No, but they did accede to the Geneva Protocol of 1925, which prohibits
and provides that
Cite to the treaty. Cite that Syria acceeded in 1968.
In short, Syria didn’t sign a treaty binding them not to have chemical weapons but did sign one pledging not to use them. Refresh my recollection which one Assad is being accused of doing. :rolleyes:
still, most of the world agrees that use of chemicals means you risk a major smackdown, and *everyone *knows it.
Let them have their “victory” if it means a better outcome for Syria, yes?
Why would you think it would be that?
I’m sure the conservatives are giving credit to Putin for that too
In international politics, it’s not “majority rule”, it’s “might makes right”. if 51% of the countries in the world told the US they think we should pay them vast sums of money because of our greenhouse gas emissions, we would tell them “get bent”, and then do you know what would happen? Nothing because no one wants to pick a fight with the biggest kid on the block, even when he’s out-voted.
In a country of 300+ million people, it’s fairly easy for a majority to tell people what to do. After all, no one citizen has much of a hope of resisting the police with any sort of long-term success.
In a world of less than 200 countries, almost all of which are incapable of projecting significant force (and none of which can remotely compete with the US in a conventional war) it doesn’t matter what the majority wants, it only matters what the US wants, and they’ll probably take into consideration what the EU, China, and Russia think. No one gives a shit what Angola thinks, or Bermuda, or Laos.
The Laotians are not gonna like that!
Yup, but only they will care.
The US doesn’t have as much freedom as that. Yeah, they can throw their weight around in the short term, but they know they need the friendliness of other countries if they want to continue to be successful. Obama was desperate to recruit allies for a strike on Syria, and even Bush wanted allies for Afghanistan and Iraq. It’s very rare for countries to openly state anything close to “might makes it right”. Any country that attacks another will claim good justification and act as if the difference in power between the two is pure coincidence.
Put simply, I was talking about what the US should do - what it can do is somewhat beside the point and a quite different issue (although I will admit that both of us are way off the original point of this thread).
It is better to be a chicken hawk, than a war monger. A lot of the Mideast problems stem from the fact that we went into Iraq on false information. The senior president Bush didn’t go into Baghdad because he was told that all the problems in the middle east would crop up if he did. So Junior disregarded his father’s way and believed he had a calling to act as he did. When asked if he had asked his father for advise he is quoted as saying he talked to a higher father.
Acting in haste can sometimes be a very bad idea, and a good man/woman who realize they made mistake , take a different path.
Act in haste repent in leisure.
I have noticed that people who criticize seldom act! If President Obama does anything the opposition automatically criticize it.
Too many only care for their wants and to heck with what is good for the country in the long run. I recall that things were not good during the Bush Jr. years, and he inherited a surplus that people were wondering how to use it . It didn’t take long for Jr. to use it up with out a way to pay for the 2 wars. Obama was elected because the country was near a depression and the cost of 2 wars was pulling the economy down. The fear mongers like to keep people down.
I’m still trying to extract the purpose or intent of this post.
If someone who didn’t serve in the military is ineligible to commit the military, then America’s military is supposed to be paralyzed throughout the Obama Administration?? Surely HurricaneDitka has a point more sensical than that.
I’d also ask Mr. Ditka to please tell us what he thought of military operations during the Cheney-Rove-Bush Administration. Of the three co-Commanders, only GWB ever served in the military. (Let’s do excuse Cheney though, since he “had other priorities.”) HurricaneDitka, are you arguing that Bush’s heroic service during the Vietnam War outweighs the non-service of his co-Commanders?
Why do we need to listen over and over and over and over and over to nonsensical whines about the present President, by people who would never make the same charge, however well deserved, against a Republican?
ETA: Yes, I am aware that GWB spent his military career defending the bars and brothels of Texas from Viet Cong. My remark was tongue-in-cheek just to make clear how egregiously pretentious and cynical OP’s “question” is.
I’m not even close to suggesting he can’t commit the military to action (although probably does need approval from Congress at least at some point); just that if he does, does his non-prior-service make the “chickenhawk” epithet as applicable to him as it apparently was to GWB?
I was quite supportive of Afghanistan. I was in Chile on an LDS mission during the runup and first portion of the Iraq war. We were busy and strongly encouraged to stay out of political debates, and I didn’t have much access to news or other information, so I can’t claim to have had a well-developed position on that one.
I wouldn’t call Rove a “co-commander”, and would have serious doubts about the sanity of anyone that did.
I have no idea what you’re talking about in this paragraph.
Reported.