The Syria situation reminds me an awful lot of the Bosnian situation when Clinton was Pres.

[justiceischeap]

We (International community) ignored the atrocities in Bosnia much too long. How long do we allow Assad to use chemical weapons against its people? I have no clear answer but if the international community should stand up for anything, I think genocide is certainly worth the stand.

I guess the question that needs to be answered is this: Is what is happening in Syria with the chemical weapons considered genocide? What was happening in Bosnia wasn't considered genocide at first but it was obvious when we finally intervened, there was a very horrific genocide campaign being waged. Who decides what is or isn't genocide and then how do we decide whether the Syrian situation is worthy of intervention?

[David__77]

1. I urge you to consider...

...who is getting killed in Syria, for starters. Look at the sectarian divisions, and the forces on the ground. The Alawites, Shiites, and Christians that support the government have been cleansed from many areas, and there have campaigns of annihilation in some areas. The government-allied forces represent at least half of the deaths, even per the opposition sources. If there is a genocide, it is not a one-way street by any means.

Also, if there was a decision to intervene, through what means could this be done to really ensure peace and security for Syrians? Honestly, it would require tens of thousands of ground troops to secure the country and ensure no killings and bombings; otherwise, you're just throwing gasoline on the fire.

[justiceischeap]

3. As I stated in my OP, I have no answer to my own questions

but the situation still reminds me of Bosnia. Eventually, as I recall, Clinton received flak for not intervening sooner. Unfortunately, with this type of situation, our current President is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. I get that the US and its residents have "war fatigue", anyone in their right mind should be dead set against war but I think genocide is one of those situations that we (the international community, which includes the US) has to intervene.

[David__77]

4. If your concern is about "flak"...

...then I think you have little to worry about. The public-at-large does not want or care about the US intervening in Syria. There is certainly no popular demand to do so. Some forces can try to astro-turf that "demand," but it's illusory at best.

[justiceischeap]

6. My concern isn't about flak, it's about human lives. nt

[David__77]

8. OK, good.

Obama's "shot across the bow" and "limited and narrow" action will not save lives.

[leftstreet]

2. Has it been proven Assad used these chemical weapons?

If so, why on earth would Obama wait for Congress to vote?

Doesn't he care about people?

[justiceischeap]

5. I think the UN is still working on that

however, I still think the question needs to be answered, if Assad is using WMDs, is it considered genocide. If it is, do we intervene? There are many countries that commit genocide that we turn a blind eye to. So, what makes Syria so special if we find that they are indeed using WMDs and they are committing genocide?

[karynnj]

7. I don't think it is genocide, because it is not directed against an ethnic group

Genocide is "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, Caste, religious, or national group" (from wikipedia)

I don't think there is this kind of targeting - unless the area hit fits one of these categories, which I have not heard.

However, I agree with you that there should be some way to deal internationally to stop the use of Chemical weapons.

[David__77]

9. The insurgency may be genocidal.

They kipnap or murder any Alawite they can get their hands on. There is actually a striking similarity between insurgent anti-Alawite propaganda and crude old European anti-Semitic propaganda.

[hfojvt]

10. reminds me of that too

and I supported Clinton at the time.

I looked up a timeline of that a few days ago, and noted - Clinton began the bombing campaign without either Congress (which refused to approve it) or the UN approval.

There were complaints at the time of civilians deaths. Clinton had the planes bombing from very high in order to reduce American casualties, but that lead to more civlian casualties on the ground.

But the end result seemed to be positive - didn't it?

[Igel]

12. That's what we're supposed to believe.

I don't know.

It was a messy war and we took sides in terms of what information we got. Serbs bad, everybody else okay. The Croatian/Bosnian border is oddly starkly Croatian/Bosnian now when it used to be a line through a very mixed area. The Serbs in Bosnia are restive and will continue to be. As are the Croatians. They remember the Bosnian war crimes against their ethnicities, even if most in the west can't imagine such a thing ever happened.

The problem is that we insisted that because the Bosnians couldn't be independent as a viable state Croatians and Serbs be included in the area. Even if they really hate each other. It's this nice conceit that we have, making the little kiddies eat their diversity peas and believing that once they realize how wonderful each other is they'll join hands and sing "It's a Small World." Okay, maybe we don't believe that last part--Perhaps they'd sing something else that doesn't predispose towards suicide.

Intervention there set things up for the Kosovar attacks on villages up in the hills, the staged mass exodus from a non-existent Serbian pogrom against Kosovar, and separating out Kosovo from Serbia. That led to the murderous Kosovar militia, the ones doing the anti-Serb pogroms up in the hills before the "war", coming to power. Nice, that, rewarding the murderous. Huzzah.

What happened in Kosovo led to a lot of killing and bloodshed in Macedonia, with an influx of Albanians that upset an already precarious balance there.

[HardTimes99]

11. You're accepting as fact what has merely been alleged thus far, namely Assad's use of CBW. I'm

reminded far more of the Lebanon Civil War in 1983 when Reagan was Pres. and our warships off the coast of Beirut lobbed high-explosive shells into Lebanon (ironically on Syrian and Iranian positions). I've forgotten exactly how many Marines died in the truck bombing of the Beirut Barracks, but Reagan certainly didn't waste any time cutting and running as fast as he could high-tail it out of there.

[Art_from_Ark]

13. 241 marines were killed in the Beirut barracks attack

Two days later, Reagan invades Grenada to teach their president a thing or two about being on the "wrong" side of the political spectrum

[HardTimes99]

14. Thanks for that extra detail. I had forgotten how close in time Grenada was to

the Beirut USMC Barracks bombing. I still can't quite believe that Reagan was re-elected (or, after Iran-Contra, allowed to fully serve out his second term).

[Art_from_Ark]

15. Reagan used his acting skills and grandfatherly demeanor

to convince a shockingly large number of voters that the "liberals" were to blame for all the country's woes. A large number of union guys ate that shit up, too, even after Reagan had fired the PATCO workers. It was pretty surreal.