The Syrian refugees are not our friends and are busy burning down churches and executing the opposition.
This is an ugly civil war and we don’t have a clear picture of who to support.
So we only feed friends now? You seem to be unclear on the concept of humanitarian aid. We help people who are suffering the loss of home, health and sustenance. I’m not suggesting supporting them with arms or military resources. It’s providing food and water, medical aid and shelter where there are none because they have left their homes due to increased violence and personal risk.
In any war, there are people who suffer as a result of collateral damage. Their communities break down and they feel it necessary to leave to find a safer, more sustainable environment. These are the people to whom we provide humanitarian aid. This should be a no-brainer. In civilized societies, we even provide medical aid even to combatants, whether we support their cause or not. Because it’s the humane thing to do.
I’m missing the difference, other than it apparently makes for better TV, between dying a slow and painful death from chemical weapons and dying a slow and painful death from being collateral damage from a bomb or missile.
You don’t usually die slowly from a bomb or missile strike…you die instantly. Obviously there are exceptions. The converse is the case in chemical weapons attacks. You almost always die slowly and painfully, though sometimes you die instantly. In addition, you can use bombs and missiles against military targets, while gas is mostly useful against civilians or unprepared military. It’s a terror weapon.
See the difference now?
XT
I think you missed my point!
Just for the record bombs and missiles don’t have a perimeter safety cutoff point. There seems to be no shortage of collateral damage or images of dead innocents from either side.
Aimed rifle fire (which I was talking about in response to XT’s post)=/= wounds from indirect fire, which range from supermerciful vaporization to horrid protracted bleeding/burning demise. Which I think, for the sake of argument, I’d rather endure than nerve agent poisoning, rotting blood, or chemical blisters.
Personally I choose none of the above. Bombing for peace makes no sense to me. I don’t see how anyone can pick sides here because all I have heard so far is some he said/she said crap, and to be honest your country does not have the greatest track record when it comes to this stuff. What bothers me is all the cloak and dagger bullshit, if you guys have proof, show it, don’t try to convince people with heartbreaking videos so you can throw a pity party to gather support. If there is a satellite picture of Assad pressing the button, release it. As per usual I could care less one way or the other, I’m too old to fight and my kids are too young, but what does bother me is that false spark of paranoia every time I encounter someone of middle eastern descent, all thanks to this foolishness.
There was supposed proof given that Sadam had nasty weapons of mass destruction. 
That comes from the presupposition that all violence is equally bad when that is not the case.
I beg your pardon?
I would put the rebels a couple notches below the KKK from the early part of the last century.
So to answer your question, I would not feed my enemies. I would also not bomb their enemies in some bizarre attempt at justice which is what this thread addresses.
I would support spending the money wasted on Tomahawk missiles in this venture and use it to bolster our embassies.
There was proof he was buying and trying to refine uranium. He had mobile magnatrons which we discovered and destroyed. We know he had nerve gas because he used it on the Kurds. It’s the reason we established the no-fly zones after the first Gulf War. Which brings us to the reason we were attacked on 9/11. It was because we had a base in Saudi Arabia so we could babysit SH and Bin Laden didn’t like it. You remember Bin Laden. He was the rebel we helped in Afghanistan. Do you see a similarity here?
I see a fantasy here.
That would, of course, be “…in spite…”.
Being something like 10,000 miles away takes the ‘vested’ totally out of the equation.
Maybe if we were a stone age tribe it would, but you should really check the papers…things have changed a bit in the last few thousand years.