"but...but...but...this is different!"

[kpete]

Remember the "16 words"?

The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0720-09.htm

[JoePhilly]

1. The actual dead bodies make it very different.

[Little Star]

3. Civil wars always have dead bodies. Both sides kill people during civil war. n/t

[JoePhilly]

5. Its a direct response to the qoute used in the OP.

The quote in the OP was a lie about WMDs.

We KNOW that Assad used chemical weapons and killed around 1500 people very recently.

Those facts alone make this situation, and the one regarding Iraq put forward as a comparison point in the OP, very different.

If some one wants to make a point against strikes against Syria, I'm fine with that.

But making nonsensical comparisons, like the one put forward in the OP, does nothing to advance that cause.

[Little Star]

6. Both sides in Syria's civil war have used chemical weapons.

[DrDan]

8. "we KNOW that Assad used chemical weapons and killed around 1,500 people" . . . well

I guess not everyone "KNOWS" that

.............................
He criticized Kerry as being “sandbagged into using an absurdly over-precise number” of 1,429, and noted that the number didn’t agree with either the British assessment of “at least 350 fatalities” or other Syrian opposition sources, namely the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has confirmed 502 dead, including about 100 children and "tens" of rebel fighters, and has demanded that Kerry provide the names of the victims included in the U.S. tally.

“President Obama was then forced to round off the number at ‘well over 1,000 people’ – creating a mix of contradictions over the most basic facts,” Cordesman wrote. He added that the blunder was reminiscent of “the mistakes the U.S. made in preparing Secretary (Colin) Powell’s speech to the U.N. on Iraq in 2003.”

An unclassified version of a French intelligence report on Syria that was released Monday hardly cleared things up; France confirmed only 281 fatalities, though it more broadly agreed with the United States that the regime had used chemical weapons in the Aug. 21 attack.
.............................

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/09/02/201027/to-some-us-case-for-syrian-gas.html#.UiXZhXPD-M8

[morningfog]

7. When Obama invokes a threat to our national security from chemical weapons in a Sryian civil war,

there are parallels.

[JoePhilly]

9. The quote used was a lie about the existance of the weapons.

We know that these weapons exist.

Further, we know that Bush was looking for approval to INVADE Iraq. Over 100k troops on the ground.

Is the current President doing anything that comes close to that?

No.

[morningfog]

12. The President is seeking to start a war with another country who has not attacked us.

His rational increasingly includes the threat that WMD threaten our national security. He seeks an open ended, ill defined AUMF. The AUMF is currently not limited to air strikes. Ground forces are not precluded under the AUMF. Without doubt, it would start with air strikes, but that will set off a chain of consequences that no one can predict.

Obama is telling us a lie to start this war. Syria's weapons are not a threat to our national security. Obama is using all his available political capital to start an unnecessary war. Even with congressional approval, this will be an illegal war under international law.

The similarities run deep. This is the Bush Doctrine adopted and adapted to the Obama Doctrine.

[JoePhilly]

13. Let me know when the invasion starts.

When the media is covering our troops as they advance from town to town in this war you speak of.

As for the threat you describe ... the one Bush referred to was a nuclear holocaust ... the threat Obama refers to is nothing of the sort, its about the threat of allowing dictators to act with impunity (hey, there's another difference for you).

Hey, you provided ANOTHER difference ... Congress GAVE their authority to Bush ... Obama is telling them to take it back.

[morningfog]

15. Go back and read Obama's interview with PBS.

He speaks of the threat of chemical weapons being used against us. You are not accurately describing his comments. War is war. We are going to kill innocents. We don't need boots on the ground for it o be a war. Nor should that be our primary consideration.

The comparison is apt. There is a huge push for an unnecessary war, an the justifications changing to gain approval.

[JoePhilly]

16. Everything is war, apparently.

Libya was war. Egypt was war.

And now Syria is going to be war.

A small strike against military targets (which is the most that will probably happen, if that) is the same as the nearly 10 years of the Iraq war.

Ok.

[morningfog]

17. When the military is used to enact policy, that is war.

Even embargoes can be acts of war. Regardless of what YOU are willing to call killing innocents with the might of the USitlitary, the fact remains that Obama has invoked a threat to our national security to justify it. And that invocation is similar to bush's.

[JoePhilly]

18. So now we've killed innocents in these atttacks.

Attacks that haven't even happened.

And unless President Obama says Syria is going to cause one of these ...



... in a major US city,

And unless John Kerry says Syria is going to cause one of these ...



... in a major US city,

And unless the VP says ...



...the comparison is nonsense.

The Bush administration was VERY clear on this threat. in a major city, requiring a full scale invasion.

No one in the Obama administration has come close to making such an argument.

And folks making weak arguments like that one come across as shrill. If you want to make an anti-strike argument, make it on the merits, not on lame comparisons with the Bush administration.

[treestar]

11. These weapons exist and were used

They threaten the security of every nation in the world.

[brooklynite]

2. You're right...it IS different

Last time I checked, we had a DEMOCRAT in the White House, elected by a majority of the public and a substantial majority of US. If you're implying that the Obama Administration is lying that chemical weapons were used, please be more forthright, so I can ignore you sooner.

[kpete]

4. implying nothing

just want to know the truth
and
the last thing I ever want is war



brooklynite, please read:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023585721
so many issues to consider
I simply do not consider War as the answer.

peace, kp

[treestar]

10. Why are you making fun of the very concept that things might be different?

Do you prefer black and white thinking?

[kpete]

14. making fun?

huh?

peace, kp

[Hydra]

19. I see you struck a nerve

The lack of substance in the war drums is causing a certain dissonance.

I see bad times ahead, because I don't think they are listening to us.