All this moralizing with respect to Syria . . .

[markpkessinger]

. . . is, when you come down to it, just another toxic manifestation of "American exceptionalism," by which we appoint ourselves the moral arbiters of the world.

Just sayin'.

[Agnosticsherbet]

1. So who should be responsible for violations of international norms of this nature?

[markpkessinger]

3. I believe that is what the U.N. was founded to do n/t

[Agnosticsherbet]

5. The UN has no military or police powers.

UN forces are donated and commanded by nation states on the UN's behalf. Because of the makeup of the Security Council getting unanimous agreement is difficult, and when it comes down to interfering with any permanent nations interests, impossible. The UN would do nothing about Syria because Russia and China can veto anything that comes before the Security Council.

So the UN wasn't founded to do that.

It has good institutions, but they don't work unless the militaries or police forces and nations states do the heavy lifting.

So even if Russia and China could be convinced not to Veto any action before the Security Council, it would still come down to us to make war and punish or take down an outlaw government.

Written within the UN Charter is the right of members states to act in their own interests and the world's interests. NATO acted within its interests in Libya. The US and its allies acted within its interests in Afghanistan and Iraq.

There is no international organization with the authority or the forces to use police or military force.

There is no world government.

[TomClash]

6. You just reinforced his point

There is no international consensus for intervention. In fact, American intervention could create a global crisis, not solve one. By what right does the US intervene in a civil war? And what exactly are its "interests" there?

"Written within the UN Charter is the right of members states to act in their own interests and the world's interests. NATO acted within its interests in Libya. The US and its allies acted within its interests in Afghanistan and Iraq."

Astonishing.

[whatchamacallit]

18. +1

[treestar]

21. Then there never would be

The Russians and Chinese want to be superpowers. Why would they disagree on this particular thing? Merely for their own political benefit. They don't care who gets gassed. They'd do it to their own people if they wanted to.

[TomClash]

27. UNSC has adopted 30 resolutions in 2013

With an entire session left to go.

They reached consensus on quite a few issues.

[ConcernedCanuk]

40. "The Russians and Chinese want to be superpowers" - I don't think so.

.
.
.

They want to PROTECT themselves from THE superpower that has shown their willingness to bomb the shit out of anyone they feel like, invade and occupy with their bases and "embassies" to the tune of over 75% of the World's countries.

China stays home, Russia has had only a few local conflicts.

USA?? All over the friggen Globe!

Anyone see something wrong?

CC

[treestar]

56. They would be all over the globe if they could

And why are they not condemning use of gas?

[Agnosticsherbet]

30. We are allowed under the UN Charter to intervene.

The members states have that responsibility, if they chose.

And doing nothing lets the current global crises continue to boil.

If no one else can enforce a global standard in place since 1925, it is just a guideline, and we are saying murder all your citizens you want. When your done, we will have drinks at the Whitehouse and discuss the deplorable state of human rights.

[TomClash]

45. What??

There is nothing in the UN Charter permitting unilateral intervention by a Permanent UNSEC member in a civil war without an UNSEC vote. Nothing.

How exactly will US military action stop the slaughter in Syria and advance human rights?

[frylock]

47. by using the underpants gnome strategy..

1) Oust Assad
2) ?????
3) Worldwide peace

[Agnosticsherbet]

49. There goes that unfounded and untrue meme about invasion. We are not invading.

We don't have the forces in place to invade.
If we see 400,000 to 800,000 US military personal moved to Turkey, Jordan, and Crete over the next four to six months, I'll consider your argument.

But calling it an invasion is simply unfounded bull.

You can't invade with a group of destroyers and an Aircraft Carrier or two. You must have ground troops in sufficient numbers to land and control territory. That takes time logistical support.

[TomClash]

52. Straw man

I said nothing about invasion. I said intervention. It is not the same thing.

I know something about what it takes to amass several divisions for a ground invasion.

Too bad for you I never predicted or advocated that.

[atreides1]

53. How about an Act of War?

"an act of aggression by a country against another with which it is nominally at peace. "

I don't recall us being at war with Syria, but with all that's going on in the news today...I could have missed the report of Congress giving the President authority under the War Powers Act!

