Me too, I +1ed it assuming it was. And you know what they say about assuming...

"Last thing you want is anarchy in Syria and Hezbollah gaining access to all their arms depots."

You say that as if Syria isn't already the provider of the vast majority of armed owned by Hezbollah.

Clearly so. Western Intervention has done nothing for Libya. And success of these Arab Springs in Tunisia and Egypt hasn't relaly done much at all for normal people, only put weak civilian governments into power and drastically reduce the security situation for the region in general.

Before the Arab Springs: Israel has a solid back in Egypt. Regional tension is fairly low compared to points in the past.

After the Arab Springs: Angry Egyptians with no real support of Israel. Gaza blockade ended. Easy weapons access for armed groups in Libya.

I can't believe my 'Fuck Yeah!' comment hasn't got a +1. How fucking apt.

"Should we watch the Assad regime continue massacring its own citizens instead?"

How do you know that's happening? Because you've seen people on TV say it's true?

This is the same media that lied us into the Iraq War and has been repeating that Iran is only months away from nuking Israel... for the last ten years. If you're taking these clowns seriously, I really think you need to re-evaluate your sources for credibility.

"How do you know that's happening? Because you've seen people on TV say it's true?"

+1. Thank you.

Well, Libya did get rid of Gaddafi. The end of that ridiculous government is the first step in Libya not being awful, as far away as that day is. And Tunisia, while not stable, is basically France in the desert and should be fine as time goes by. With Egypt, however, it just seems to get worse and worse.

Except that Gaddafi hadn't actually been a real problem since the 80s. Working with Gaffafi had proved fairly successful, and he at least kept decent control of Libya.

@Sargmacher
While Syria provides a lot of support to Hezbollah, I doubt they give them their entire arsenal :P

"The fact that we "can't afford it" is the most monstrous excuse for not stopping a humanitarian crisis."

Well, I'm sorry, but...WE JUST HAD this sort of conflict!

BILLIONS of dollars, and an international reputation (further) tarnished!

Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result...

Sadly, "insanity" is the right word for SOLE United States military involvement here.

"It would be "right" to get rid of Assad, just as it was "right" to get rid of Saddam. It's the things that happen afterwords, like how involved we have to become in setting up a new government and the geostrategic and human costs of a new, extended Middle East adventure, that should dictate whether we should have a military response to the Syria crisis."

I agree...but, again--WE JUST DID THIS.

I reiterate--BILLIONS of dollars?

Are you paying for this war, Invictus? (With your wallet OR your life, for that matter, let's not forget that, please...I think we've had enough US soldiers blown to bits in the desert by fanatics for a good decade or so...)

And the involvement with the Syrian--or any--geopolitical restructuring and training and all of that...that IS an economic factor, like it or not. We're "supposed" to just now beginning to see a "slight rebound" in the economy (though I see no evidence of it where I live and unemployment ratings rising from "abysmal" to "horrible" don't terribly impress me, but I digress) and this war would cost more lives, more time, more billions...

We DO NOT have the resources, or willpower, or economic power.

What we "should" do and what is "feasible" to do, sadly, are two separate things...

As was once said by (go on, guess who!)

"If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottages princes’ palaces."

Portia's not wrong there...it's all well and good to "know" what might be good to do...but actually executing on that vision, in terms of feasibility and resources and manpower and resolve?

An ENTIRELY different story.

"But to tell the Syrians being shelled by their own government's artillery that they have to wait till unemployment is down in California for help to come is monstrous."

Tell me...

If the roles were reversed, and California were being shelled by, say, Mexico, and we dearly needed help...

Do you think Syrians would be so quick to help us?

I'm not pretending to be a saint, Invictus--I just don't think I'm a monster, either...

Merely realistic.

"You should be ashamed of yourself, obiwanobiwan. We need to do everything, short of putting our military in harm's way, to end the rule of this madman."

Excuse me...

