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jc.
We better be damn sure 100% that it is the work of the Syrian government before we go stomping in there, and not some 3rd party looking to start something.
Like the CIA.
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jc Quote:
ROME (AP) - Italy is insisting that any military strike against Syria for its alleged chemical attack on civilians must be authorized by the U.N. Security Council.
Briefing Parliament on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Emma Bonino called the chemical attack a "war crime" but said the government wouldn't support military action without Security Council authorization.
She said: "Italy will not take active part in any military action ... beyond the context of the Security Council, which for us is and remains the only point of legal reference that cannot be ignored."
Italy offered both military bases on its territory and its own aircraft for the 2011 NATO campaign in Libya.
http://www.nbc-2.com/story/23263187/italy-insists-on-un-mandate-for-any-syria-strikes
We don't have to agree with each other, to respect each others opinion.
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Help me out here - for some reason, I seem to remember the un's security council consisting of 7 countries, and any one of them can "veto" action.
I do seem to recall the the u.s., russia, and china are on the security council, as well as others I don't remember.
On a side note, Russia, China, and Iran have made strong statements against any military action........so, got my head spinning.............if we do anything, and WW3 breaks out, who's on our side, who's on the other side?
Our side, imo: Britain, Australia, France.........maybe Canada. Germany? South Korea. who else?
Who's on the other side? China, Russia, N. Korea, most of the middle east I would assume.........
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The Security Council is actually made up of 15 members, with 5 permanent members (USA, GB, France, Russia, China). All the 5 permanent members have a veto. IMO, the Security Council is the only branch of the UN that means a damn.
So basically, if you're doing something wrong and manage to tick off all 5 of the permanent members, there will probably be a resolution passed by the Council using its Section 7 powers (making the resolution binding upon all states involved). If you violate the resolution, then there is a justified avenue for the use of force against your nation's sovereignty.
Ergo, when you're the lap dog of one of the Permanent 5 (Israel, DPRK, Syria), you can literally get away with murder because every attempt to pass a resolution against you will get vetoed.
Great system, eh?
Blue ostriches on crack float on milkshakes between the sidewalk titans of gurglefitz. --YTown
#gmstrong
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There are 15.....5 permanent members....Great Britan, France, USA, Russia, China.
If everybody had like minds, we would never learn. GM Strong ![[Linked Image]](http://www.dawgtalkers.net/uploads/small-gator-chomp.gif)
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Got it. Thanks for the info, and you too peen. I was close - but wrong. 
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Quote:
Italy is insisting that any military strike against Syria for its alleged chemical attack on civilians must be authorized by the U.N. Security Council.
From my perspective, as long as the word "alleged" is in the sentence, no military strike is called for.
Sort of like WMD's.. They were alleged to be in Iraq,, we attacked and didn't find them.
In other words, be sure.
#GMSTRONG
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Daniel Patrick Moynahan
"Alternative facts hurt us all. Think before you blindly believe."
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Didnt Iraq gas like 150,000 people at one point?
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Didnt Iraq gas like 150,000 people at one point?
the Kurds I believe.
Joe Thomas #73
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I have a question, why do we have to do anything? I mean, it's not like we need to get tied up in another conflict.
Doesn't appear that anyone has really tried to answer your question yet. I'll try to answer by posing to you a thought experiment. Suppose you are standing in a group of people. One of the members of the group starts to attack the weakest member of the group, and everyone else in the group stands by watching with apprehension. You are clearly the strongest, most capable person in the group, and the others occasionally look in your direction to see what you will do. You know that if you intervene, you will sustain physical damage. A decision to intervene in the attack will not be a consequence free action. Furthermore, it is clear that you will not receive help from some of the stronger persons in the group for whatever reasons. No one in the group is keen to take the lead in interfering because of the personal danger. So, what is your moral responsibility in this situation?
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Quote:
Quote:
I have a question, why do we have to do anything? I mean, it's not like we need to get tied up in another conflict.
