How many Syrians will Assad gas next?

[rightsideout]

Now that most of DU has sided against Obama on military action it's time to consider how many Syrians Assad will gas next.

How about how many rockets will be sent with chemical weapons next time? 2, 3, 4?

Yes, I'm pro military action and not afraid to admit it. Under the Geneva Convention it was agreed that chemical weapons were a no-no. So we're just going to sit back and let Assad break international law? It's like standing back and watching your neighbor beat up on his family.

Don't blame Obama when a chemical weapon is eventually used against an American interest and it's traced back to Syria or a trained Syrian terrorist group. You all will have to deal with the guilt.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

11. Better post than mine.

[neverforget]

2. And bombing Assad could make it easier for terrorists to get those weapons as we

degrade his ability to protect them.

[ForgoTheConsequence]

3. "let Assad break international law"

If we strike without the approval of the security council, we would be breaking international law.

[Sand Wind]

21. Yes, we should send an subpoena to Assad. Nt

[David__77]

4. I don't think that defending al Qaeda is a "US interest."

We should not intervene on behalf of the radical Islamist terrorists. That's what you are advocating, knowingly, or unwittingly. The anti-intervention position is the only patriotic one.

[leftstreet]

5. You want the US to ally with al Qaeda terrorists?

Wow

[avaistheone1]

6. Sorry none of my tax dollars will be spent fighting a Syrian war to benefit Al Qaeda.

No thanks.

[rsmith6621]

7. wE COULD REBUILD DETROIT

for what Obama will spend sending missile strikes in to Syria along with a few other citys.

we still have issues that are hurting our own people here in the USA that our focus should be directed.

I am burned out with aggression and it is time the USA winds down it world presence.

OBAMA and KERRY just say NO.

[Salviati]

8. Will it be more or less than he has already shot?

[JackRiddler]

9. How many people did the US kill in Iraq?

How many will it kill in the next war?

Under international law and treaties dating back to the Kellog-Briand pact of 1928, war is a no-no.

Aggressive war is considered the highest international crime according to the Nuremberg principles that established modern international law. It is seen as the war crime that combines and contains all of the other war crimes.

In the post-World War II era, the government that has most often broken the prohibition on aggressive war -- by invading or bombing other nations not for reasons of self-defense -- is without a doubt the United States government (here called U.S.G. to distinguish it from the country and its people).

In the post-WWII era, this government is also responsible for killing easily the greatest number of combatants and non-combatants outside its own borders.

This government outspends the military budgets of almost all other governments combined.

It is responsible for at times more than 2/3 of the international arms trade, thus maintaining an international order based on force and guaranteeing that regimes that carry out their own atrocities will be armed to the teeth.

No top-level architects, commanders, planners, corporate profiteers or major perpetrators of U.S. government operations of war have ever been brought before U.S. or international courts to pay for their crimes.

In fact, some of the worst perpetrators of war crimes in world history, such as Kissinger and the war cabinets of the Bush administrations (father and son) enjoy incredibly rich rewards stemming directly from their activities as mass murderers. They do so publicly; some are consulted or at least hailed even by the present administration.

Sooner or later, all of the U.S.G. wars come to be whitewashed as in some way noble. We see this currently with the absolutely horrific and genocidal 20-year invasion the U.S.G. conducted in Indochina.

War means profits and war is celebrated as heroic.

These are surely among the reasons why U.S.G. officials so readily resort to renewed wars, even when, as in the current case, every other country turns against the operation, including (astonishingly) even the UK.

What are you going to do about all this, hm?

The U.S.G. as one of the most frequent violators of international law has no standing to play enforcer of it. Don't be blaming Assad or whoever the latest designated "Hitler" will be for the next bloody war started to justify the U.S.G. war machine.

.

[TheMadMonk]

19. Why haven't the 2 million dead in the Congo been reason to act.

What comforts it them, that they were "properly" pillaged, penetrated and perforated in time honoured fashion dating back into prehistory?

[The Straight Story]

36. 5.4 million now (nt)

[JackRiddler]

39. Also a point...

But the ones directly caused by U.S. government policy need to be top of the U.S. discourse. To the OP I was saying, before you complain about the mote in your neighbor's eye, TAKE THE LOG OUT OF YOUR OWN.

The war in Congo is of course largely the result of U.S. and Western policy.

[TheMadMonk]

46. Can you find me a war on this planet which isn't largely due to US policy?

[JackRiddler]

48. You mean, in non-fiction?

Um.

Does it have to be on this planet?

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

10. "how many Syrians Assad will gas next..."

Has the UN inspection team given a solid indication that it was the Assad regime which was responsible for the chemical attack, or are you just greased up for the next depressing round of US war without declaring war?

[JackRiddler]

40. Proof? We don't need no stinking proof.

Ridiculing "conspiracy theory" and empty bluster about Hitler from a Secretary of State always worked before.

[deutsey]

41. I'm waiting for the UN report before I swallow Kerry's hook, line, and sinker n/t

[backwoodsbob]

12. if you are for military action lets do it right then

I would assume you are for sending in troops to take all the chemical weapons so this cant happen again.And that involves boots on the ground...LOTS of boots on the ground.

If you aren't for boots on the ground could you explain to me what lobbing a few hundred millions of dollars of missiles at Syria will accomplish?

[ForgoTheConsequence]

13. I love this part.

"So we're just going to sit back and let Assad break international law? It's like standing back and watching your neighbor beat up on his family."

You're so tough behind your keyboard. When Obama drafts the 1st Keyboard Warrior Brigade AKA "The Fighting Bloggers" I'm sure you'll serve this country well and maybe even earn yourself a medal.

