Should Syria not be punished for using chemical weapons because Russia and China don't care....

[Barack_America]

...if they did?

Let's put aside for the moment the "proof" that Assad did or did not, for I believe that the deal UN inspectors have with Assad prohibits them from determining fault.

Can we agree that Russia and China could not care less whether Syria is at fault? And that they would reject military or other punitive action, regardless, even if the UN inspectors were allowed to say, "we've determined Assad did this"?

Should the economic and political interests of two countries be allowed to prevent the rest of the world's powers from acting on international laws that criminalize the use of chemical weapons?

If you believe that Russia and China have the right to block all punitive action, are you at all concerned about the precedent this would set regarding use of chemical weapons?

I'd like to have a honest discussion on this topic. Just to summarize my position, I believe the use of chemical weapons has to be punished, period. I'm still waiting to hear the evidence collected by the West that leads them to believe Assad did. I do not hold much hope of the UN being able to determine fault, for the reasons listed above.

[NoOneMan]

1. Those innocent civilians should definitely be punished by indiscriminate drones and airstrikes

Seriously....who has the time to give a fuck any more? Stop carrying the elite's water on this one. Whether you bitch till you are blue in the face, its either going to happen or not, according to a plan you have no chance at influencing. Its yet another time to sit it out and just shake your head

[Barack_America]

4. If an opinion is all the power I have, I'd still like to have it.

Though I agree with you that the momentum here seems almost unstoppable, regardless. I'm very eager to here the information they present as their reason to have gone from, "we don't want to get involved" to "locked and loaded". Though I'm sure we'll never get the full truth, if we get any at all.

[seabeyond]

8. so, you do not have an answer? or just an insultive rant that has no point?

the Op was respectful in asking others position and view. i am curious what othersw say. your post promotes only the nasty of what du becomes that lacks any value, information or insight.

[NoOneMan]

11. No, I don't have an answer. Im not going to bother

Im going to build my own life. The US's track record sucks. So does Syria. Let them eat each other for all I fuck'n care, though that will result in mass murder, rapes and tragedy that anyone who endorses war implicitly endorses. What would Candide say?

In any case, I don't endorse murder, rape and tragedy, no matter how shiny it turd package is polished. If thats your answer, deal with it.

[seabeyond]

14. it doesnt matter whether you are endorsing force to stop what is already happening, you know

murder, rape and tragedy.

that is happening without other countries being involved. that will happen if we are involved. what is the difference in you turning your back on it and allow it to continue, from the other person that wants to attack it having the same result.

actually, i kinda have been sitting with you in this. but, i am not talking about my own position, just consideration in general.

[NoOneMan]

18. So only more murder will stop murder?

Fuck that. I have a garden to tend. If thats a drum you want to beat, feel free.

In term of a priority for our species (attrocity to stop attrocity), this ranks down there with twerking these days

[seabeyond]

21. so you really are not a reflective, but impulsive poster. got it. take care of that garden. nt

[NoOneMan]

35. If by not advocating murder and rape (to solve such) means Im not reflective, sure

Maybe Im burnt out on this bullshit. I left the country years ago due to it; I couldn't sleep with these atrocities my tax dollars paid for. I don't know why on earth any serfs would actually be trying to put their two cents in any which way (you are all just serfs afterall). Let the rich white man define and fight their own murderous wars

[seabeyond]

37. no... i am referring more to ignoring what i say and postulating what you want to argue. nt

[quinnox]

2. So you are good with going back to Bush-style cowboy diplomacy

And saying fuck the U.N.

That is odd if you support Obama, because he has often said how its important to get U.N. support for things such as using military force against other countries.

[Barack_America]

15. I honestly don't see how the UN CAN act here.

Given that Russia and China are going to be no votes no matter what. UN inspectors are not allowed to determine fault and there's no chance in hell Russia and China are going to accept evidence from other sources.

I'm questioning the UN's ability to act on matters of global interest when any such action can be blocked by one nation's self-interest (any 1 of the 5 on the permanent council, that is). Right now the issue is chemical weapons, but this concern pertains to any number of issues.

