Activists report 1,300 are killed in Syria gas attack

[eynon81]

[Stratego]

[The Dharma Bum]

[spacemonkey]

The funny thing is this , both sides in the Syrian meltdown are NOT big fans of . So, do we help the rattlesnake or the cobra?

[exploited]

Em, did you really just break out the Save The Children line?

[exploited]

If only the world were that simple. We could just swoop in, disappear the bad guys, and eat cake together.

[Professor]

But, Em, obviously the world DOESN'T care. At least, not enough to intervene. Perhaps we (as a human race) should care more. But, the international community is basically saying, "Assad is a monster who gassed innocent civilians! He needs to be brought to justice!! America, sick 'em!!!"

Frankly, I'm a little tired of being the world's peace enforcement arm. If the world is so gung ho on punishing Assad and making sure it doesn't happen, then let them step up! Nobody is talking full-scale war on the Syrian military machine. We're talking strategic strikes on select targets. Almost any first-world country is capable of that. Italy, Germany, France, UK, Spain, China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Japan, Australia, South Korea, Brazil, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, etc. Any of those countries have the military ability to carry out selected strikes on a few chemical weapons sites.

This is a sectarian civil war. By international definition, until there is a UN resolution authorizing force, any military intervention is illegal under international law. The fact that chemical weapons were used may make some people willing to break that law in order to intervene, but it is still against the law.

I’ve made the argument that the money spent on war would be better spent at home. But, even if nary a single additional dime was spent at home, I still would not advocate intervention. By intervening, America stands to lose much more. American bombs/missiles WILL kill civilians. Those civilians WILL include women and children.

What is the end game here? Not just preventing Assad from using Chemical weapons, but the real end game. That the rebels win? So much AlQ there, do we suppose that by helping them that they will suddenly say, “Hey, you know, the Great Satan really isn’t that bad after all.” No way will that happen.

[Stratego]

I wonder how Kerry was able to get a death count accurate to one person (1429 total, 426 kids) when everyone else is off by hundreds. I'm tempted to say we got some pretty awesome intelligence.

[The Comrade]

it's really lazy to just assume the rebels are al qaida. as a group, they're almost non-existent now. like any nuanced issue, there are different groups of salafists who support and oppose one another all vying for control of syria along with many secular groups. to say attacking assad is helping al qaida is just nonsensical.

[exploited]