[AsahinaKimi]

31. Plus 100

So many people seem to want to have that World Police Badge... to wear. I would not want that responsibility... We can't even fix the problems in our own country.

[jtuck004]

11. I'm pretty sure this would violate most international norms...who, then watches the watchers?

Here:


List of children killed by drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen

Compiled from The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reports

PAKISTAN
Name | Age | Gender
Noor Aziz | 8 | male
Abdul Wasit | 17 | male
Noor Syed | 8 | male
Wajid Noor | 9 | male
Syed Wali Shah | 7 | male
Ayeesha | 3 | female
Qari Alamzeb | 14| male
Shoaib | 8 | male
Hayatullah KhaMohammad | 16 | male
Tariq Aziz | 16 | male
Sanaullah Jan | 17 | male
Maezol Khan | 8 | female
Nasir Khan | male
Naeem Khan | male
Naeemullah | male
Mohammad Tahir | 16 | male
Azizul Wahab | 15 | male
Fazal Wahab | 16 | male
Ziauddin | 16 | male
Mohammad Yunus | 16 | male
Fazal Hakim | 19 | male
Ilyas | 13 | male
Sohail | 7 | male
Asadullah | 9 | male
khalilullah | 9 | male
Noor Mohammad | 8 | male
Khalid | 12 | male
Saifullah | 9 | male
Mashooq Jan | 15 | male
Nawab | 17 | male
Sultanat Khan | 16 | male
Ziaur Rahman | 13 | male
Noor Mohammad | 15 | male
Mohammad Yaas Khan | 16 | male
Qari Alamzeb | 14 | male
Ziaur Rahman | 17 | male
Abdullah | 18 | male
Ikramullah Zada | 17 | male
Inayatur Rehman | 16 | male
Shahbuddin | 15 | male
Yahya Khan | 16 |male
Rahatullah |17 | male
Mohammad Salim | 11 | male
Shahjehan | 15 | male
Gul Sher Khan | 15 | male
Bakht Muneer | 14 | male
Numair | 14 | male
Mashooq Khan | 16 | male
Ihsanullah | 16 | male
Luqman | 12 | male
Jannatullah | 13 | male
Ismail | 12 | male
Taseel Khan | 18 | male
Zaheeruddin | 16 | male
Qari Ishaq | 19 | male
Jamshed Khan | 14 | male
Alam Nabi | 11 | male
Qari Abdul Karim | 19 | male
Rahmatullah | 14 | male
Abdus Samad | 17 | male
Siraj | 16 | male
Saeedullah | 17 | male
Abdul Waris | 16 | male
Darvesh | 13 | male
Ameer Said | 15 | male
Shaukat | 14 | male
Inayatur Rahman | 17 | male
Salman | 12 | male
Fazal Wahab | 18 | male
Baacha Rahman | 13 | male
Wali-ur-Rahman | 17 | male
Iftikhar | 17 | male
Inayatullah | 15 | male
Mashooq Khan | 16 | male
Ihsanullah | 16 | male
Luqman | 12 | male
Jannatullah | 13 | male
Ismail | 12 | male
Abdul Waris | 16 | male
Darvesh | 13 | male
Ameer Said | 15 | male
Shaukat | 14 | male
Inayatur Rahman | 17 | male
Adnan | 16 | male
Najibullah | 13 | male
Naeemullah | 17 | male
Hizbullah | 10 | male
Kitab Gul | 12 | male
Wilayat Khan | 11 | male
Zabihullah | 16 | male
Shehzad Gul | 11 | male
Shabir | 15 | male
Qari Sharifullah | 17 | male
Shafiullah | 16 | male
Nimatullah | 14 | male
Shakirullah | 16 | male
Talha | 8 | male

