Why are we spending so much money destroying our chemical weapons? Just ship some of those to the Syrian rebels and we save money while they even the playing field. Win-win!
It took me a couple of times to get this. Here, have a cookie. 
To quote a current meme, “So you’re telling me your government is going to bomb Syria…because Syria bombed Syria?”
The last time a country gassed its own citizens, everybody was pissed we didn’t bomb them/intervene sooner.
Damned if you do…
There’s a problem with just giving up on the “world police” thing. Namely, it is not necessarily in the US’s interest to do that. Syria is not strategic to us at all (at least not much), but chemical weapons are WMD’s. Say what you want about the Iraq war and the lack of WMD’s there, but one thing it did prove is that America really, really doesn’t like those things.
This whole thing, on the American side, may be less about Assad than it is about Iran. Obama is probably just going to lob a few cruise missiles and be done with it. The thinking being is that if he does nothing it will look like America is relaxing on its commitment to hinder the mere development of nuclear weapons.
Chemical weapon’s aren’t nukes, obviously, but they are weapons of mass destruction that have been internationally outlawed. So strikes against a nation that uses chemical weapons shows a resolve to use military action, if need be, against even the development of nuclear weapons. Call it geopolitics.
Will that work? I don’t know.
However, it is in the interest of the United States, as a nation state with it’s own economic and security in mind, to hinder the development of any and all WMD’s. This is about global deterrence, which is very much in our own selfish interest.
Let’s see, we’ve got Hezbollah on one side and the Taliban on the other. Shouldn’t we be dancing in the streets that these two are killing each other off?
Or is that just too twisted?
The Department of Defense.
We are going to attack Syria with our Department of Defense.
Seriously.
WHAT THE FUCK ARE WE DEFENDING?
Maybe we should start calling it the War Department again?
Well, ideally our Department of Defense would remain our Department of Defense but it would come into play WHEN WE NEED DEFENDING.
Assad could proudly declare that he is using nerve gas and Russia would still veto a military strike.
Not that I support a strike as it stands.
Sometimes the best defense is a good offense (not that I think this is one of those times).
You go, girl!
That is definitely part of the equation - how does the US afford yet another war in the Middle East? Short answer - it doesn’t.
It does seem like kind of an arbitrary line, but it has been drawn since 1925.
I’m hoping Canada stays out of it, too. I think.
Indeed. If the rest of the world doesn’t intervene, we’re standing by while innocent children are killed. If the rest of the world does intervene, we’re interfering in a nation’s sovereign policies.
Here’s an interesting overview of why Russia, Iran, and China are supporting Syria. I agree - Russia will NOT back down from vetoing a military strike.
Russian, Iran, and China on Syria’s side - all we’re missing is North Korea in this Rogue’s Gallery. Is Kim Jong Un too busy putting on another 100,000 person pageant?
I’m not certain ‘deterrance’ has ever worked to pursuade a country to act in a way someone else wants it to. I don’t think was even at the roots of why the US & USSR never launched on each other–I think that never happened because nukes were far more useful at home as a display saber than as weapons abroad. When is the last time (ok, any example will do) a country’s leadership ceased actions against its own people because the rest of the world said to? Kim Jongs Il & Un didn’t/don’t care, Saddam didn’t care, Ahmadinejad, Mubarrak, Qdaffi, Mao, Stalin–they didn’t care. Hitler put up a HELL of a fight to get everyone else to mind their own business. Assad? he’s just one of the Arab brothers settling a domestic dispute. He doesn’t care what the rest of the world thinks, and anyone who steps in to stop him will just lose whatever sway that had over the rest of the region. An outsider simply cannot fix a problem in an Arab state without royally pissing off more people than would be helped.
I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, I think something should be done to help people who are in trouble, either from within or from outside their own country. The world should not stand on the sidelines and watch the Bosnias, the Darfurs, the Iraqs, and now the Syrias destroy their own citizens or societies thru violence. We should have learned something from the holocaust. Maybe I am a bit idealistic.