Doesn't appear that anyone has really tried to answer your question yet. I'll try to answer by posing to you a thought experiment. Suppose you are standing in a group of people. One of the members of the group starts to attack the weakest member of the group, and everyone else in the group stands by watching with apprehension. You are clearly the strongest, most capable person in the group, and the others occasionally look in your direction to see what you will do. You know that if you intervene, you will sustain physical damage. A decision to intervene in the attack will not be a consequence free action. Furthermore, it is clear that you will not receive help from some of the stronger persons in the group for whatever reasons. No one in the group is keen to take the lead in interfering because of the personal danger. So, what is your moral responsibility in this situation?
Problem is, the group is thousands of miles away. The "baddie" hasn't done anything to me. Why must I fly thousands of miles to stick my nose into someone else's business, thousands of miles away, when I know anything I do I will be paying for?
On a global scale, I get your supposition. In reality, though, we are faced with the facts: We can't stop all bad in the world. Other, strong nations, are telling us to but out or else.
What is the moral responsibility in this situation? Help some, knowing you will be hated and possibly/probably attacked, causing more death and destruction? tick off a few of the powerful people/countries? Risk/reward. What is YOUR moral responsibility here?
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Didnt Iraq gas like 150,000 people at one point?
Allegedly! Not sure I've heard any confirmation of that. but that's not at all what I'm concerned about. I want to know it's always us carrying the load..
#GMSTRONG
“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.”
Daniel Patrick Moynahan
"Alternative facts hurt us all. Think before you blindly believe."
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Didnt Iraq gas like 150,000 people at one point?
Allegedly! Not sure I've heard any confirmation of that. but that's not at all what I'm concerned about. I want to know it's always us carrying the load..
I understand that, I was just asking if that really happened.
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Ok, thanks for the clarification. Your original post said "...China is not getting that money back....".
As far as meaning the repayment of their loan in full with interest, and without a devaluation of currency?
It's pretty unlikely, yeah.
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Quote:
Ok, thanks for the clarification. Your original post said "...China is not getting that money back....".
As far as meaning the repayment of their loan in full with interest, and without a devaluation of currency?
It's pretty unlikely, yeah.
Our currency is already devalued, and getting more devalued as we speak.
MY point was, China isn't loaning money without expecting to be re-paid in one manner or another. Bankrupting the u.s. would be one way.
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Problem is, the group is thousands of miles away. The "baddie" hasn't done anything to me. Why must I fly thousands of miles to stick my nose into someone else's business, thousands of miles away, when I know anything I do I will be paying for?
Two questions:
1. Do you believe you are morally obligated to intervene in a situation where a person is being harmed by another, assuming you are capable of doing so and the intervention will not result in your demise?
2. Do you believe a nation is morally obligated to intervene in a situation where a people group is being harmed by a national authority, assuming the nation is capable of doing so and the intervention will not result in its demise?
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Quote:
Problem is, the group is thousands of miles away. The "baddie" hasn't done anything to me. Why must I fly thousands of miles to stick my nose into someone else's business, thousands of miles away, when I know anything I do I will be paying for?
Two questions:
1. Do you believe you are morally obligated to intervene in a situation where a person is being harmed by another, assuming you are capable of doing so and the intervention will not result in your demise?
2. Do you believe a nation is morally obligated to intervene in a situation where a people group is being harmed by a national authority, assuming the nation is capable of doing so and the intervention will not result in its demise?
Answer my question first.
And let me be more direct with my question. Would you intervene in what you perceived to be an injustice, half way across the world...........with the consequences if you do of possibly causing an even bigger killing, or a huge war, would you do it?
I will answer your questions. 1. No, I do not feel I am morally obligated, due to the fact that it may end in my demise. If you guarantee it won't end in my demise, or the demise of loved ones, yes, I am morally obligated. Let's translate that to the issue at hand: Syria. No, I do not feel we are obligated to send troops to fight a war that will solve nothing, only cause more hated of the u.s............as a result of a conflict we didn't start, and gain no benefit by entering.