[KurtNYC]

37. Perhaps when the OP's neighbor is "beating up (their) family" the OP

just starts firing rounds into the neighbors house from a safe distance as "punishment" because the neighbor is breaking the law?

[Starry Messenger]

14. Let us know when you've signed up to go.

[last1standing]

15. Only by breaking international laws can we punish those who break international laws. Got it.

Thanks for making it so very clear.

[ocpagu]

16. You support an attack without the UN approval...

... yet you're concerned about Geneva Convention?

Really?

[HardTimes99]

23. A sovereign Syria never even signed the 1925 Convention, so it

Last edited Wed Sep 4, 2013, 04:31 AM - Edit history (2)

seems really bad form to hold Syria to account under a convention to which she was never a signatory.

I guess such niceties are dispensed with when the imperial imperative is at stake.

[bhikkhu]

17. How many dictators will quietly stock up on sarin

They probably haven't been sleeping very well for some time, what with the Arab Spring and various unrest. Sarin is a cheap and effective way to deal with uprisings and popular revolts, if only it were legal. But, then again, a law that is ignored by everyone really isn't a law anymore.

I'm more concerned about that than anything else.

[KT2000]

28. Same here

why don't people think the ban on chemical weapons is worth saving? I just don't understand it - there is not even any tolerance for the people who express that opinion.

[Hayabusa]

34. +1

That is my main fear: that inaction on this will weaken the ban on the use of chemical weapons.

[fujiyama]

18. What are these "American interests" you speak of?

The only ones I can figure out are the stock prices of Exxon Mobile and Raytheon. The latter has already shot up significantly. The former I'm sure will be quite pleased with the subsequent rise in gas prices (no Syria is not primarily about oil but it certainly plays a role in the Saudis' support for the rebels).

I'm sure many will agree that these aren't the interests I care to protect.

And if you think that lobbing a couple cruise missiles will change Assad's mind or stop civilians from being killed, you are delusional at best.

[deutsey]

42. It's growing into more than just lobbing a couple of cruise missles

The Senate wants to give Obama 2, perhaps 3 months tops for intervention.

McCain is saying that's not enough. He wants regime change.

[Sand Wind]

20. Kick nt

[whatchamacallit]

22. Condi lives!

So fucking lame...

[MattSh]

25. Posted by...

rightsideout.

I guess that says it all.

[KT2000]

26. not just Syria

but the entire region would feel free to use chemical weapons. What is next? Biological weapons?

I believe the agreements to not use chemical weapons are worth preserving. They involved years of work to get the world to back down from using chemical weapons. If no one stands up for those agreements, they become useless and there may be no end to it.

[DontTreadOnMe]

27. DU has become a cesspool of insults...

post after post of people insulting each other... DU has jumped the shark...

[CakeGrrl]

30. Who was insulted in the OP?

I've seen references to "Goeringbots" (by the same charmer who loves the term "quislings&quot and claims that people are protecting "their idol" the President.

THOSE are insults. Remember "NSA Humpers?"

Where's the insult in asking the very reasonable question about something very likely to happen if Assad is unchecked in his violation of international law?

The problem I'm sure some have is that they just don't like the answer. But that only makes it an unpleasant reality, not a shark jump.

[Union Scribe]

31. Anyone with a brain.

You can make arguments for intervention without the OP's emotional blackmail "You all will have to deal with the guilt" bullcrap.

[Scootaloo]

29. "The next attack could come in the form of a mushroom cloud"

I've heard this song and dance before.

[Earth_First]

32. A multi-generational situation which is nearly as old as the Middle Eastern civilization

One would be naieve to believe that an instance such as Syria can be solved by an international body whose own affairs are deteriorating from the inside out, could solve this.

[JHB]

33. How many will he gas next even if we do?

Unless the plan is to destroy his CW stockpiles, then he'll still have them. And if the strike hits other military assets of his, isn't it possible it'll make him more reliant on the CW because that's more of what he's got left? Or that it might allow them to get into terrorist hands because of his reduced ability to guard them?

Either somebody wins this civil war or it drags on and Syria turns into a king-sized version of 70s and 80s Lebanon. If we're not trying to help one side win, then what exactly is the plan?

Under your wife-beating neighbor analogy, the current plan seems to be about as effective as having the cops knock on the door, accept "no problem officer, sorry about the noise" and let it continue. The plan doesn't seem to be hauling the guy off, nor helping the family get somewhere else.

Guilt at what? At asking "what happens next"?

[1-Old-Man]

35. None

[malaise]

38. More than likely it will be traced back to which ever set of Western special

interests sold them the chemical weapons - FOR PROFIT.

[Savannahmann]

43. Are you really that out of the loop?

Most here are for military action? In what board have you been hanging out on? Not Democratic Underground, perhaps one of the minor support threads.

Best case scenario things go just like they have in Libya, which is rapidly becoming the next Somalia.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023593996

That is an article reporting on how things are really going in Libya. It's gotten so bad that the Prime Minister is threatening to bomb his own ports. Now, if that isn't a definition of Chaos I don't know what is.

How does us breaking international law uphold international law? We've heard from plenty of people that it would be a violation, and the Russians have said they will oppose it. So how determined are you to bomb Syria? Are you enlisting? Are you willing to risk another World War? There is a reason nobody has beaten the Russians or the Chinese. They are enormous nations, with huge reserves of people. So instead of finding a way we can co-operate with them, we're rattling the saber and ignoring them.

The President is walking his comments back, soon you and John McCain will be all that is left screaming bomb them.

[Capt. Obvious]

44. I'm guessing 1 Million

[NuclearDem]

45. Yes, because I'm sure aggravating a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran would go well.

And of course, when the Assad government collapses, all of those sarin reserves scattering to the winds will be a boon to safety and regional security.

[Sand Wind]

47. Probably a couple of 10k...