A statistic that's been buzzing in my brain all day

[cali]

1 million child refugees have fled Syria over the past couple of years. That's just a staggeringly tragic figure.

UN Logs 1 Millionth Syrian Child Refugee
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/08/un-logs-1-million-syrian-child-refugees/



*Obligatory Note: This is in no way advocating for U.S. involvement in Syria.

[Cleita]

1. Here's what's been bothering me.

Last edited Fri Aug 23, 2013, 05:13 PM - Edit history (1)

Instead of weaponizing these countries why can't we provide the innocent civilians the means of coping with this like offering food, medical help, transportation from war zones and safe places of refuge until the conflicts in their countries are resolved?

All our pols are talking about is providing this side or that side with weapons or fly over zones, or just ringing their hands not knowing what to do. I believe I'm talking about the help we should be giving to places like Egypt as well as Syria and any other hot spots engaged in civil, religious or tribal warfare. Don't give them military help unless we are crystal clear on which side is the one we should be supporting.

Yes, those children need help lots of it and it should be unqualified and without prejudice.

[leftstreet]

2. +1 It's always war talk, never people talk

The wealthy elite wring their hands over resource theft and extraction, while we the people suffer

[cali]

3. + a lot.

[Neoma]

4. War profiteers.

That's why.

[winter is coming]

6. +1. If helping people were as profitable as killing people, the world would be so different. n/t

[Neoma]

7. No, they've practiced "helping" people too.

It's called slavery. Everyone had a job then!

[winter is coming]

8. Ouch! n/t

[Neoma]

10. In all seriousness.

I think a Republican said that about slavery. Can't find it though.

[winter is coming]

11. Wouldn't surprise me at all. Sigh. n/t

[Jackpine Radical]

5. A great principle, hard to execute in reality.

The distinction between a "helper of (rebellious) civilians" and "foreign interloper" is generally totally lost on the dictators, who tend to kill the furriners until they get sick of their do-gooderism & go home. If it's a UN intervention, for example, it doesn't take much of a threat of violence to make them declare the situation impossibly unsafe & go home.

[Cleita]

12. I'm confident that once our fearless leaders pull their

collective heads out of the asses of our military industrial complex, they could come up with a workable plan. We are very efficient when we want to be.

[JI7]

13. isn't that what we have bene doing, providing non military aid ?

[Cleita]

14. If we have, put up what information you have because

right now all the talk is about military aid as a solution.

[JI7]

15. $195M more in humanitarian and food aid to Syria

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/08/07/obama-pledges-15m-more-in-humanitarian-and-food-aid-to-syria/

the reason the military aid is being debated and discussed is because that is where there is strong disagreement and it could have a worse affect .

there is no dispute about non military aid because everyone agrees with it other than those those with anti big govt positions .

[Cleita]

16. Good. We need to keep it up but

we shouldn't be providing arms at all.

[JI7]

17. i don't see how we can stop Assad without using arms

whether it's by giving it to rebels or through UN or some other way.

[Cleita]

19. It's not our job to stop Assad.

We need to support human rights but the minute we take sides we are in trouble. Hard as it is, this isn't our fight. We must extend all the humanitarian aid we can though.

[Demo_Chris]

9. Here's another: one in five US children went to bed without food last night...

That's tens of millions of US kids going hungry because their parents cannot afford food and we wont properly fund assistance programs.

Want another: Approximately one in ten US schoolchildren children are homeless. They are sleeping in shelters, in their parent's car, crashing on a friend's couch or floor. You wouldn't know it to look at them, they're showing up at school just like the other kids, they're not talking about it in class because they are ashamed.

But WE are the ones who aught to be ashamed. We can spend BILLIONS on wars, BILLIONS on domestic spying programs, BILLIONS building secret data centers, BILLIONS in corporate welfare, BILLIONS in tax cuts for the top ten percent, but we can't take care of our children.

[dawg]

18. Looks like they are getting the cruise missiles ready even as we speak.

Whatever they decide, I sure hope it turns out for the best. My inclination would be not to intervene (other than offering humanitarian aid to all) but who knows how much worse it is likely to get until something tilts the balance of power definitively to one side or the other?

I just hope the people of Syria don't suffer through all of this only to end up with something even *worse* than Assad.

[Cleita]

20. This is the danger, "worse than Assad". eom