YEMEN
Afrah Ali Mohammed Nasser | 9 | female
Zayda Ali Mohammed Nasser | 7 | female
Hoda Ali Mohammed Nasser | 5 | female
Sheikha Ali Mohammed Nasser | 4 | female
Ibrahim Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 13 | male
Asmaa Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 9 | male
Salma Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 4 | female
Fatima Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 3 | female
Khadije Ali Mokbel Louqye | 1 | female
Hanaa Ali Mokbel Louqye | 6 | female
Mohammed Ali Mokbel Salem Louqye | 4 | male
Jawass Mokbel Salem Louqye | 15 | female
Maryam Hussein Abdullah Awad | 2 | female
Shafiq Hussein Abdullah Awad | 1 | female
Sheikha Nasser Mahdi Ahmad Bouh | 3 | female
Maha Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 12 | male
Soumaya Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 9 | female
Shafika Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 4 | female
Shafiq Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 2 | male
Mabrook Mouqbal Al Qadari | 13 | male
Daolah Nasser 10 years | 10 | female
AbedalGhani Mohammed Mabkhout | 12 | male
Abdel- Rahman Anwar al Awlaki | 16 | male
Abdel-Rahman al-Awlaki | 17 | male
Nasser Salim | 19
...

And that's an old list, from January. And it's an incomplete list in that it doesn't list all the other places we have killed children who have done nothing to us in pursuit of the brown-skinned people...

But perhaps the horse is too high to see from...

[treestar]

22. No it does not

Drone strikes are considered acts of war. War itself is not considered immoral. If it were we'd have to intervene every time there was one, not just not be involved in any ourselves.

[jtuck004]

36. Drone strikes are only considered an act of war by the Europeans on this side.

They are considered terrorism from the skies by the other side, as they kneel by the burnt bodies of their children.

You don't get to speak for them. But their answers will come, and it will come to our children, and their children. I wonder if their screams will make any difference to anyone.

Because, as a wise man said, we aren't going to stop this by killing each other's children.

[treestar]

57. Um, no, that is not the issue

The issue is the international community and what it will tolerate in terms of wars.

No one likes war or any of the weapons used for it. But some are more dangerous than others.

[jtuck004]

64. "No one likes war" < Untrue. Leaving that aside, however, fuck the int'l

Last edited Thu Aug 29, 2013, 12:35 AM - Edit history (1)

community. Our President just said he would "go it alone". Sounds like we don't care if there is a consensus to go bomb another's children or not. (Having lived through several of these wars, despite the so-called best intentions, that is ALWAYS what happens). Sounds more like we have taken the position that it's just fine if we want to do it because, today, anyway, we think we are bigger than everyone else.

You want to know what the most dangerous war is? The one that didn't need to be fought, the one that didn't fix a fucking thing, that did nothing but create tragedy and future enemies. In other words, the ones we have started for the past several years. There is every possibility that this will not fix anything, and would thus be pointless. And it might not end with us just dropping a few missiles on some hapless country, which makes it, tactically, a very stupid thing to do.

We lost our moral authority a long time ago. Much of the world won't see this as any kind of deterrent whatsoever, just more killing by the idiots in the U.S. who can't even get their own country in order. And worse, since we can't predict the outcome, we should probably hope that the Israeli strike against the new, and more sophisticated, Russian weapons in Syria a couple weeks ago got them all, else this just might blow up in someone else's face.

[Agnosticsherbet]

33. You seem to think drones are an illegal weapon.

They are remote controlled aircraft where the pilot sits at home and looks at his target through a video link.

The only difference between drones and a tactical or strategic bomber is where the pilot puts his ass.

I would support an international convention on the use of drones, especially their use in foreign countries where a nation would not dare fly piloted aircraft. But they are legal weapons of war.

The question here is not about the terrible things that happen in war, or the death of civilians while pursuing a war, but a specific war crime.

Using people killed by legal weapons of war to argue against a course of action against someone using an illegal weapon of war is a faulty analogy. As deplorable as it is, legal weapons of war can be used in a conflict without repercussions as long as one of the other rules of warfare are not violated. More than 80,000 people have been killed in the civil war in Syria, a lot of them civilian women and children, and more than a million displaced into the surrounding counties causing a monumental human rights and misery nightmare. That is not a reason for a strike on Syria. The use of an illegal weapon of war is a reason for a limited response.