But didn't I SAY if we had UN support I'd be all for this?

I'm simply saying the US can't fight another solo 9-year war.

And to close...

Again, I'm neither ashamed nor proud to say--

I care a HELL of a lot more at this point about millions of unemployed Americans in lines--lines *I* don't want to have to be forced into if this should slip from Recession to Depression because we blew our economy out helping some people who, on the whole, PROBABLY COULDN'T CARE LESS IF *AMERICANS* LIVED OR DIED--than the continuation of a regime like this that we've left in place this long, and by the way...

What makes SYRIA special?

Why aren;'t you so indignant about our not freeing North Korea, Invictus?
What about Pakistan?
What about China/Tibet?
What about Iran?
What about half the damn African continent?

If you're going to be outraged over my not being over-enthusiastic about another war in ONE of these states...well, at least I treat them equally...

*YOU* seem keen just to play favorites.

WHY NOT those nations, Invictus?
Do they not have the same right to be free?
You can't tell me Kim-Jong Un isn't a madman...where's your urgency and outrage THERE?

Finally...all West Bank/Gaza issues aside...

Syria's not exactly Israel here, or Great Britain.

If THEY were attacked en masse, we'd be over there in a flash!

But Syria has OPPOSED us in the past...some of those people you see chanting for "Freedom" could very well have had "Death to America!" chants as well...



We don't have the economy for it.
I care more about THAT after 9 years than a rogue nation's well being...
And if you're still outraged, I suggest you either demand we invade Pyongyang and Beijing and Tehran as well...

Or watch your landing as you get off your high horse.

@redhouse:

THANK YOU!

"I'm not sure if humanitarian intervention is a good idea.

1) Isn't the humanitarian situation in N-Korea and Zimbabwe more urgent?

2) Did the last few "interventions" work out so successfully?

3) How is it in our interest to intervene?"

Most of my points exactly...much, much shorter and concisely-stated. +1! :)

Gaddafi did keep control of Libya, yes. But he never stopped his support of terrorist causes and other dictators around the world, and he kept the Libyan people oppressed. It says a lot about a man when he's willing to bring his country to ruin just to remain in power.

He was a wolf we had by the ear. Now the wolf's dead and there's a wildcat running around. It's just a different kind of bad.There's no need to look back nostalgically on a ghoul like him, and hopefully the day will soon come where we can say the same thing about Assad.

On another note: even if it were economically feasible and morally just to intervene, should we? I believe it's part of the cultural DNA of this part of the world that somebody who's in power beats the crap out of whoever challenges that: if we intervene, the western media will broadcast every little thing that goes wrong until we're all brainwashed by the idea that WE are the bad guys, whereas the atrocities of these regimes are hidden simply by shoveling a pile of sand into whatever basement it was this Assad was torturing its people. Before you know it they'll blame us for their trouble. Let them sort out their own trouble. Maybe the Arab world needs to go through this period to realize how bloody stupid it is NOT to have a liberal democracy.

Well thanks Obi :-)

I was in favour of Gaddafi sticking around in Libya, predicting what would happen when the rebels won. I'm in favour of Assad sticking around in Syria. Gotta look at the wider situation.

Sure, they're not the nicest people in the world. But there will be a lot less suffering under them than in a fractured state and the end of peace in the Middle East. Do we really want Syria to become how Lebanon was for decades?

@Eden:

"obi, are you by any chance concentrating in an education-related area of your major?"

If you mean with an emphasis on Teaching...

Cal State Northridge--where I'll be going this fall, after this last semester at my community college...damn math credits--offers four different approaches to ENG:

Literature, Teaching, General, and Creative Writing.

I'm doing Literature, because that's what I'm good at, General's sort of just a grab-bag and sort of there for folks who need a major and aren't really sure what they want to do yet, and Creative Writing...I'm not THAT naive, I need to EAT, and besides...

