Activists report 1,300 are killed in Syria gas attack

[Professor]

Em, perhaps more than most people here, I respect your opinion on the matter. You've lived there, you have studied the situation, and you understand the people better than most.

But, you have children, too. And, you live in the UK (which has now voted to wait for further information before intervening). Every Tomahawk missile costs $1.5 million. As I pointed out earlier, the money on a missile is already spent, but if a missile is used, it must be replaced. That means that next year, your government will spend an additional $1.5 million replacing every missile that they fire this year. The US currently has just over 200 missiles in the region, ready to be fired.

Neither the UK nor the US has said that they want to use force to end the civil war, or to achieve regime change. They simply want to prevent Assad's ability to utilize chemical weapons. In other words, the "end game" for an intervention is to return to the situation that we and Syria was in a month ago.

Also, as I've said, $1.5 million is enough to repair an ailing bridge, or retrofit an aging school. That's 200 bridges or 200 schools that can be made new again with the money we're poised to spend in Syria.

Here is the choice - is it worth having your kids attend a failing school, or you and your kids drive across a dangerous bridge every day, in order to simply return Syria to the situation that existed 4 weeks ago?

For me, that's an easy choice. I choose to spend that money domestically, instead of abroad.

[eric]

Good post.

[Kane]

False choice because it assumes we can't do both. Also puts our schools and bridges ahead of human lives elsewhere. You can have that foundation for those bridges and those schools but lose any foundation you had for principle.

[Professor]

[exploited]

[The Comrade]

for some perspective, the civil war was pretty close to becoming "the war of american succession"

[Professor]

Further evidence that we do not support regime change. It would spoil our dinner plans.

[spacemonkey]

[eynon81]

[spacemonkey]

What needs to happen is two things.
1, the UN needs to act.
2, it needs to go in and have both sides stand down.