What's behind the "Chemical Red Line Worry"
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Chemical weapons are obviously terrible, but what's really the difference between slitting the throats of a whole village[^] which was indeed reported (at least in some media, and to some extent) but not really treated as something that should require any particular "response", and the alleged usage of chemical weapons which is clear to be crossing a red line? Is Machete mass murder more humane than Gas mass murder? Or does the US have any motive to support the rebels, a motive that has nothing to do with humanity? :confused:
-- If money is your hope for independence, you cannot reach it. Being loved gives you strength, while loving gives you courage.
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Chemical weapons are obviously terrible, but what's really the difference between slitting the throats of a whole village[^] which was indeed reported (at least in some media, and to some extent) but not really treated as something that should require any particular "response", and the alleged usage of chemical weapons which is clear to be crossing a red line? Is Machete mass murder more humane than Gas mass murder? Or does the US have any motive to support the rebels, a motive that has nothing to do with humanity? :confused:
-- If money is your hope for independence, you cannot reach it. Being loved gives you strength, while loving gives you courage.
"Dumba is near the fishing village of Baga where security forces in March gunned down 187 civilians" Refresh my memory: who are the good guys, here?
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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"Dumba is near the fishing village of Baga where security forces in March gunned down 187 civilians" Refresh my memory: who are the good guys, here?
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
I am not sure you can find too many "good guys" over the age of 9, in either side. And that, sadly, may be true for many more conflicts... :sigh:
-- If money is your hope for independence, you cannot reach it. Being loved gives you strength, while loving gives you courage.
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I am not sure you can find too many "good guys" over the age of 9, in either side. And that, sadly, may be true for many more conflicts... :sigh:
-- If money is your hope for independence, you cannot reach it. Being loved gives you strength, while loving gives you courage.
That's exactly the point. The religious claims of murderous b@st@rds are irrelevant; they just want to kill and steal. Religion has nothing to do with what's going on in Nigeria; it just gives the various murderous factions something to paint on their hats.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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That's exactly the point. The religious claims of murderous b@st@rds are irrelevant; they just want to kill and steal. Religion has nothing to do with what's going on in Nigeria; it just gives the various murderous factions something to paint on their hats.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
So, my point was how does the US justify it's intention to engage a military operation in Syria, in a battle between Hizbullha/Syria/Iran Vs. Al-Queda/Free Syrian Army/Al-Nusra/etc What can possibly the US motive to support one or the other?[^]
-- If money is your hope for independence, you cannot reach it. Being loved gives you strength, while loving gives you courage.
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Chemical weapons are obviously terrible, but what's really the difference between slitting the throats of a whole village[^] which was indeed reported (at least in some media, and to some extent) but not really treated as something that should require any particular "response", and the alleged usage of chemical weapons which is clear to be crossing a red line? Is Machete mass murder more humane than Gas mass murder? Or does the US have any motive to support the rebels, a motive that has nothing to do with humanity? :confused:
-- If money is your hope for independence, you cannot reach it. Being loved gives you strength, while loving gives you courage.
Because people hate efficiency. No, really. Consider the following: - prison: ok - Gulag: not ok - hand gun: ok - assault rifle (the media's favorite word): not ok - bombs: ok if you're the military - atomic bombs: only ok when used on Japan - shooting the enemy: ok - gassing the enemy: not ok - killing the enemy with a machete: ok if you're a Muslim? we have to be tolerant of halal slaughter after all
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So, my point was how does the US justify it's intention to engage a military operation in Syria, in a battle between Hizbullha/Syria/Iran Vs. Al-Queda/Free Syrian Army/Al-Nusra/etc What can possibly the US motive to support one or the other?[^]
-- If money is your hope for independence, you cannot reach it. Being loved gives you strength, while loving gives you courage.
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So, my point was how does the US justify it's intention to engage a military operation in Syria, in a battle between Hizbullha/Syria/Iran Vs. Al-Queda/Free Syrian Army/Al-Nusra/etc What can possibly the US motive to support one or the other?[^]
-- If money is your hope for independence, you cannot reach it. Being loved gives you strength, while loving gives you courage.
The same as it justifies all such interventions -- as bomb-dropping training for its troops.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Chemical weapons are obviously terrible, but what's really the difference between slitting the throats of a whole village[^] which was indeed reported (at least in some media, and to some extent) but not really treated as something that should require any particular "response", and the alleged usage of chemical weapons which is clear to be crossing a red line? Is Machete mass murder more humane than Gas mass murder? Or does the US have any motive to support the rebels, a motive that has nothing to do with humanity? :confused:
-- If money is your hope for independence, you cannot reach it. Being loved gives you strength, while loving gives you courage.
If you shoot innocent civilian and burn down their village a la My Lai, what is that? Mass murder? How much jail time did Lt. Calley get?
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"Dumba is near the fishing village of Baga where security forces in March gunned down 187 civilians" Refresh my memory: who are the good guys, here?
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
To quote Henry Kissinger (on the Iran-Iraq war): "It's too bad they both can't lose." Two years ago, before the opposition became dominated by the crazies, there was a good/bad side to the conflict that we could have backed in relatively clean conscious. Now; the only reason to get involved is to try and maintain what little of our credibility in the region Zero hasn't flushed away by following through on the promise to open up the whole can of whuppass if Assad used his chemical weapons, and incidentally try to destroy all of them before Al-Qaeda can get its hands on them and smuggle them out for use elsewhere.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason? Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful? --Zachris Topelius Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies. -- Sarah Hoyt
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Canny Brisk wrote:
justify
That's easy. All they need is some plausible-sounding story. It doesn't have to make sense, it doesn't even have to be true.
harold aptroot wrote:
it doesn't even have to be true
Would our government lie to us? If there lips are moving...
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Chemical weapons are obviously terrible, but what's really the difference between slitting the throats of a whole village[^] which was indeed reported (at least in some media, and to some extent) but not really treated as something that should require any particular "response", and the alleged usage of chemical weapons which is clear to be crossing a red line? Is Machete mass murder more humane than Gas mass murder? Or does the US have any motive to support the rebels, a motive that has nothing to do with humanity? :confused:
-- If money is your hope for independence, you cannot reach it. Being loved gives you strength, while loving gives you courage.
The idea behind banning weapons of mass destruction is that they make the process of exterminating a group too easy and too impersonal. It is easy lob a dozen poison gas canisters into a village and walk away: you never see the faces of the victims, you never see the children suffocating, you probably are not even close enough to hear them scream as they die. This makes the killing much more easy to justify and much more easy to ignore. Worse, it makes it much more efficient: a single person, with sufficient hardware, can murder hundreds of thousands of people with as much effort as microwaving a bag of popcorn. It is not that machete mass murder is more humane or less evil, it's that machete mass murder is not scalable in the way that gas mass murder is.
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The idea behind banning weapons of mass destruction is that they make the process of exterminating a group too easy and too impersonal. It is easy lob a dozen poison gas canisters into a village and walk away: you never see the faces of the victims, you never see the children suffocating, you probably are not even close enough to hear them scream as they die. This makes the killing much more easy to justify and much more easy to ignore. Worse, it makes it much more efficient: a single person, with sufficient hardware, can murder hundreds of thousands of people with as much effort as microwaving a bag of popcorn. It is not that machete mass murder is more humane or less evil, it's that machete mass murder is not scalable in the way that gas mass murder is.