Sgt_Scruffy wrote:
Honestly, whatever. Chemical weapons or no chemical weapons, let them duke it out. I've had it with the Middle East. As a veteran of the Iraq War, I have seen the kind of tribal and sectarian hate these people hold for each other. I spent four years of my life in Iraq, and I say let them kill each other as much as they want. This is civil war and picking sides in this crisis isn't siding with the good guys, it's siding with a murderous bunch of fanatics that are fighting it out with another bunch of murderous fanatics.

Arabs, Muslims, Persians, Kurds, etc are not savages, but there governments, religious movements, and leaders certainly are dominated by them. No one short of the people in those countries is going to change that. Until the people in those countries stand up to the extremists in their own movements, we should remain watchfully disengaged. Let them sort it out.

I know this comes across as a cold response, which is not my intent. I honestly wish the fighting would stop and that the innocent parties could return to their normal lives. I don't want the innocent to die, but sticking our nose in this business is fraught with peril. It will be interesting to see how the EU and US respond to this possible escalation of the conflict.

On a more political note, it will be interesting if Obama and the Democrats push for intervention since it will seemingly invalidate their positions on Iraq and possibly alienate them to the peace movement left in this country.

 azazel the cat wrote:

Seaward wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Good comment, but as I've said many a time, because of the USA's $600 billion annual budget, and the millions of jobs dependent on defence, you guys have to be involved in conflcit in some form or another. It doesn't have to be intervention or invasion (supplying arms and assitance counts as well) but that budget has to be justified before whatever congress committee.

Right now I'm reading about MacArthur's time as chief of staff in the 1930s, and the efforts the guy had to go through just to get weapons production up...

We've got plenty to justify the defense budget without needing to intervene in yet another Middle Eastern nation. We're going to get howled at by the rest of the world either way, so we may as well not officially get involved and keep ourselves limited to CIA secret squirrels and our president's favorite remote controlled airplanes.

I think it would be pretty tough to "get howled at" by the rest of the world if the US were to send in troops to fight against a regime that deployed chemical weapons. That sounds like a rather easy fight to win over the hearts & minds.

Of course, that all depends on chemical weapons actually being used, and sending in actual troops and not drones.

 azazel the cat wrote:

whembly wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:

I think it would be pretty tough to "get howled at" by the rest of the world if the US were to send in troops to fight against a regime that deployed chemical weapons. That sounds like a rather easy fight to win over the hearts & minds.

Of course, that all depends on chemical weapons actually being used, and sending in actual troops and not drones.

Erm... didn't Saddam use Chemicals Weapons on the Kurds?

How'd that work out?

Yeah, in the 1980s, when he was on Team USA.

And when you did finally invade, it wasn't for crimes against humanity or anything else that the populace can get behind; it was because...uh... WMDs and shut up?

Toppling Saddam Hussein was a 'right' action; but it was done for what appeared to be the wrong reason. It would be no better than if someone had knocked off Idi Amin Dada, not because he was a monster, but because he was black. Sure, the outcome is basically the same, but the wrong reason led to that conclusion.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Frazzled wrote:(scratches head)
-You must have missed the whole "WMD" thing.
-We've tried this before. It doesn't work. I suggest you go instead.

Frazzled's logic:
-Last time I tried baking a cake, I didn't bother reading the ingredients and it turned out horribly.
-Only wizards can make cake.

 sebster wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
You mean Iraq? Saddam killed thousands with chemical weapons and was all about being a killy torturing dictator. But the world seems to hate us for having toppled him.

More to the point, most of the killing and torture was undertaken in the early 80s, when he came to power and after the Iraq Iran war - the times when his regime was unstable and he had to act against possible rivals. And all that time he was your man in the region. So picking that out as a moral and righteous reason to attack him, while considering no action against the dictators around the world who were killing and torturing their population at that very point in time... is just the most obvious bs.

And the world doesn't hate you for toppling him, they hate you throwing out basic principles of sovereignty in order to fight a war that to this day no-one really knows the motives for. For feth's sake, stability matters, and it is a really dumb idea to just go around invading random countries because 'here's a big list of reasons that are wrong, outright lies or just don't make any damn sense'.

I mean I know we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq for no reason.

Afghanistan wasn't only supported, it was undertaken as a NATO joint action. Most of us still have troops in the country, fighting alongside you. Because we differentiate between 'this country is a haven for terrorists who just undertook a horrific attack on New York' and 'here's a big list of reasons that are wrong, outright lies or just don't make any damn sense'.

Conflating Afghanistan and Iraq was one Bush's cheapest tricks.

I mean, it's ten fething years later and you're still throwing up the same old lies. It's just pathetic, really.