[quinnox]

19. well, too bad so sad. That is what the U.N. is all about. If one of the big powers says no, that is

the way of things. The USA often does the same thing, you know, it often vetoes stuff to protect Israel. This is how the game is set up, and you can't just say "fuck the rules!" in the middle of the game.

If you don't like it, then you must be against the idea of the U.N. because that is how it has been set up. The big powers get a say, and if Russia or China say no, that is the way the cookie crumbles.

[Barack_America]

25. So use of chemical weapons is okay, if you can bribe the right country to protect you?

I fully appreciate how the game is played in the UN, I would argue that the gassing of civilians crosses a line of how much that game can be tolerated.

[GeorgeGist]

3. Without proof ...

You have no case. Law 101.

[Arctic Dave]

6. Bullshit post.

Should Obama be punished for all the innocent people he has killed with drones?

[RC]

10. That's different. He did not gas them.

He just killed most of them by mistake.

[dipsydoodle]

7. Not so much Assad prohibits them from determining fault.

It wasn't included in their remit which was to collect evidence of use.

[Rex]

9. Why not let the UN do it's job?

Do you want to punish Syria? You have a list of exactly who needs to be 'punished' and who would be just an innocent bystander?

[Barack_America]

24. If chemical weapons were used by Assad"s forces, Assad is to blame.

After all, it is technically illegal to manufacture chemical weapons, let alone put them into warheads and leave them in positions where they could be used, by a direct order or by a rogue commander. He's in charge of that military and has to answer for what they do.

So, my "punish" list would be limited to those in the Syrian military capable of using those weapons, from Assad on down. Or the rebels who used them, if that is somehow determined.

[mazzarro]

28. What would you suggest be done if chemical weapons were used by the rebels instead? -- n/t

[Barack_America]

29. Then that rebel faction should be removed from the pageant.

They no longer get to compete for "Syria's next top commander"

I'm against the use of chemical weapons, period.

[stevenleser]

12. If someone commits a crime and the jury acquits, should you capture and imprison the person?

What you are talking about is a failure of the World's macro criminal justice system. If it fails, should other countries take justice into their hands?

We need to reform the UN and make it a regular majority to pass general legislation and a super majority for things like military action.

[Aerows]

22. Staying out of this one

is simply sanity. Getting involved is embroiling us in a nastiness we can never extract ourselves from.

[snappyturtle]

31. Amen nt

[Barack_America]

23. The problem here is that it's the same 5 damned jurors every time.

And there's no ability to strike for cause or declare a mistrial for bias. What we have is a group of professional jurors available to the highest bidder. That's no justice system. How do you handle matter where the justice system fails? Heck if I know the answer. Do you do what you believe is right or do you do nothing?

[Douglas Carpenter]

44. "a regular majority to pass general legislation and a super majority for things like military action

That might be a great idea. Just imagine how that would change things in regards to Palestine.

[seabeyond]

13. i guess no one has an opinion on whether one takes the position of allowing chemical weapon use or

there must be some kind of repercussion for the use.

i am curious, from an intellectual perspective, how one balances the world demand that chemical weapons are not used, with the desire to avoid yet another wasted, endless war that will cause too many innocent deaths.

i ponder the same. but, it seems that it is mostly the absolute avoidance of addressing your OP and derailing in every direction.

[Aerows]

20. The US has used chemical weapons by proxy when we gave them to Iraq.

The Syrian rebels have a storehouse of them, waiting to be used (These are the guys we support, mind)

The Syrian government has a storehouse of them.

You have two people pointing guns at each other, and nothing good will come of forcing both to pull the trigger.

That's just my thought.

[Aerows]

16. The US isn't the final arbiter of what is and what is not right

and we need to stay so far out of this one, you can hear the squealing of the brakes being put on any drive towards getting involved.

Not just no, but HELL no.

[JackRiddler]

17. Sorry, killers don't get to play school principal.

Punish your own damn regime for the genocides they've perpetrated around the world.

