia. Putin was head of the KGB and currently holds the reins of power by executing or exiling his business and political opponents. He does the same to the media. It's not hard to remain in power in a "democratic" government when yours is the only name on the ballot! To try to argue that Russia's form of government somehow gives it legitimacy is a farce.

I would also point out that I am not necessarily defending Ukraine's government. Do not misconstrue my comments. What I pointed out is that we (as NATO) agreed to give them some limited support. The goals were to try to encourage the Ukraine toward membership in NATO (after some political changes) and to discourage Russian aggression. One can disagree with the agreement or its terms, but the fact of the matter is that it was signed and binding. The obligation was assumed voluntarily and until it is voluntarily discharged or amended, we should play the honorable part.

Ukraine is an ally with a partial agreement with NATO. Under that agreement, we have an obligation to protect Ukraine from Russia - and we failed. Ukraine also has a democratic system of government and they formally requested help from the rest of the world - which to this point has largely consisted of ever-weakening trade sanctions.

The problem for Ukraine was that due to the incursion of a large Russian population engineered by Stalin, there were more Russians in Ukraine than native Ukrainians. The result of that was that elections favored Russian candidates. The final straw was when Ukrainians wanted to strengthen ties to the EU, the elected government rejected that idea and instead moved to tie Ukraine closer to Putin's Russia. I'm not at liberty to say how I know, but our CIA saw an opportunity to prevent Russia from absorbing Ukraine into a new Tsarist empire, and provided intelligence and funding to assist the Ukrainian uprising. I don't think they would have been successful without our help. Putin had always been irked by Krushchev's "gifting" Crimea to Ukraine, and the uprising gave him an excuse to reclaim it, by engineering his own counter-uprising by the Russian population that dominates the Crimean peninsula.

It is an interesting question for me with ever more interesting responses. Most of us reject confronting Russia out of rational self interest. Is there a reason to commit to altruism... to the death, as is required of that philosophical system? Not if rational self interest has even a small role in our personal value system.

Did you think the Middle East has an abundance of oil? Nothing in comparison to its altruism. When the life of a loved one is lost, that is awful. When the life of a loved one is sacrificed to a false god, that is beyond blasphemous. And yet, we see ISIS doing this quite consistently.

The fact that Russia in its irrational egoism has entered a horror comparable to Vietnam is not surprising, but lamentable to say the very least.

Stay the hell out of it spend the effort to vet the flood of Muslims O the terrible poured in to the US.
The real reason we get into any of the wars is to make money for the gun runners and to satisfy the lust for blood the unconscious evil kakistocrats have.

My no means that there is no reason to confront Russia over Syria. Do we get any benefit? If we do, what is it? As far as I can tell the only thing we get is blood and treasure down the sewer. I've read your comment over and for the life of me, I cannot tell what it is.