What level of U.S.-inflicted death could YOU stomach in Syria?

[Ken Burch]

We now know that our weapons can't strike surgically anymore. We know that most, if not all, of those who died in a strike "against the use of chemical weapons" would be innocent civilians.

If you're ok with the U.S. raining down carnage on Syria, just how much carnage would be too much for you? Would any amount be too much at all?

Might as well get real about it. If Obama does what the DU Militarists want, a lot of people will no longer be alive...and it's by no means clear that we'd get anywhere close to hitting anybody who had anything to do with the decision to launch the gas(assuming it was the regime that launched it at all).

Bashir Assad is a murderous scumbag. But if we bomb Syria, we'll be no different from him at all. And it won't be possible for the Obama administration to ever again do anything progressive or humane after the bombing. It will just be a lame-duck dead zone until 2016.

So those who fancy themselves "humanitarian hawks" have a lot to think about.

[curlyred]

1. But it's OK, Ken

After all, we won't be using chemical weapons, right? Everyone knows its just fine if innocent women and children die as long as its not the gas.

[Ken Burch]

2. Yeah...our killing is so much NICER than other people's killing...

[curlyred]

4. Exactly.

What the hell kind of sophistry are we engaging in by saying otherwise?

[Barack_America]

3. Who says our weapons can't strike surgically?

I thought the main issue was the discretion (or lack thereof) of the operator.

[Ken Burch]

5. Didn't seem to be all that surgical in Iraq.

Why pretend it's going to be any more careful here?

And why even take the risk at all, given how little we've ever achieved by killing Arabs and Muslims?

[Incitatus]

7. Drones attacks are supposed to be well calculated and surgical.

I think more than a couple civilians have been killed and would imagine cruise missiles would do even more damage.

[Electric Monk]

8. The Operation was a success, but the patient died :/

[Lint Head]

6. And Bashir Assad nor his family will be harmed. Just the common people who happen to be

soldiers and the workers and night watchmen who close up shop and go home to their families at night. And innocent civilians. Better known as collateral damage.

[davidpdx]

9. I think we should sit back and do nothing

I mean he's only killed a few thousand (depending on the accuracy of the figures). We should wait until it's over a hundred thousand until we do anything.

[Celefin]

10. And he'll be allowed to go on killing

just not with gas. Obama has stated there is no intention of removing Assad from power (or kill him for that matter).
He is officially free to go all out with conventional weapons including napalm.

There are already over a hundred thousand dead and we haven't done anything so far except shipping weapons to the rebels. I'm certain that hasn't helped to bring down the death toll.

So, as to what the OP was asking:
How many dead by cruise missiles innocents are acceptable to not change anything at all except officially being at war with Syria?

[Ken Burch]

17. We already know that hitting Syria can't stop the gassing.

Why even pretend it wouldn't be futile? Nobody in our regime who wants the attack actually cares about the people Assad has killed anyway.

[cali]

11. far more troubling, is what we would engender by a military strike.

hardening the resolve of Assad

more foreign fighters flooding into the country

more of the Syrian civil war bleeding into Lebanon and Iraq

potential attacks on Israel from H'zbollah and/or Iran

[Donald Ian Rankin]

12. Depends entirely on what it accomplishes.

What many (by no means all) opponents of US military intervention in Syria appear to be denying, or at least obfuscating, is that there are innocent lives in both sides of the scales, not just in one.

The question is which is the lesser evil, and then depends entirely on what the bombing accomplishes.

I'm tentatively, but only tentatively, against bombing Syria, because I think that anything limited intervention would leave Assad in power, and thus probably won't make the situation there very much better, while a wholescale attempt at regime change would a) kill far, far more people than it saves, and b) might well result in someone nearly as bad in power.

The reason I'm not more confidently against it is because, while I don't think it will help Syria on balance, I think bombing would discourage other regimes on other occasions from using chemical weapons, while not doing so will embolden them. But I think (and, again, I cannot stress enough how unconfident I am in this assessment) that that's not sufficient to justify the harm it would do.



