If Assad uses Sarin gas, what should the response be??

[Victor_c3]

118. A lot of my thoughts have already been mentioned above

Even though I fought in Iraq, I never for a second believed in Iraq or that it was justified on any level.

As far as wars go, I liked the way Libya went. The majority of Libyan citizens were eager for NATO involvement (as was most of the Arab world). It's amazing how different things turn out when you have the cooperation and support of the people you are "helping" and the rest of the world. Obama was able to accomplish in Libya in a matter of a couple of months and $896 million what bush wasn't able accomplish in Iraq with nearly a decade of war and $1 trillion. Syria, if chemical weapons were used, would be justified in my mind.

Having been through a war myself, I've developed very strong anti-war inclinations. However, as much as I hate war and I think it is criminal in nature, I'm not going to pretend that there aren't situations in which it is justified to deploy our troops. Interventions to stop the scope of violence from escalating like Bosnia/Kosovo and (although it never happened) Rwanda would have been justified. Those are/would be the sorts of military missions that would make me proud for how our troops have been used by the government.

However, my biggest sticking point with war is that the media needs to stop sterilizing it. They need to show the dead women and children and report all of the atrocities that happen. The media needs to show the flag draped coffins and the gory images of the mangled dead that is produced. If we can stomach making the decision to send troops into harms way, then we need to stomach the gory details of what the decision fully entails. I know that at some point I need to get over myself, but the personal pain and images that I endure as a result of my war time service needs to be on the conscious of every American who supported the war. Every American who supported the war should have a picture of a mangled child's dead body front and center in their living room. They should have to face that image constantly during every moment of their life and it should haunt them just as much as it haunts the Soldier who killed that child and the family that lost that child. After all, if it wasn't for the support for the war at home there wouldn't have been a war.

War is messed up and it brings the worst out of people who otherwise seem to be the best people we have. When we hear stories of Soldiers posing with bodies of Taliban fighters like they were hunting trophies or videos of Soldiers pissing on the dead surface, we shouldn't be shocked. It's not natural to kill anyone. Having been through that experience myself, it makes you feel like shit regardless of the circumstance or how "justified" you are told it is. And, as much as I like to think that I'm a good person, the honest truth is it only got easier to do it the more the war went on. As soon as you can find yourself easily committing the ultimate transgression what stops you from committing any others? I'm probably doing a great job getting myself the "DU piece of shit" moniker, but the only reason I didn't piss on the body of or pose with the body of a person I killed was because I didn't think of it - and that is the honest truth.

People just need to be aware of the full scope of what their support for a war entails. Again, I'm not saying that there isn't such a thing as a justified war, but all wars are nasty. Our media does humanity a huge disservice by not accurately reporting it. It's just like the average American eating meat. Since most of us are removed from the process that brings us meat, it is easy for us to eat. However, if we all had to go into our backyards and butcher our own meat, I bet many people wouldn't be able to stomach it. The same holds true to war. It's easy to support a war when you are thousands of miles away and you see the clean shrink-wrapped version presented to you by the media but it isn't easy to support a war when you actually have the blood on your hands and you are involved in it.