I support a military strike to disable Assad's capability to use chemical weapons again.

[pinto]

This, in and of itself, is horrific and dehumanizing. Enough.

[Harmony Blue]

1. So who will be left to defend and secure the chemical weapons?

what about that problem?

[pinto]

10. Yeah, that's the nut. Yet, I feel we need to stop this at this point in time.

[NoOneMan]

2. We should spray the lot of em with white phosphorous, eh?

Thatll teach em

[neverforget]

3. Except those chemical weapons will still exist to be used after

the strike.

[Scootaloo]

4. Harmony Blue and Neverforget have pretty much summed it up

Though of course there's also the question of whether or not Assad used them in the first fucking place.

Funny how quickly such unfounded assertions are accepted as hard fact, isn't it?

[pinto]

12. Sometimes the obvious is true. Assad's regime gassed Syrian citizens.

[Scootaloo]

13. You want to talk about the obvious being true?

The rebels have been found with gas weapons in their possession.
Reports cite that the rebels have used sarin shells before.
The rebels were losing ground to the Syrian military and not gaining it back prior to this attack; obviously this places the upper hand with the military.

So. Just to draw it all together, Assad had nothing to gain from using these weapons - he was already winning. He has everything to lose from using these weapons, because of, well, exactly what we're seeing now. On the other hand, the rebels would have everything to gain and nothing to lose from a chemical attack - again, as seen from the current trajectory of events. And of course both sides are completely aware of all of this.

So why would Assad make such a tactically pointless move that he knew would only injure his position and empower the insurgents? Bashar al-Assad is a despotic dick. He's a weird elf-looking man. But he is not stupid or hasty by any measure.

Now, the bottom line is we don't know who conducted the attack - frankly we aren't even sure there was an attack, it wouldn't be the first time for false positives over something like this. Currently there are a team of UN investigators well, investigating. Any amount of logic or reason would suggest, hey, we should wait for their findings before we start making decisions. However, the United States has declared investigations irrelevant and announced that we're doing this no matter what, fuck the UN and its "investigations."

I for one, however, think investigations are very relevant; if it turns out Assad did do something monumentally stupid, okay, now we know and let's look at options. If it turns out the rebels were behind it, then won't we be glad we didn't waste lives and money dipping our collective nuts into that fire?

[pinto]

14. Good points.

I think this week will be telling, in an international setting.

Yet I disagree with your assumption that the use of chemical weapons is in dispute. Regardless of who is responsible - I'll leave the room for dispute here, despite the preponderance of evidence - it simply needs to end.

It simply needs to end.

[Warren Stupidity]

5. So basically you've learned nothing over the last 12 years.

[pinto]

9. I've learned a lot. As have we all. I see the independent sources, the videos unedited.

Yeah, the last 12 years have made me sceptical to an extent. But they haven't blinded me to day-to-day reality. This needs to end.

I've no delusions about the long term Syrian situation - it's a civil war.

But this has to end.

[morningfog]

6. Well, that might be your stopping point. But, will it be the US's and

how would you make that determination.

[bowens43]

7. an attack by the US would also be horrific and dehumanizing. No different then bushes attack on Iraq

[backscatter712]

8. The funny thing about war:

Killing toddlers is much easier than actually finding deadly weapons such as chemical weapons, and genuinely rendering them useless.

My prediction: We'll blow a lot of shit up, there will be plenty of "collateral damage", and sometime down the road, we'll be facepalming when we find out what was missed...

[Douglas Carpenter]

11. I doubt that any scenario of targeting that specific is feasible

most likely they would target command and control centers and other high value military targets - that would simply attempt to degrade Assad's forces. At what point do they stop? What if Assad's forces hit back?