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[Karmilla Strife]

by your spineless reckoning we should have avoided the conflict in Germany 1938. The world is cruel but if any state has the means to lessen the suffering of another, they should try. Even when they are wrong, they do less damage than to let mass murderers have free reign.

in your isolationist world the richest most powerful country casts a cold eye upon the rest of the world, how sad. If american reap the rewards of being the global consumer of last choice, we at least can dump some of our billions into the rest of the world If not, I'll impress upon you, that there is no such thing as an isolationist superpower.

[Repentence Tyrathlion]

If not, I'll impress upon you, that there is no such thing as an isolationist superpower.

The USSR tried it for a while.  Didn't work out so well.

Although Vikarion's point is a logical extreme, I'm not sure your WW2 comparison holds up.  Nazi Germany was a superpower in its own right, and the British and French were under imminent threat.  The US was not directly threatened immediately, but if the Nazis had won the war in Europe, that would've been extremely awkward - not to mention having the potential for another war right on its heels, if the Germans had not gone ahead and made a strike anyway.  As it was, the Japanese made it all a moot point, and history turned out as it did.

To all intents and purposes, Vietnam and Korea were dick-measuring contests between the US and USSR, and the first Gulf was everyone playing world police.  Gulf II, Afghanistan and now (hypothetically) Syria are all cases where the US itself is in no way threatened.

Not necessarily supporting his argument, just making a debating point.

[Seriphyn]

I'm sorry but I think there is a lot of naivety in this thread.

We do realize that there are elements of the rebels supported/backed by al-Qaeda, the same people we were supposed to be fighting for the past ten years? We do realize that if the rebels win, we will likely have an extreme Islamist government that will persecute religious minorities, something the relatively moderate Assad didn't do by protecting the Christian minority? Strategically, an extremist-governed Syria is weaker than a moderate-governed Syria. Moreover, Syria is Iran's biggest ally. Getting Islamist rebels into power will weaken Iran in the long-term.

This really has nothing to do with chemical weapons or just causes; what if it was the rebels who were using chemical weapons? Chances are, BOTH sides have used chemical weapons. If we went in there, we'd have no idea who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. I've got a contact in the US Army, MI for about ten years. Not only does he agree that this is about a strategic weakening of Iran, but he also suggests that the military sweetspot for intervention was more than a year ago.

I also find it extremely rich that Westerners seem to discredit anything Russia or China says just because they're Russia and China. Have we seen the democratic consensus in the UK regarding Syria? Absolutely against it. Despite this, the British government is drawing up "contingency plans". So much for democratic government and abiding by the will of the people. At least our governments aren't foolish enough for a land invasion.

This is the same thing with the CIA and MI6 backing the Iranian coup. It's extremely short-sighted. We're going to put in an extremist government into Syria for short-term concerns, and it'll probably bite us in the ass in the future just like with Iran.

[Anslol]

Could we save lives if we intervened in Syria? Yeah, probably. Should we? No. The interests of the United States are not served by trying to save lives around the globe....

Therefore, the best approach for the United States is to let the Syrians kill each other until one side or another achieves victory, or it becomes a failed state. Either way, it's not our problem. If anything, it's the Israeli's problem, and they get enough aid from us to where they should pull their own weight if necessary.

I'll be flamed for this but +1 Vikarion.

by your spineless reckoning we should have avoided the conflict in Germany 1938. The world is cruel but if any state has the means to lessen the suffering of another, they should try. Even when they are wrong, they do less damage than to let mass murderers have free reign.

in your isolationist world the richest most powerful country casts a cold eye upon the rest of the world, how sad. If american reap the rewards of being the global consumer of last choice, we at least can dump some of our billions into the rest of the world If not, I'll impress upon you, that there is no such thing as an isolationist superpower.

That was a different time and different world. Technology grew, armies grew, we got better at killing each other, and politics got even more complicated. We, as a nation, can't keep playing the cowboy hero and go out saving the world. It isn't our place. Much like pre-WW2, we must reassess, withdraw, and consolidate if we are to grow and thrive once again. I'm an American citizen first and foremost. It's sad to see what happens in the world, but it's more sad to see that we put their interests above our own. We have our own people homeless, jobless, going hungry, dying and suffering without healthcare, becoming victims of homicide and brutal torture at the hands of the cartels, etc. The list goes on, and on, and on, and on.

We got our own problems. Let's deal with them.

[orange]

The question asked in the survey is wrong, in my opinion.
US is only looking for a pretext for bomb Syria.
The question is not "if" but "when".

I disagree entirely.  The current administration had been looking for every excuse to not get involved in Syria and since the first evidence for the use of chemical weapons use in Syria has been doing its best to find ways to politically back peddle away from the "Red Line" comment.

[kalaratiri]

[Seriphyn]

What difference does such awful imagery make when it could be any side that committed it? What are we supposed to do then?

[orange]

What difference does such awful imagery make when it could be any side that committed it? What are we supposed to do then?

Or worse still when it is us who commit the act.

[Desiderya]

by your spineless reckoning we should have avoided the conflict in Germany 1938.

The intervention of the allies (France and Great Britain, and in '39) had nothing to do with atrocities commited. The build-up was commencing half a decade earlier and did indeed hit a peak in '38, where no one did more than pulling an ambassador out of Berlin in protest. What followed was straight and thorough political interests, and not a humanitarian mission. The holocaust was well known after '41. It is depressing when you start to look into what could've been done, what wasn't done and what was outright refused.

[Repentence Tyrathlion]

I'm sorry but I think there is a lot of naivety in this thread.