You can disagree with that. That's fine. But using irrelevant information is a logical fallacy. Just say you disagree with the course of action.

[jtuck004]

35. al-Assad, is that you? Rationalizing for killing children and their families? Legal vs

illegal weapons - moral murder vs immoral murder?

What a crock. Talk about phallcies...(intentional, yes).

What is limited about killing a group of 8 and 9 year old kids who are doing nothing but digging in the dirt?

I'm sure you feel all moral and justified. I just feel like I need to take a shower after reading your post.

[Agnosticsherbet]

38. And he follows with an Ad Hominem attack.

And, you don't read my posts.

I never justified killing kids. Don't put words in mouth. The issue is the use of illegal weapons of war, not the entire shit face situation of war. By expanding the scope to the whole miserable assed thing, you are attempting to muddy the waters and hope no one will notice you don't have anything rational to add to the conversation.

I get you disagree with the policy. I think that is a good stand. Consider a pacifists stance and say there is never a reason to use violence to protect anyone from violence. That is a moral stand. I knew Buddhist Monk once who felt that way. He's gone now. You don't have to try and justify a stand by muddying the waters.

[jtuck004]

44. Oh, I think there are times to use violence. I just don't think this is one of them.

Glad to hear you are so rational. I am sure that will come as great comfort to the dad in Afghanistan holding the dead, burnt body of his 8 year old in his arms, whose only crime was digging in the dirt, like many 8 year olds do here.

I am also sure it will come as great comfort to the kids who are killed here later, because of the incredible motivation and great hatred our rational and legal response has engendered in these good people.

It's not muddy at all, and your condescending crap doesn't make it so.

[Agnosticsherbet]

46. I support what international norms and laws in the use of war we have.

Because if we don't support them, then anything goes.

Innocents die in war, and that is why it should always be a last resort forced upon us. I also support justice and the rule of law. You are trying to muddy the situation, again, with an appeal to emotion. All your illogical arguments don't make what you say reasonable or right.

[jtuck004]

51. Last resort my ass. We could act like adults, it's just that the weak-knees among us aren't strong

enough to do anything but proffer excuses, reason, and law as justifiable excuses for their feelings of inadequacy.

Funny clown act, rejecting the human spirit in all this, try to make it sound like it's nothing more than a clinical application of law.

Bet it's not to the victims. But maybe they won't be victims forever, and then those laws might just go up in flames. Just because one group was on top once, doesn't mean they will be there forever. And we are teaching them how.

Funny how a people who yell about gun control won't control the biggest of their guns. Hypocrites. And that's what they are teaching their kids.

It's too bad. We have had multiple opportunities to grow up and be the adults in the room, take the hits, and be stronger than others. Instead we choose the cowardly path like bloodthirsty bottom-feeders, and just throw it away in the pursuit of ego? Money?

I wonder if our kids will look back and spit on our memory, for the legacy we are leaving them.

Pathetic...

[ConcernedCanuk]

41. You obviously did not read the memo

.
.
.

Those are not dead children by USA's standards.

They are "collateral damage"

(sigh)

CC

[jtuck004]

43. Crap. That's what happens when you get old. I keep falling asleep at the keyboard.

Thanks for the heads up

[frustrated_lefty]

20. Someone

with the moral authority that America has proven itself to lack over the course of the preceding 15 years or so?

[Agnosticsherbet]

39. So it is OK to act immorally because we, as a nation, failed to live up to our own ideals

or common decency or the law?

Just because we have gone the wrong way for a long time it doesn't mean that in this instance we can't chose to do the right thing.

[JI7]

2. include the UK and France in that also

[markpkessinger]

4. True that . . .

. . . One could substitute "Western imperialism" for "American exceptionalism" and it would be equally true.

[Summer Hathaway]

7. No, it's actually just another manifestation

of ODS in action.

Had Obama announced that he would not, under any circumstances, take any action with respect to Syria, DU would be full of posts about how the spineless president refused to stand up for Syria's innocent victims.

What's at work here is "Obama exceptionalism" - which means that ANY decision is the right decision, with the 'exception' of any decision Obama has made in the past, will make today, or may make in the future.