Shakespeare never had a Creative Writing "class," someone just handed him a pen one day and said "Hey, Will, we need a new play to perform, your turn, have a crack at it" (leaving aside the fact he wrote his first sonnets for pay to try and convince one dude to get laid and marry and have LOTS of kids...but I REALLY need to digress.) ;)

Long story short:

The "Literature" focus will allow me to teach English Lit. should I have to become a teacher (which I likely will, unless I just turn into the next T.S. Eliot somehow or if I decide to pursue my minor, Political Science, further and study to become a lawyer instead, so I can write at home and maybe one day try for politics--my other great love besides literature--but, obviously, Law School costs A LOT of money...

I'd prefer we weren't fighting another Vietnam and wasting lives and money and making hit harder on folks like me trying to get a job out of college to pay for grad/law school.)

"But he never stopped his support of terrorist causes"

Do you have proof of this? Public statements of Qaddafi saying he's supporting Terrorist Groups X, Y, and Z? Cancelled checks? Or are you relying on the media to tell you what to think, too?

obiwanobiwan, you missed the entire point of what I was saying. I don't support a military intervention. I think it would be a huge, huge mistake.

But the reason to not help should not be because the economy is bad. If there is extreme suffering we should make serious efforts to help, just not military ones. And if there was a real reason to go to war in Syria (like Assad's agents launch some kind of terrorist attack), then the fact that the economy's bad is not a reason to not respond. I gave my reasons above on when it's proper to go to war, and they're hardly hawkish.

"I was in favour of Gaddafi sticking around in Libya, predicting what would happen when the rebels won. I'm in favour of Assad sticking around in Syria. Gotta look at the wider situation."

But eventually there comes a point where the "stable" dictator staying becomes unacceptable. Assad has been condemned by the Arab League and abandoned by everyone besides Russia and Iran. He's the animating cause of the civil war underway there. I don't want an American military involvement there at all, but we've reached the point where Assad staying would mean more problems than him leaving. There will be chaos in Syria for the foreseeable future no matter what happens, but with him gone at least the world's other dictators will see that no level of cruelty to your people can save your regime in the long term.

"But the reason to not help should not be because the economy is bad. If there is extreme suffering we should make serious efforts to help, just not military ones."

Sounds like Invictus is in favor of military intervention socialism - forcing broke Americans to subsidize the (alleged) struggle for freedom of people on the other side of the planet.

Sorry Syrians, but if the choice is "Tolstoy makes his house payment this month" and "Tolstoy can't afford to make his house payment this month because he has to pay another several thousand dollars in taxes to pay new government debts, his share of the cost of the military intervention that helped the shadowy insurgent group with unknown intentions and motivations topple a dictator on the other side of the planet, creating great regional instability with unknown consequences (and probably providing another excuse to the oil companies to jack up the price of gas)", I'm going to choose the former.

You're already on the internet, Tolstoy. Look it up for yourself. You'll find such gems as him giving money to the IRA just before going into hiding from the NATO bombing.

It's healthy to be skeptical of the media, but assuming EVERYTHING is a lie is a great way to make yourself sound like a crazy person,

once again "americans" think they are the guardians of the freedom
didnt you ask yourself who is feeding this revelion?
what is the real goal behind it?
it is ovious that america,europe,israel are the one behind it and its very clear why,we are facing a west against east war at the begining and the arabic spring is only the new positioning before the great war to come,we dont need to intervene in something we are making by our self in order to weaken sirya so we can count on one less iran's ally,asad is not so bad to the west as he is not so fanatic islamic,so we just better let him be ocupied with his own internal afairs untill all this west-east war is over

@Invictus:

"But the reason to not help should not be because the economy is bad. If there is extreme suffering we should make serious efforts to help, just not military ones. And if there was a real reason to go to war in Syria (like Assad's agents launch some kind of terrorist attack), then the fact that the economy's bad is not a reason to not respond."