Your question is phrased in the past tense, though, so by the time I'm asked to answer it I'll have better information on both the good and the harm done, and my answer is that what I'll "stomach" will depend on the balance of the two, not just the latter. If the USA attacks and Assad just goes on using chemical weapons, I won't consider that to have justified even a small number of deaths; if a US attack results in a stable, prosperous democracy arising in Syria then I'll consider that to have justified even quite a large number of innocent people being killed.


So, in advance I'm tentatively against bombing. But if it happens and turns out to work, I'll happily admit that I was wrong.


Incidentally, the claim that if the US bombs Syria it will be no different from Assad is just laughable. What were you thinking when you wrote it?

[cali]

13. Of course wht is planned per Obama and admin officials will leave Assad in power

they don't want him to fall. Obama said so.

I agree the risks of military intervention are too great.

No one, and I do mean no one, thinks that a U.S. attack of any kind will lead to a stable, prosperous democracy. Killing hundreds of thousands will no more accomplish that in Syria than it has in Iraq.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

14. Where do you get that "hundreds of thousands" number from?

My understanding is that a US attack is likely to take the form of limited missile strikes on military targets, that - at a guess - would probably kill dozens or conceivably hundreds of people, many of them not civilians.

[cali]

16. essentially, from you

you said this:

while a wholescale attempt at regime change would a) kill far, far more people than it saves, and b) might well result in someone nearly as bad in power.

and that's what I was referring too. I thought that was pretty clear. sorry if it wasn't.

Yes, wholesale regime change would likely result in wholesale death.

[The Straight Story]

15. We sit by in the congo, 5.4 million have died. What is the magic number where

people seriously intervene and not just pussyfoot around (the UN has been there 14 years).

If assad were gassing just one group, exterminating them, would we care - or just shrug and say "We might hurt someone in the act of saving people, so let's keep our hands clean"?

I would bet my life that if 10 people in the US died from a chemical attack from chemical weapons smuggled over here people would be all for stopping it from happening it again.

A bunch of brown muslims living under a dictator, well - those people don't count and don't deserve anyone to be involved. Assad owns them and they are his people to do with as he pleases.

Let those kids in Syria eat cake. Just because we have the ability to stop the slaughter of people does not mean we should, better to sit back and watch our football games on the weekend sipping beer - or as sarah palin said "Let allah sort it out":

Sarah Palin jumped into the political fray over Syrian military intervention with a blistering Facebook post opposing any military action. Palin argues that while Americans are sympathetic to the plight of those suffering under Bashar al-Assad, there’s too much uncertainty about what the outcome could be and many of the rebels are al Qaeda-affiliated, so as far as she’s concerned, “let Allah sort it out.”

http://www.mediaite.com/online/sarah-palin-weighs-in-on-syria-let-allah-sort-it-out/

And letting him just get away with repeated chemical attacks? Well, why shouldn't other countries start using them on a regular basis. As long as they aren't over here hurting us, let them gas people all day long, ship em to camps where people are more 'concentrated' and it is easier to carry out. Betting folks would be just fine with that too (well, they may ask for a strongly worded letter from the UN, which has yet to work and would be vetoed by Russia like in 2012: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-14703995 )

[Bluenorthwest]

18. Lots of big dramatic rhetoric there, but you did not bother to answer the OP's question at all.

Because you can't.

[TheKentuckian]

19. You seem to be okay with doing nothing no matter how many are killed as long as it by acceptable

methods. Gas bad, bullets okay. Gas bad, depleted uranium okay. Gas bad, nukes okay or at least can be rationalized. Gas bad, agent orange and napalm okay. Gas bad, but I guess ovens okay. Make sure that gas is turned conventional and then rendering folks down to tallow is aight.

Hell, LANDMINES are okay, I reckon. Anything but gas. No, I don't give much of a fuck. A "conventional blockbuster will leave me in no better condition than sarin.

This is pure might makes right horseshit, brother. We get our dick swinging to make someone accountable only because we feel comfortable that no one else is big and bad enough to do the same to us and that is all.