SHOULD THE U.S. INTERVENE IN SYRIA?
They say insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result. That aptly applies to our government’s(at least some parts of the govt.) intention to intervene in Syria. I have written to my 2 senators and my representative to vote for no intervention.
First, there are no national security issues involved. Syria nor Syrians have attacked the homeland nor have threatened to. The only “national security” issue is it’s proximity to Israel.
We are not the world’s police. Recently, wherever we have tried to be the police, we’ve been accused of police brutality. Instead of thank you cards we’ve gotten more hostility. Plus, it’s not like we have an endless supply of money.
The President says we have to intervene to stand up for international conventions and laws. One of those laws is that one country may not attack another without UN sanction unless to defend itself.
Also, do we know who we are helping? Who is to say that if the opposition unseats Assad, that they won’t carry out a revenge killing spree worse than the current one. Will we go back to reinstate Assad?
The only real reason to even consider intervention is the moral or humanitarian. The images we see are really horrific. But there are a lot of countries where, by the leaders’ acts of commission or omission, a lot of people suffer and die. Are we to send our armies to a dozen African countries and a few Asian ones. It seems cruel to turn our faces but it’s insanity entering headlong into a conflict for which there is no easy solution.
I hope other people express their opinions regarding this issue.
shoeb amin
I agree that the intervention is a bad idea for all the reasons mentioned by Shoeb Amin. But I also think this moral outrage is phony, and the foreign policy is being controlled by the interest groups like neocons and military industrial complex-regardless who is sitting in the White House. Mr. Kenan Malik writes in one of his article in Pandominium:
“We should, for a start, be somewhat skeptical of the moral anger now emanating from Whitehall, the White House and the Élysée Palace. Chemical weapons are obnoxious. But Western leaders are happy to see them used where it suits their needs. Recently declassified CIA documents have revealed, for instance, that America helped Saddam Hussein use sarin gas and other neurotoxins against Iranian forces in the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s because, in the words of the President Ronald Regan ‘An Iranian victory is unacceptable’. In their assault on the Iraqi city of Falluja in November 2004, America forces used white phosphorus shells – not technically a chemical weapon, but a horrific armament nevertheless; white phosphorous ignites on contact with oxygen, melts the skin and burns through to the bone. White phosphorus shells were also used by Israeli forces in Gaza in their 2008 war. Britain was selling to Syria the materials necessary to make chemical weapons until January 2012 – ten months into the uprising against Assad.”
Mr. Kenan did not mention Vietnam War. I think the real reason is , as Shoeb Amin mentioned, the proximity to Israel and involvement of Iran , Hazebullah and Saudi Arabia- a complex maize. We are being sucked into this web by interest groups.
Fayyaz
Syria is the heart of Muslim darkness. People on both sides of the conflict recite the same koranic verses to decimate each other. The principal sponsors of this theocratic license to annihilate are the holy states of Saudi Arabia and Iran. All other issues such as the Obama red line on chemical weapons spin off from the basic fact that Muslims are going through a period of fratricide because xenophobic militants are able to terrorize while the ruling elites dither. The social fabric is fractured and bloodshed has replaced tolerance and compromise. Over 100,000 dead in Syria, millions are made homeless. Those who have witnessed the carnage of bodies ripped apart by suicide and car bombs find the debate about chemical weapons rather spurious. The blame game and reciting old interventions only keep the pot stirring. The loss of life by all these means is equally nefarious. Equally reprehensible is the destruction of thousands of years of history and development. The cultures are being so hollowed out by conflict that can only end in stalemate there is precious little left to build upon.
What’s happening in Syria is a lesson for all countries to remember that if they are internally divided, they are easy meal for their enemies. Leaders must realize that if they suppress masses by the use of force things will get out of hand as the vultures hovering over their skies will arm the opposition too and opposition must realize that they are only given aid to destroy their country and not to help them.
There are no champions of morality in this world. Might is right and UNO is nothing more than a tool to provide legal cover for the actions of the superpowers.
Chemical weapons or atomic bombs are only the “privilege” of the mighty, a smoking gun to be planted or used as excuse for aggression. It is useless to condemn or not, the world politics is ruthless and blatant. President of USA is nothing but a dummy to give speeches, the power rests in the hands of interest groups, lobbies, weapons industry. World sucks.
Babar