[markpkessinger]

8. Hey, if that's what you need to tell yourself . . . n/t

[Summer Hathaway]

10. There is that which one needs to tell oneself

and that which is too obvious to be ignored.

And posts about how Obama should have done A when he did B, and should have done B when he did A, are as obvious as it gets.

[markpkessinger]

14. I have supported the President on issues I have agreed with him on . . .

. . . and have criticized him when I have believed he has gotten it wrong. And I twice voted for him. I have NEVER criticized him for exercising restraint or caution in the use of military force, and indeed I would not. But on a number of fronts, I happen to disagree with the direction this Presidency has taken -- and I'm not the only one here who feels that way. But if you are going to accuse folks who feel as I do that we are merely out to criticize the President no matter what he does, then you open yourself to the criticism that you will defend him no matter what he does. I don't think that's entirely fair to either point of view. Adults can have differing opinions on matters of substance. I think even the President would agree with me on that point.

[joshcryer]

9. Do not be naive that DU in general cares about Syria's innocents.

The number of sympathetic posts toward those innocents is extremely small.

It would take a cataclysm for that to happen.

And Obama's actions are going to lead to that, so he'll still get the blame.

[azurnoir]

12. I am not naive about DU's sympathy towards Syrian innocents

nor am I naive about those who weep salty tears about those innocents when if one takes the body of their posts it becomes quite obvious that those deaths of innocents are being used to tug the heart strings of the naive, as a pretext for to gain sympathy for what would be IMO a disastrous war against Assad

[NealK]

16. Well said. nt

[treestar]

24. People care about a dictator crossing the line into using chemical weapons

That is the issue here.

And we always think of intervening anyway. The Balkans, Rwanda, we at least think of it. No one wants to just sit by and see a genocide carried out.

[TomClash]

50. Dictators are not the only ones who use the most heinous weapons of war

Only one nation has used nuclear weapons.

That same nation used agent orange and napalm in Vietnam, white phosphorus in Fallujah and depleted uranium in both the Gulf War and the Iraq War.

[treestar]

54. Are those the subject of any treaties or conventions?

[TomClash]

63. Actually yes

But even if they weren't, they are still chemical/nuclear weapons. They still maim and kill and deform.

BTW, Syria is not a Signatory to CWC.

[treestar]

23. +1

That is exactly what we would see from the very same posters.

[JoeyT]

26. More projection?

Plenty were thrilled when it looked like he was going to avoid military action in Syria. Now he isn't going to avoid it and they're not happy. I'm not sure why this is difficult to grasp.

There's no decision he could've made that would have made some here criticize him, no matter what it was, and they're not fooling anyone. You could tell Obama was serious about war crimes now because suddenly the horrible left went from being harangued for caring about war crimes (Bush) to being harangued for not caring. (Maybe Assad. Maybe the rebels. Who knows? Muurrriiiikaaa!)

[truedelphi]

13. or to quote Ed Snowden,

whose revelations may well be the "wag the dog" reason for this whole event:

"In the end the Obama Adminsitrtion is not afraid of whistleblowers like me. We are stateless imprisoned or powerless,.

"No, the Obama admisntration is afraid of you. It is afraid of an informed angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised - and the government should be afraid."

[davidpdx]

15. Ah just let'em die

Why should we care if people are gassed.

Just sayin'.

[markpkessinger]

17. And where is the concern . . .

. . . for Egyptians slaughtered by the military junta that overthrew a democratically elected government?

. . . or the hundreds of innocents killed by U.S. drone strikes?

Yes, it is a moral obscenity. But moral obscenities occur around the world all the time. And only very selectively do we even notice, let alone get up on our national moral high horse and respond. As I said in another post, our very selectivity of moral outrage is itself a moral obscenity. Look, there is no doubt Assad is a brutal dictator. But lest we forget, the opposition -- militant Islamists with Al Qaeda elements embedded among them -- aren't exactly choirboys either. The extreme moral certitude with which our leaders are trying to tell us we MUST respond to this ought to be a red flag to all of us, regardless of what letter the sitting President has behind his name: we have, after all, been down this road before, and not so very long ago. Taking sides in a hopelessly complex civil conflict in a Middle Eastern country in which BOTH sides pretty much hate us already is a fool's errand. And mark my words: NO good will come of it.