1. Key word in that first sentence being SHOULD...yes, in a perfect world, we SHOULD always help those in need...but going off that same premise, you've yet to answer the question I/redhouse posed: what makes Syria so damn special? Why not North Korea? Or Tibet? Or Pakistan? Or Iran? WHY SYRIA IN PARTICULAR if we're going to say that we should help because of "extreme suffering."

I think North Korea/Iran/Tibet/Africa in general counts as "extreme suffering..."

WHY NOT THERE...WHY SYRIA?

2. What non-military help do you have in mind? Certainly not monetary, not in our state of affairs, and I said I was good with a diplomatic solution, so...?

(And China and Russia, by the way, just vetoed a measure for aiding Syria--so yeah, if we're really interested in stopping "extreme suffering," and China and Russia seem OK to let this go on...would you be OK invading if it meant high tension with both of those powers, or even, in an imaginary sort of scenario, some kind of conflict? How far are you willing to go to stop this "extreme suffering," and, again, and I can't stress this enough, WHAT MAKES THE SYRIANS SO PRIVILEGED OVER ALL THOSE OTHER PEOPLE YOU SEEM INDIFFERENT TOWARDS HELPING...AT LEAST I'M BEING CONSISTENT HERE--WHY SYRIA, WHY NOT DPRK/PAKISTAN/TIBET/AFRICA?)

How many times do I have to say I oppose intervention before blockheads like Tolstoy listen?

I don't want a Bush era Crusade for Democracy. I want to actively oppose regimes which are committing crimes against their people. Is it really so outrageous to wish Assad ill?

"Sorry Syrians, but if the choice is "Tolstoy makes his house payment this month" and "Tolstoy can't afford to make his house payment this month because he has to pay another several thousand dollars in taxes to pay new government debts, his share of the cost of the military intervention that helped the shadowy insurgent group with unknown intentions and motivations topple a dictator on the other side of the planet, creating great regional instability with unknown consequences (and probably providing another excuse to the oil companies to jack up the price of gas)", I'm going to choose the former."

Thank you TOLSTOY.

So.

Tolstoy, redhouse, and I, all with what would seem to be relatively similar views...

I REALLY want an answer, Invictus...

Where's the money coming from?
How can we win diplomatically with China and Russia both vetoing?
Why help Syria over ALL those other nations I've listed?
And WHY should I care for a nation that's none-too-friendly to the USA in the first place over whether I can support myself...

Compassion only goes so far:

I'll donate to charity, sure--but if you ask me to donate to a person who's actively been hostile towards me and threatened me and my friends (Israel?) before...

I raise my eyebrows at you, ESPECIALLY when there are OTHER needy people (countries?) that could use that aid just as much if I/we were to give it...and THEY haven't threatened me, so...

"assuming EVERYTHING is a lie is a great way to make yourself sound like a crazy person,"

Invictus,

I would strongly recommend reading some books on the British intelligence effort in the United States in the years before (and during) American involvement in WWII. Here are some recommendations:
http://www.amazon.com/British-Security-Coordination-Intelligence-1940-1945/dp/088064236X/
http://www.amazon.com/Desperate-Deception-Operations-Intelligence-ebook/dp/B006OBG5QW/

Intervention is needed from international community when a dictator is opressing and KILLING their own citizens. It is so because the opposite means to allow him killing more and more people.

"I don't want a Bush era Crusade for Democracy. I want to actively oppose regimes which are committing crimes against their people. Is it really so outrageous to wish Assad ill?"

You say you DON'T want military intervention a la bush...

But advocate "actively opposing" such regimes?

Care to qualify your terms, then, as ACTIVELY opposing those regimes sounds a lot like...well...intervention, militarily or otherwise.

"How many times do I have to say I oppose intervention before blockheads like Tolstoy listen?"

I know I'm not the sharpest tool in the drawer, but you *did* say that economic factors should not be a concern vis a vis 'interventions' to stop evildoers. I think my confusion (?) is understandable.