Once the war criminals Rumsfeld, Cheney, Powell, Rice, Wolfowitz, Feith, Bush, Petraeus et al. have been imprisoned for life at the Hague, once this country is paying for reparations for all its crimes worldwide, maybe this country will have a modicum of standing to even say anything about the Syrian situation.

Furthermore, nothing has been shown as regards who is responsible for last week's chemical attack. As the serial killer of countries, the US government, is trying to settle that question without an investigation, it's extremely suspicious.

[EX500rider]

26. "Punish your own damn regime for the genocides they've perpetrated around the world."

Where were these "genocides" you speak of?

The only "damn regime" we have at present is Democratic and elected.

Iraq & Afghanistan both have a positive population growth rate so certainly not there.

Or do you mean the native American tribes 100's of years ago?

Or are you in favor of watering the word down to where if i stub my toe I can call genocide?

[JackRiddler]

30. Defining away your crimes by legalism.

Yes, what the US did in Iraq was genocide. Murdered hundreds of thousands of people for imperial gain. Made millions of refugees, of whom the largest share fled to Syria.

I'm well aware of the current definition of the term and it is deficient, a long-ago compromise so that the great powers would even accept it as a crime under international law. It allows you to define away the crime by legalism. Fine.

The US committed mass murder in a war of unprovoked aggression. The present government just filed a motion to give immunity to the perpetrators of this war! It has also escalated the "global war on terror" under new names in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, and is about to do so in Syria.

This country has a permanent government of the military-industrial complex with rotating administrations that inevitably serve the war machine.



Chummy!

And you actually say it's fine since the Iraqi population is rising?

Yeah, what's the big deal, start wars around the planet, kill millions, poison countries with agent orange and depleted uranium, poison their water... to call it genocide you have to meet a definition written by the empire.

And then presume to sit in judgement as the world policeman and executioner!

[EX500rider]

33. I didn't say anything was fine.

.....I said it is hard to call "genocide" in a country with a rising population.

Something bad may be happening but that doesn't make it genocide. Word do have definitions.

[JackRiddler]

40. Even by the restrictive definition of genocide

in the 1940s convention, "rising population" is in no way a criterion.

Genocide in international law is the attempt to extinguish a group due to their ethnicity, religion, race or nationality. Such an attempt is still genocide even if the population of this group rises. You need to reconsider your extremely disturbing idea that it wouldn't be.

The definition has always been weak and allowed imperial mass murder as a lesser crime. You can murder millions as long as it's only because they're in the way of your desire to seize, exploit or otherwise degrade their country, but short of a motive to specifically kill members of their group.

It doesn't work that way with bank robberies. If you kill people in the course of another felony that's generally considered the worse crime.

[snappyturtle]

34. This post is perfect. I've been meaning to mention depleted uranium.

Do folks not know what has happened in Iraq? Deformed babies
are born at a grossly higher rate than normal. These poor, innocent
little human beings will live with the grotesqueness we're responsible
for. But, I guess that's ok.

[JackRiddler]

39. This may qualify even by the definition of genocide...

under the conventions of the late 1940s, which restricts the crime to the attempt to extinguish particular national, racial/ethnic or religious groups. The sick part of this definition is that you can kill a million people in the course of robbing their resources and territory, but it may not count as genocide if you weren't specifically trying to kill members of their identity group. Thousands of the as-yet unborn, with enough generations perhaps millions will be affected and have their lives shortened due to the environmental poisoning directly attributable to the US war of aggression, and it's because they are considered of lower value as a group. One thing that's clear is that it would have been politically impossible to create this carnage in an Iraq full of European white people, and thus the construct of race is highly relevant. But go explain that to everyone in denial and determined to identify with "our" side.

[snappyturtle]

42. Yes. Depleted uranium will continue to do damage for years.

I read that Iraqi couples are deciding not to have more
children even though they want them because of the
deformed children they have all ready given birth to.
To me, that is genocide....prohibiting future population.

