Bombing targets in Syria

[Splinter Cell]

Yes, it's terrible that innocent people can easily be hurt if we bomb something. However, do you folks understand that we can target certain things without carpet bombing the whole country? A lot of people on here are acting like Obama is Nixon bombing the shit out of Cambodia.

They are going to target the military sites where the chemical weapons are. Yes, there is ALWAYS danger and risk for innocent people, but we're not just bombing everything in sight.

The amount of people that have turned on Obama on this site is shocking. I guess it's the leftover resentment from the '08 primary, and many folks have been hoping he'd fail. Well, he's still a better choice then Clinton would have been, and don't think for a minute she wouldn't be doing the same thing he is in this situation.

Obama isn't perfect, and nobody else is either. He is a thoughtful leader though, not a war monger and he isn't Dubya. Remember that while you burn him in effigy.

[wandy]

1. "They are going to target the military sites where the chemical weapons are"..........

Blowing up chemical weapons.

Think about it.

[Tx4obama]

3. There was a man on CNN the other day that said...

... that blowing up chemical weapons CAN be done safely under the right circumstances depending on if there is wind, the direction of the wind, etc.

[wandy]

4. So many things to go wrong. So many risks to take........

We ship chemicals by rail. Not chemical weapons chemicals.
Sometimes not much more dangerous than household cleaner.
At times we evacuate entire towns.

So many things to go wrong. So many risks to take.

[HooptieWagon]

9. Yea, right.

Suppose it goes wrong, and Obama's bombs set off CWs that gas an entire town? Does he go before the UN and say: "Oops, sorry"?

[Earth_First]

2. So essentially what you are saying...

is the Democratic party, regardless of who occupies the White House understands who pulls the strings...

S.S.D.D.

[Igel]

5. There's no argument there.

That's the problem all the way around. There's no sound argumentation and from that you can draw no sound conclusion.

The administration is not saying they would target all and only the chemical weapon sites. They are saying they would bomb targets to "degrade the regime." There is a difference--and heaven only knows what, exactly, that difference is.

If they wanted to get known chemical weapons sites that could be done in a day. They want to do more.

If they knew they could easily eliminate all the CW sites they might well say so. They haven't. What we have is a rabid DUer with cut-and-paste disease citing one specific link over and over which says that it's pretty sure that they have the right kind of weapon. No more. No less.

It's not "turning on Obama." We haven't sworn fealty to our lord, to uphold his honor by word and deed in all things. He's not a leader, however much people want to be led and however much people really want a caesar in the days of a dying republic. No. He's the guy who presides over the country; he is our representative, presumably with more information for making decisions. Ultimately, though, he has to act like he's the presiding-guy over a republican form of government, a representative democracy, in which he isn't the guy with the rope leading us by the ring in our noses but our representative acting in our name and in our interests. It's a common-place for presidents to forget this. Sometimes it turns out right. More often it turns out badly.

It speaks badly for him that he claims credit for anything good that happens under his watch, however remote any causal connection; and rejects responsbility for anything bad that happens under his watch, however direct the causal connection. He's got his foibles. It's time to notice the feet of clay.

[swilton]

6. What happens when

the targeted chemical weapons disperse their chemicals?

[libdem4life]

7. I disapprove of the actions involving attacking a soverign state. Obama has left Liberals

behind. That's well documented. So has Hillary.

This is not some new situation...it's been going on for a long time. There is no "case" other than some photos and "trust me I know what's best" paternalism.

There is absolutely no guarantee.. far to the contrary ... that this is just some surgical strike and we'll all be relieved that the evil has been purged. That's political Fairy Dust.

Our meddling and changing regimes does not turn out well for we the people. Just saying this isn't Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan begs the question that nothing we were told, like today, bore any resemblance to the mess that was and still is in place. Each one is a new "learning experience"...code for FUBAR. Some of us were hoping we'd learn some national lessons.

We can not occupy Syria politically or physically. There are huge holes...like which "democratic general" will be placed in charge, just for starters? In fact, Allied meddling after WW I can be argued to have set up the prologue to the current strife. And Iran? Some of us suspect that this is ultimately spoiling for that confrontation.

Personally, I see this as potential 1945 redux..."Let's just get this thing over with our nifty new technology."

[Wounded Bear]

8. Bombing is just a more violent and atrocious form of sanctions...

Economic sanctions tend to punish the masses, too. How often has that worked?

I'm thinking that 'humanitarian' motives are not behind this. They almost never are. There is an economic reason we want Assad out. Isnt' there a pipeline being planned that he has blocked?

This is the MIC in action. I'm sure of it.

[JayhawkSD]

10. What part of...

...committing "an act of war" do you not understand? Dropping bomds into and launching missiles at a sovreign nation is an act of war against that nation, regardless of what you are targeting. Whether you are "carpet bpombing" or making "surgical strikes," it is an agressine act of war against that nation.

Twelve years ago this month we declared that the destruction of two building in New York City was an "act of war" and we retaliated by invading, destroying and occupying two nations and killing tens of thousands of their citizens, not to mention launching a decades-long war of unmanned drones on five other nations.

Now you want to claim that boming and fieing missiles at a seventh Islamic nation is not an "act of war" and that it should not and will not invite retaliation. That is the very definition of insanity.