Arab League can't fight a war outside of their borders. We send them billions of dollars worth of tanks, jets, missiles, and training ... to help them protect their oil fields and keep their own people down. But they don't have any offensive capabilities to take over another country. Not even Saudi Arabia can do it.
First, thanks to almost everyone in this thread for helping to educate me on this situation and also having a mature discussion without unnecessary insults and name calling. I read quite a bit about Syria in the past few days and then spent the last hour or so reading through this thread. I don't know everything about the situation, but right now, my opinion is to stay out of it... But damn, thousands of kids dying for no reason is reprehensible.
Nobody has advocated taking over Syria. Have they? I haven't seen or heard that. Surely the Arab League can shiny up some US made bombs to drop on Syria. If not, surely we can sell them some. The Arabs have a lot more money to throw at the issue than we do. Let them do it.
I hear you. That part of the world... it makes me really mad and sad. The destruction of entire communities over ethnic and/or religious differences; historical structures gone like rocks eroded by wind, each bullet and RPG explosion ringing true; hopeless wails and hand-wringing as people anxiously wait for someone, some organization, some deity to help them. Life is cheap over there. What really got me down was reading an account where a boy barely nine years of age saw his parents and older brother gunned down. He grew old too fast that moment as he shushed his even younger sister who was crying beside him in their little car. She kept asking when help would come. Bitterly, he told there was none. They both escaped to a refugee camp eventually. With 100,000 dead, how many stories are there like this? After reading that account, I didn't feel annoyed at getting the wrong order for lunch yesterday.
There is a curious attitude among some immigrants I spoke with yesterday. Some were Arabs from various countries. They kept criticizing how America 'let so many Syrians and Egyptians die'. On the one hand, they hated us for being the world police. Now they dislike our refusal to strike at Syria. Which is it? Either they have zero confidence in their own abilities, they want America to intervene in their mess, and/or they are selfish and tribal even to this day so they see little incentive to help their fellow Arabs (let alone other ethnicities and faiths).
Yes, the US will get crap either way. If we bomb we're the bullies bombing another Muslim country and if we do nothing we're a weak superpower that can't provide leadership. I'd rather get crap and keep our money and people out of harm's way.
Pure speculation. It's difficult to trust what you see from 7,000 miles away. Those videos being released show the aftermath (at least the one's I have seen), and the rebels are claiming it was the government. We have no evidence of who actually used them, and I wouldn't put it past the Islamic rebels to sacrifice their own people for what they consider a bigger cause. We don't know for sure either way. Seems like a much better plan than an all out assault or minimal missile strikes. I enjoy studying Middle Eastern history, but I haven't yet made my way into the Afghan/Soviet debacle of the 70s. Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe we essentially did what you are suggesting then. I am curious to know what the negative repercussions were, if there were any. I think what makes this so insanely difficult is that we don't know which rebels are Islamic militants, and which are seriously fighting for their country.
I will be severely disappointed in Obama and the White House if they go through with an attack. GB, who basically supports anything we do, will not join us. We piss off Russia. Tons of risk and I do not see what reward we are going for.
It is easy to tell. Millitants that are crying for substantial foreign aids (weapon, money, missile attacks, excluding medical, food, and comforting words) are not fighting for the country.
That doesn't make any sense. Those who are begging for foreign aid are not fighting for their country?
Yeah, I am with the group that does not understand the moral distinction between chemical weapons and standard missiles to kill civilians or soldiers.
Well being blown to pieces instantly, seems faster and more painless than dying slowly from seizures and suffocating to death as we've seen in the videos. Although I'm sure bleeding to death slowly from losing limbs and body parts would be an extremely excruciating as well. Any strike on Syria will eventually mean more deaths (of women and children) in some way or form.
Possibly, but how many more will die if we don't attack? There is no clear-cut answer. If we strike, we could cause more distress and the conflict could boil into more towns, more cities, push into Lebanon, then into Israel, then you have the entire region in turmoil once again with China, Russia, and Iran against the US and....France? In the end, I think this will have to be a judgement call by Congress. I don't think either situation bodes well for US-Mid East relations. The propaganda war will attack us for whatever we decide to do.
Chemical weapons are worse because they have utterly no purpose aside from terror. They're too indiscriminate and too dependent on shifts in the wind to be reliable for actual military purposes, unlike explosives, and thus indicate that if you're using chemical weapons that you really, truly do not give a **** about the consequences.