[Peacetrain]

27. Oh that is just BULL HOCKEY

[David__77]

32. Why should only these few "great powers" count?

What about the UN general assembly? Why not allow everyone, from India to Brazil to Nepal to Cuba to Myanmar to Ecuador, to have a say? I'll bet you that any motion to approve military action Syria would FAIL such a test. Russian and China represent the developing countries that account for most of the world's population.

It's like your saying, how dare China and Russia, which represent many more people than the US, France, and Britain DARE have a contrary view? How dare they favor a political solution? Jeez...

[Savannahmann]

36. OK, let's discuss.

You said.

I'd like to have a honest discussion on this topic. Just to summarize my position, I believe the use of chemical weapons has to be punished, period. I'm still waiting to hear the evidence collected by the West that leads them to believe Assad did. I do not hold much hope of the UN being able to determine fault, for the reasons listed above.

So how do we punish Assad and not remove him from power? President Obama has said we are not going for Regime Change.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/27/us-syria-crisis-obama-intelligence-idUSBRE97Q0S820130827

So we aren't going to punish the man who we say issued the orders, we're going to punish him by killing the guards, technicians, and workers at chemical weapons storage and manufacturing plants.

Now, there is no doubt that when we bomb those plants, we're going to be releasing Chemical Weapons into the air, probably killing a number of people down wind.

So we're going to Punish Assad for using Chemical weapons on the Syrian People. We're going to punish him, by bombing people who work at the plants, and gassing the people who live downwind. Assad himself isn't going to be harmed one bit, and it will probably reduce, but not eliminate current stocks of weapons, and certainly won't prevent him from making more.

Obviously this isn't much of a punishment. But perhaps we can help the Rebels, who are essentially a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is an extremist group that has raped, pillaged, and murdered people who don't agree with their extremist religious ideology. MB is supported by AQ, the Terrorist Organization (if you could call it that) we have been fighting for twelve years.

So by helping rid the world of a bad guy, we put other bad guys who may be worse, in charge. Because we won't have a hand in this, we aren't going for Regime Change, we can't do much of anything to effect the outcome.

So even if Assad is punished by the Rebels who may be strengthened by our actions, we are not likely to find any improvement for the people of Syria. In fact, things may well get worse as they did in Egypt under the same Muslim Brotherhood groups.

So tell me again why we're doing this? Because from here, I don't see much sense in this. We're going to bomb a bad guy because the bad guy bombed other bad guys (allegedly) with chemical weapons. You see, there aren't any good guys involved in this fight. The MB backed Rebels have committed other atrocities on people.

So why do we have to bomb again? Oh yes, Assad who isn't going to be targeted, that would be Regime Change which we've said we're not going to do, needs to be punished. That is like your neighbor doing something to anger you, and you respond by walking past your neighbors house, to a home on the next street in which the neighbor's cousin lives, and punching the cousin to teach the neighbor a lesson.

Logically, your arguments are at best flawed. Morally, your arguments are very weak. Are you sure you want us to bomb Libya?

[Vinnie From Indy]

38. There are many ways to skin a cat!

I have not been convinced that the world, excluding Russia and China, cannot come together to economically punish regimes that engage in using such weapons. I would also be willing to discuss some worldwide consensus for punishment of Russia and China for blocking UN action.

I will also offer that the US has hardly a moral leg to stand on when we have used depleted uranium weaponry and we have just sold Saudi Arabia a large amount of cluster munitions. Both are gruesome, indiscriminate killers of innocents.

[Bradical79]

41. The people who used the chemical weapons should be punished

But in the real world it's not so simple as guy did bad thing, let's punish him! You're talking about possibly starting a regional war and leaving hundreds of thousands of people from multiple countries dead who otherwise wouldn't be. And that's just the direct human damage.

[magical thyme]

43. We've dropped Agent Orange, Napalm, White Phosphorus and uranium.

Sarin is no worse a killer than any of those, several of which not only kill massively and horribly, but have maimed generations of children who were not yet even conceived.

We set a precedent long ago. We certain have zero moral authority to "punish" anybody.