Before the nukes fly, FUCK YOU 3RD PARTY VOTERS ALL TO HELL!

[JHan]

193. I get all of that but this is what I worry about..

Anti-interventionist talk seems best because no intervention means no risk. No intervention also means conflicts are allowed to escalate. My views on this are really complex because I despise the war industry. I see how it layers over every aspect of our lives and weans us onto accepting insane defense spending, sacrificing domestic policy to feed the beast. But my views are also shaped by people living in exile I know personally, I'll admit that up front.

One of my best friends, an Iranian exile who had to leave Iran when he was 11 with his parents, ( and I know this is anecdotal but his view isn't unusual) liked the MOAB strike - his argument to me was: it was a low body count and an ISIS commander and ISIS base was destroyed. I disagreed with him, concerned that using this bomb sets a precedent we should be worried about. But he is not alone here... There was a column on VICE recently about the missile strike in Syria that spells it out well:

Some of those who suffered the tyranny of Syrian president Bashar al Assad couldn't help but applaud the strike. To these Syrians, the reflexive denouncing of Trump's action shows how little some observers understand the complexity of the Syrian situation. Dismissing the move as imperialist intervention means minimizing the role the Syrian military has played in the conflict. One of the central elements of the war is that the one force that should have been safeguarding Syrian lives—the country's army—is the one killing them.

Remember that the war began in 2011 after Assad sent tanks in response to an initially peaceful uprising in city of Dara'a. This was one of several places where civilians flooded the streets daily to protest against the government and its oppressive policies. As a result, Dara'a was placed under a siege for weeks, a brutal method of punishing and suppressing civil dissent.

The government's perpetuation of repressive tactics across Syria further exposed that the country's leaders were not concerned with Syrian interests, but their own narrow need to hold on to power. Soldiers were commanded to open fire at peaceful protesters, arrest activists, and close down entire cities, towns, and villages. As this mass violence was perpetuated by the government, some officers defected from the military, later forming the armed opposition.

In 2011, I was one of the thousands, maybe millions, of Syrians who joined the nonviolent demonstrations against the injustices of Assad's government. I still remember how, at the beginning, we were naïve enough to believe that the Syrian army would take the side of the uprisings and protect this movement and the people. But as we all know, of course, the opposite happened. We were faced with live bullets and bore the brunt of the army's brutality.

We were deemed terrorists and traitors, told that we deserve to be killed for raising our voice against the president. The forces who were so callously attacking us grew up believing that Assad and his father, Hafez, were some sort of gods, and that whoever expresses disloyalty against these deities deserves to be shot dead without even a trial.

The horror and the fear of the army wasn't felt just during the demonstrations. I remember how my heart dropped every time we stopped on a government checkpoint. I had to delete messages constantly, because soldiers had the right to go through our phones and laptops to make sure we were not participating in any anti-government activities.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/what-trumps-missile-strike-means-for-syrians-like-me

The author cites 2011 as a pivotal year - that was the time to strike. I've long felt the international community - not just the U.S. - should have intervened and nipped Assad's violence, but that never happened. As I said to MsToad in my reply to her, international law doesn't work unless everyone is on board. But adopting a stance of never getting involved can be as callous as an impulsive intervention. There are no easy answers.