[treestar]

25. There is concern about that

Who said there is not?

However, WMD present an even scarier case.

We know how to deal in nuance here - it's not either or. We could not as a practical matter intervene with everything. But there's a difference between a civil war with or without chemical weapons. People keep deflecting about other ways of getting killed. The international community grudgingly accepts that people will be shot, droned, bombed in wars. It can't stop all that. But it will get involved where the weapons used could be weapons of mass destruction.

[markpkessinger]

42. Another purveyor of the "gas is different" rationalization . . .

. . . tell it to the mother who has had to dig her dead child out of the rubble with her bare hands following a U.S. drone strike;

. . . tell it to the person who gets shot down by the military of his own country merely for protesting against a military coup.

And if there is so much "concern", where are the calls to intervene? As someone in another thread pointed out last night:

Syria chemical death toll: 355. US drone strike death toll: 780 innocent civilians in Pakistan alone. And yet one is an international moral outrage, while the other is business as usual.

[treestar]

55. It's the potential danger

and the relative ease with which many people can be killed.

Drone strikes are aimed at particular people, at least.

[davidpdx]

28. You are right, similar atrocities are happening other places

It is happening about 26 km north of where I live. In fact we probably know more about what is going on there then in Syria. A little chubby guy named Kim Jong Um rules the country, you may have heard of him. What has been happening there has gone on for several decades. Yet most people in the US don't know nor care about it. With North Korea information is the best tool right now. Information is seeping (for lack of a better word) in to the country about the outside. South Korean TV, western movies, newspapers, and music are getting into the country.

Unfortunately North Korea is very different from Syria in that a bloody civil war is going on. I don't believe the world can sit back and watch. While I would rather not see military intervention I have to wonder what other choice do we have. If we do nothing and it happens again, then what? UN commendations will be laughed at (and likely vetoed by Russia and China anyway).

[bobduca]

32. Much like precision bombing, its important to get with precision outrage

carefully choosing which atrocities to dwell on will result in less overall collateral damage to our "Credibility"

[B Calm]

19. Who was the moral arbiters who supplied Syria with poison gas?

[jeff47]

29. Syria.

The current Assad's father made a large chemical weapons stockpile.

[Agnosticsherbet]

34. They make it themselves.

http://www.channel4.com/news/syria-chemical-weapons-damascus-civil-war-rebels-assad-video

[BlueCheese]

37. Unfortunately, there are things that only the US or a few other nations can do.

I don't support action in Syria right now, but like it or not, it's not just Americans who think the US has a leadership role to play in the world.

For example, the US is often criticized for not acting in Rwanda. Nobody ever blames, say, India or Bolivia for standing by, nor should they. But a lot of people feel that because we have the ability to act to prevent or stop bad things from happening, we also have the obligation to.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

48. Our status as "moral arbiters" evaporated in Vietnam and all the other places we "helped".

[Arcanetrance]

58. Sorry objecting to the killing of children and civilians is not a manifestation of

american exceptionalism as you put it. I objected loudly to the death of children by drones and I object to the use of chemical weapons on them at the hands of Assad.

[markpkessinger]

59. It is when we are simultaneously ignoring the collateral deaths of women and children ...

... caused by our own drone strikes. So, "sorry," backatcha.

[Arcanetrance]

60. So because we do it that makes it ok for another country to gas civilians

I object to the mass killing of civilians and children by both countries. That being said I don't support us going into syria I think the potential for more death on a scale as large or larger than whats going on now.

[markpkessinger]

61. I never said it was "ok" . . .

Just that intervening in a civil war between a brutal dictator and militant Islamists backed by Al Qaeda is a fool's errand, and that our "moral outrage" at the event is extremely hypocritical.

[Arcanetrance]

62. I agree it is a fools errand but I think people should be morally outrages and the death of civilian

regardless of who does it.