General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Per the NY Times--no vote would be tough love for Obama, good for America [View all]glowing
(12,233 posts)a greedy empire crushing agent, policing the world.
There are way too many elements mixed into this world wide focused game of chicken and red lines. Syria is not just sitting alone in its little Civil War... We have CIA in country providing training, weapons, havoc for the "rebels". We have Al Queda as the STRONG arm of the fighting rebels (and many coming in from outside regions, supported by various elements in the area who wish for control over oil and access). We have Russia and China and Iran very threatened by yet another invasion of Western Troops. And for all the nasty misdeeds by The Assad Regime, they are "secular". The opposition has a strong extremist Muslim element.
And all these military strongholds were strategically placed among civilian population centers. The bombing of these installments will create "collateral damage". This could create more death and maiming than what has happened this far. And in the bonus, we could create WW3 for the world to needlessly endure with far more powerful, dangerous weapons.
What I fear is some sort of "false flag" type of initiative to push people into outrage and need for reprisal. The plans for invading Iraq were on the Preaident's desk far before 9/11 happened. And they used the attacks to dismantle our constitution, invade a country illegally, torture, spy, indebt us to extremes.
Sorry, but you can't spend the last few years keeping people in "austerity" and then start up another costly war. It's time to fix this country before we run around pointing weapons and throwing out rhetoric of moral superiority... Hello, Gitmo is still opened and the prisoners are on a hunger strike. We have people dying from lack of health care. We have 1 out of every 4 children living in poverty and still more living in financially insecure homes.
Not until we fix our country, do we have the right or authority to intervene by bombing the shit out of them. How fast do we make more enemies when a school is blown up by a bomb with USA written on the side? How many more extremists do we create? Are we ready for the pictures of parents crying and screaming, holding their dead, bloody child? Didn't we get enough of that already.
War has got to stop! We don't need to solve our problems at the end of a weapon. We have knowledge and technology that could make this world a more harmonious place to live for all of its inhabitants. It's time to change the MIC industry from being a profitable cash cow! It's time to stop being the biggest producer of weapons and arms for other countries to buy or to obtain under "friendly" treaties. (Like Pakistan having Nuclear weapons... That was such a wonderful idea, right?)