To be fair, Seriphyn, the question was not 'should the US go into Syria based on political games', it was 'should the US go into Syria'.  The fact that nobody has raised the Iran side of things is more a reflection of a general perception that that's a really stupid motive (regardless of whether it's the 'real' one) rather than lack of comprehension of it.

And it is, incidentally.  Iran and North Korea like to beat their chests and pretend to be the scariest guys on the block, but no matter how you spin it, they're extremely small fry in the grand scheme of things, and they know it.  The absolute worst case scenario is that they let off a missile and it all goes wrong - well, assuming said missile actually reaches the target (anywhere they might target has had a few decades of paranoid development of countermeasures), they would be annihilated in return.  Nuclear armaments have a nice way of making people lose some delusions (unless you count the 'we need them' one, but that's another can of worms for another topic).

In other news, the UK parliament has been officially recalled for a debate and possible vote on the matter.  The official government line is that they're looking at a 'measured response that doesn't involve boots on the ground'.

[Gottii]

Really hope the US and NATO doesnt do this.  Winning the war will be fairly easy, winning the peace will be really difficult.

Yes, there will be lots of attrocities.  Morality should play a role in geopolitical politics, moral authority does matter, and is a recognized and effective tool for diplomacy.  Just not sure how we can stop this particular nightmare from playing out.

[Gottii]

That said, its more than possible that Turkey is a bit worried about the situation, and is silently pressuring her NATO allies to do something.  Iraq is always fragile, and has had an upswing of violence, and a destabilized Syria would give insurgent groups a place to set up bases and launch attacks into Iraq.  Jordan, kind of a silent partner of the West (Jordan's king was educated in the US and England, and was once an extra in a Star Trek episode), is no doubt unhappy. 

And if you asked me to come up with a top 5 ways in which nuclear weapons were used in anger, a radical government taking over in Syria and moving against Israel would be up there.

[Lyn Farel]

Everyone seems to take for account that there actually was biochemical weapons involved and that Assad did it.

Perhaps, perhaps not, but considering how image and PR manipulation is the nerve of that war, and that no blatant, irrefutable evidence has been found yet, I will facepalm a thousand times when we will actually go to war and notice that "oops, we were mistaken, it was not mass destruction biochemical weapons".

Also, Lyn, I think more than a single sentence is a fair courtesy to other readers on a topic like this.

What do you want me to say more ? Speaking about idealism is pointless, it's not what drives wars. It's just the sugarcoat to make it acceptable for the masses.

it becomes a failed state.

P.S. Actually, considering the fact that both sides in Syria are likely to remain our enemies, from a - purely - pragmatic approach, we should attempt to prolong the fighting as long as is possible, so that the final result is a state too weakened to pose any sort of threat to its neighbors, or to provide any sort of aid to other of our enemies.

Failed states are exactly the problem however.  A failed state is a fertile base camp for those who oppose civilization and what it stands for.  They truly prefer a world in which physical might makes right.  Those possessing intelligence or capable of independent thought are at best marginalized and at worst killed for daring to oppose the chief.

No, even with our enemies I prefer that the enemy have some notion of civilization that their societies not revert to prehistorical structures.

Yes, that's what almost happened in Mali and providing fertile grounds for that kind of organizations is not really particularly appealing.

Lanate: Remember how the whole world thought the US was killing people for money? I do to, I was there. Except now, Russia is killing people for money. No seriously, jets and attack helicopters cost millions of Euros,  and you can bet that business is good in Syria right now.

That is besides the point. Syria has been a russian ally longer before that civil war broke up. Russia sells weapons to half of the countries in the region, the same way the US sell arms to Egypt and Israel, and the same way France sell weapons to Lebanon and the Emirates.

Pots and kettles.

All wage war to protect their interests, believing otherwise is believing in the media sugarcoat.

A russian ambassador said something interesting recently on twitter : "Westerners playing with Middle East are like a monkey playing with a hand grenade"

by your spineless reckoning we should have avoided the conflict in Germany 1938. The world is cruel but if any state has the means to lessen the suffering of another, they should try. Even when they are wrong, they do less damage than to let mass murderers have free reign.

in your isolationist world the richest most powerful country casts a cold eye upon the rest of the world, how sad. If american reap the rewards of being the global consumer of last choice, we at least can dump some of our billions into the rest of the world If not, I'll impress upon you, that there is no such thing as an isolationist superpower.

Actually the US only got involved in the war in Europe because Japan, an ally of the Axis, declared war on them. They could still have not sent help too, yes granted, but still.

Edit : also, for 38, what Desiderya said.

[Logan Fyreite]

I find it pretty funny that we only consider getting militarily involved when something we value is put at risk. So Syria descends into Civil war and gas weapons were used, people died, we get all up in arms about it and consider military action mainly because of the news coverage around the whole event.

Meanwhile in Africa, entire countries starve/fight/kill/commit genocide and who cares? Nobody. At least not anyone enough to step in and "consider military action." Mid-eastern double standard.

I voted yes on this poll because I am morally opposed to chemical weapons being used. That said, is it a good idea to get involved? Not really. War is a impressive political tool though.

[Nmaro Makari]

Much as the image of the plain-spoken god-fearing president putting American boys and girls on the ground to fight for the freedom of the good ol' USA (in Iraq) and against an "axis of evil" is ridiculous, the image of Western world leaders meeting in a dark room and diviying up the world map with a kitchen knife while cackling over profits is equally ridiculous.

You need to be in a FTSE 100 for that.