Syria a national security threat to the U.S.?

[Harmony Blue]

AQ and their affiliates are the main targets on the so called War on Terror no? Assad and Hezbollah don't pose a direct threat to the national security of the United States, but AQ does. Turkey and Israel are vulnerable neighbors being next to Syria and yet these two countries being in close proximity to Syria are not beating the drums of war. Israel, has already shown they will act if necessary, and they have, and Turkey's has a large army that is able to mobilize near the Syrian border in a short time frame but they choose to not to lift a finger. Why? War isn't so simple, and more importantly Turkey realizes that terrorists pose the main threat to their national security not Assad's regime. When Israel was conducting military air strikes they were not not gleeful about it because the consequence is that they are directly injecting themselves into the Syrian civil war.

[morningfog]

1. It's bullshit. And, it is only being trotted out because support wasn't there for humanitatrian

bombing.

[idwiyo]

2. +1 and extra points for "humanitarian bombing"

[alcibiades_mystery]

3. Normalization of chemical warfare is a national security threat to all nations, though

I agree with you that limiting the question to the Syria situation and the short-term makes the whole thing sound ridiculous. Yes.

In the long view, however, if there's a creeping acceptance of chemical warfare and the use of nerve agents on civilian populations to achieve military ends, well, that's fucked. I know, I know...depleted uranium, agent orange, Willy Peter, etc. Yes, of course.

I should note that I'm against military action in Syria at this time. There should be other ways to deter and degrade Assad's chemical weapons capabilities and generally heighten the cost of chemical weapons usage. But you're right that things aren't simple: if the choice is between letting blatant use of chemical nerve agents on civilian neighborhoods just "go," and doing something, I'm going to lean toward doing something every time.

Chemical warfare cannot be allowed to be normalized, or trivialized, or seen as an "inexpensive" option. How we get there on Syria, of course, remains to be seen.

[cali]

4. Saddam used chemical weapons over 20 years ago. How did that

lead to more use of them? I think you can make the argument that it led to less use of them/

Your position on chemical warfare seems a little muddled to me. You grant that DU and WP are chemical weapons, but leave it hanging there. You say that chemical warfare against civilians is unacceptable; what about against troops? According to the convention, that too is unacceptable.

[Harmony Blue]

5. The nations of the world did not mobilize

against Iraq when they used chemical weapons against Iran. To argue that this will enable other nations to use chemical weapons doesn't hold much weight. Depleted Uranium, Agent Orange, White Phosphorus are all mostly from U.S. use not other nations of the world.