So what is your red line? If Iran used a nuke and killed 1 million of it's own people

[Scootaloo]

95. It's a dumb question, and mockery is the valid "answer"

1) Yes, in scientific terms, it's "within possibility." In scientific terms, it's also possible that the universe and everything in it will turn inside out right now. Okay, how about riiiiiight... NOW! Just because there's no such thing as "0% chance" doesn't mean that every cockamamie idea deserves worry.

2) It's coming from a poster who has a habit of militarist scaremongering on DU. Did you know china is executing BILLIONS of hack attempts against the US every day (oops, sorry, millions, hurr hurr hurr)? They're our enemy, and might end up with a better economy! RRRRVIIIIL!

2) Said poster also has a silly habit of just outright dismissing (evading, you might say!) explanations that don't agree with his assumptions and desires. I know both Cali and myself have explained the Syria situation to him multiple times,and he response by sticking gum in his ears and screaming the lyrics to the Oscar Meyer song. MY BOLOGNA HAS A FIRST NAME!

The "question" is actually irrelevant. Of course everyone here has standards of ethics, lines in the sand. To tie this "line" to military action however, is a fallacious argument. The two are not linked. Here, allow me to demonstrate.

Surely for you, the mass butchery of well over six million innocent people is far beyond your own "line," isn't it? The systematic destruction of entire ethnic groups, wiping them from the face of the earth in the name of national ethnic purity is unconscionable to you, as it would be to anyone else. How about the treatment of other human beings as game animals, butchering and eating them like they were livestock? Wait, what, did you think I was talking about WW2 Germany? No, I'm talking about the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the war that's been going on there since 1997. Where are all of DU's demands for the overthrow of the Kabila regime? Why aren't you or Pretzel Warrior arguing for missile strikes into Kinshasa?

Despite all the possible reasons, I'm going to be charitable, and guess that you don't call for military action against Congo, despite the barbarities happening there, because there is nothing that US military intervention could possibly do to help the situation. Ding ding ding, this is the exact same problem facing us in Syria. Everyone around here agrees, there are horrible fucking things happening in Syria. Unconscionable things, and not just from the Syrian government's side of the field. But throwing US missiles into the mix is like throwing a cup of water at a huge grease fire. Ineffective and real potential to make it even worse.

Two years ago, when Assad starting chopping up his people for the "crime" of protesting his government, we could have done something then. What did we do? This;

“No,” Clinton said when asked on the CBS program “Face the Nation” if the U.S. would intervene in Syria’s unrest. Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s security forces clashed with protesters in several cities over the weekend after his promises of freedoms and pay increases failed to prevent dissent from spreading across the country.

Clinton said the elements that led to intervention in Libya -- international condemnation, an Arab League call for action, a United Nations Security Council resolution -- are “not going to happen” with Syria, in part because members of the U.S. Congress from both parties say they believe Assad is “a reformer.”

“What’s been happening there the last few weeks is deeply concerning, but there’s a difference between calling out aircraft and indiscriminately strafing and bombing your own cities,” Clinton said, referring to Qaddafi’s attacks on the Libyan people, “than police actions which, frankly, have exceeded the use of force that any of us would want to see.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-27/u-s-won-t-intervene-in-syria-unrest-clinton-says-on-cbs.html

But now that US intervention has exactly zero chance of making things better, suddenly we're all for it?

Yeah, the butchery in Syria is horrifying. And you know what, I wish there were some way we could make a positive impact there, to stop it, to save people, to end the chaos. But there isn't.