OTOH, the US should not stick it’s hand into yet another rabbit hole knowing full-well there is likely to be a large rattler in there.
No one nation should be the world’s policeman - any action here should be from a broad coalition (preferably including locals). The problem is economic interests are getting in the way of doing something to protect people. I don’t really know what the answer is, but standing safely here in the US and wagging fingers at evildoers is not going to help anyone anymore than burying our collective heads in the sand.
The sparse amount of responses this thread’s gotten in the past 24 hours is indicative of how little most Americans care about a possible trigger to WW-III – or simply igniting a region already engulfed in embers. No doubt pitting people ‘commuting’ a couple of hundred feet to their destination, sandy vaginas or bad jokes in thread are much more important.
Meanwhile, it appears that the mere possibility of opening Hell’s Gates on account of “keeping your word” – despite the fact that America has quite the poor record on keeping their own – is rather menial to most.
That said, if the proposed “punishment” happens, I don’t doubt many of you will be saying “Awe, fuuuck!” 'cept it might be a tad late. As well as being rather Shocked.
You don’t prick a hornet’s nest w/out expecting to be stung – you might just find out what happens when you poke a dormant Bear & its cubs with a stick.
Good luck with your hypocritical* “red-lines” and your bullshit definitions of WMDs. Dead is dead.
*Agent Orange/white phosphorus ring a bell?
I just interpret it as: we’re all kinda on the same page and there’s not much more anyone can add apart from, “Me too.”
The closest anyone has gotten to an argument against the OP was armedmonkey’s lukewarm assertion we should still exert some measure of world-police activity, but even (s)he’s not really into it. If you were to pit Joe Stalin or Pol Pot for being jerks that thread would sink like a rock as well, and not because people would think the OP was a crackpot.
No, I don’t think you are. Instead of selling weapons world-wide, you could sell (or donate when merited) food and technology. Hey! Maybe I’m being idealistic – certainly there’s much less profit in that ‘racket.’
Assad can certainly be called an “evildoer” but what do you call his AQ/jihadist counterparts other than true to life “cannibals.” And why the fuck should the US stand by them while you butcher any number of innocent people fighting them elsewhere? Read: Afghanistan & Pakistan plus a few more here and there even if they are Americans (Yemen ring a bell?.) Solution? There really isn’t one other than to get the survivors to negotiate one. So use the proper (UN, hello?) mechanisms to get to that point – but don’t go dropping bombs for peace. Like the immensely talented George Carlin said: “Bombing for peace is like fucking for virginity.”
Cognitive bias anyone?
You are right – and so far polls show a mere 9% of the Armchair’s 101st support the attack. So, in a sense, I realize it’s really Obama and his cabinet that I should be pissed at. But I still find it disturbing that up until today the front of my Yahoo home page had Miley Cyrus (didn’t even know the Cyrus dude had a daughter) at the top of the “news.”
I also find find this Dem vs Rep crap highly disturbing. Wrong is wrong and I don’t give a shit which Party is doing it. Yet I hardly see the vigorous opposition to Obama as I saw vs Dubya when I first joined here…in a very similar situation.
I wasn’t quite fooled by Obama’s pretty rhetoric before he came to power – besides MCain & Palin, weren’t a realistic choice – so I commended Americans for doing the ‘right thing.’ But hot-dam!! I never had an inkling you guys were voting for the same. It’s like one stayed in the oven a bit longer and came out darker, better-looking and smarter. But that’s about it.
Look, I understand your anger, I really do, but please try to do something about your tendency to hyperbole. Everyone in this country who pays any attention to a full-range news outlet is perfectly aware that there is a possibility of military action by the US against Syria, and why. The measure of a given issue is not based on the number of headlines saying the same things as several days ago. When there is more news, there will be more news. Or maybe you are saying that journalism shold be nothing more than political opinion-mongering, sort of the way Fox News does it.
Also, according to you 91% percent of the country is opposed to military action, and yet you still refer to them as “armchair 101st”? I guess your intention is just to be as offensive as possible to Americans, whether anyone happens to agree with some of your points or not. Well, don’t let me stop you.