theres a lot in the reddit thread that can be extrapolated to refer to the syria problem. the top comment is 'because china', which is a valid response. from your answer ren, we can deduce that if a group or nation is powerful enough that its weapons, troops, war material etc can serve as a deterrent, then they can reasonably expect 'peace...through superior firepower' (i own a tsirt that says that , along with a pic of an m41a1 pulse rifle, which fires 10 mm explosive tip caseless, standard light armor piercing rounds, with underslung pump action 30 mm grenade launcher, from the movie 'aliens').
and from the 'because china' comment, we can deduce that a group or country doesnt necessarily thave to even have its own military might, if it has a large enough ally.
the US is not contemplating this because we are 'knights in shining white armor riding in to rescue damsels in distress'. there are always more sinister (read as: realpolitik) geopolitical calculations that go into things like this, otherwise we would have started bombing nations like north korea a long time ago.
and this from an AP article recently:
'The Syrian government said administration claims were "flagrant lies" akin to faulty Bush administration assertions before the Iraq invasion that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. A Foreign Ministry statement read on state TV said that "under the pretext of protecting the Syrian people, they are making a case for an aggression that will kill hundreds (if not thousands) of innocent Syrian civilians."
Residents of Damascus stocked up on food and other necessities in anticipation of strikes, with no evident sign of panic. One man, 42-year-old Talal Dowayih, said: "I am not afraid from the Western threats to Syria; they created the chemical issue as a pretext for intervention, and they are trying to hit Syria for the sake of Israel."'
we cannot disregard the very real possibility that this was a false flag attack by parties unknown (but most likely the rebels themselves) to draw the US into the war against the syrian government.
i remember the run up to the second gulf war. i thought it was well planned BS then, as it has proven to be years later. i wrote a number of grad school papers (though not a thesis) on failures within the bush administration mostly in relation to the iraq war, one in particular on colin powell's almost entirely fabricated presentation to the UN before the conflict. all got A's, even from a professor who noted that even as a republican, he couldn't disagree. and this whole syria scenario just...reeks...of past idiocies.
but then, i don't know...just trying to foment different viewpoints on this.