2.. No. I don't.
You answer my questions now.
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Our currency is already devalued, and getting more devalued as we speak.
Actually, this is an almost myth. Since our currency is backed solely by the markets - as long as the dollar trades well, it isn't devalued at all. This means that as long as market confidence in the dollar remains high, and it trades well, we can keep printing it.
Browns is the Browns
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And quit trying to be so psychoanalytical about everything. Drop the "I'm better than you........if you'd read the studies........" crap, and answer a question. Or make a statement. You seem to often times revert to "my education and knowledge says you're wrong"........I seldom hear how you'd fix anything. Are you in politics?
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Quote:
Our currency is already devalued, and getting more devalued as we speak.
Actually, this is an almost myth. Since our currency is backed solely by the markets - as long as the dollar trades well, it isn't devalued at all. This means that as long as market confidence in the dollar remains high, and it trades well, we can keep printing it.
Couple of things. Have you heard about foreign countries wanting to get away from the dollar as the benchmark currency?
My understanding is market confidence in the dollar is NOT high. Further more, if we keep printing it, with nothing to back it up...........hello inflation.
Just read an article today about the fed, the treasury, and how if they quit buying our debt, foreign investors will too, and that translates into big interest charges.
Of course, I can't find the article now.
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Our side, imo: Britain, Australia, France.........maybe Canada. Germany? South Korea. who else?
Who's on the other side? China, Russia, N. Korea, most of the middle east I would assume.........
Maybe we could trade France for some prospects. 
And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.
- John Muir
#GMSTRONG
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And quit trying to be so psychoanalytical about everything. Drop the "I'm better than you........if you'd read the studies........" crap, and answer a question. Or make a statement. You seem to often times revert to "my education and knowledge says you're wrong"........I seldom hear how you'd fix anything. Are you in politics?
You constantly accuse people of thinking or implying that they're better or smarter than you, when they're doing no such thing.
Is that some sort of inferiority complex or something?
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I must say, I'm surprised by your harsh response. I'll admit there have been some threads in which I crossed the line into what IRE calls pretentiousness; but in this thread, all I've done is ask questions. I am genuinely interested in the answers to the questions I ask, and I always intend them for everyone. I don't indicate this on every post because that would become tedious, but If you took my questions as a direct attack on you, know that they were not. Quote:
Answer my question first.
And let me be more direct with my question. Would you intervene in what you perceived to be an injustice, half way across the world...........with the consequences if you do of possibly causing an even bigger killing, or a huge war, would you do it?
First, I don't see the relevance of distance. An injustice done in our hemisphere or on the exact opposite side of the globe doesn't change anything. However, your second point about unintended consequences is pertinent. If we could know with a high degree of probability that our intervention would make things worse, then we shouldn't do it. But the possibility of making things worse isn't good enough. Everything we do has the potential to go wrong. That's no reason to never attempt anything. No one can say with certainty, or even a high degree of probability, that intervention in Syria will make things worse. That's just speculation.
I've had different views on this over the course of my life. At one time, I was an ardent isolationist. I didn't think the US should be involved in anything outside of our borders other than trade. Two things brought me out of that view. First, exclusive focus on basing actions on self interest essentially destroys all moral obligations to other human beings. I was uncomfortable with this consequence. It seemed to me that you could not hold to the self interest of isolationism and the existence of at least some moral obligations to others.
Second, I came to realize that my isolationist beliefs were actually a crisis of confidence. I asked myself if I believed there were ideals worth defending, worth sacrificing and suffering for. I concluded that there was at least one ideal worth sacrificing for -- the idea that a human being deserves a measure of autonomous existence, freedom from the pernicious and sometimes deadly influence of an authoritative body, government, tyrant, or otherwise. Western civilization was founded on this ideal, and we used to believe it was important enough to spread to the rest of the world. But with the fall of imperialism and the advent of decolonization, we began to believe that our influence in the rest of the world was negative. We lost faith in the universality of our highest ideals.
There was a resurgence of the faith a decade ago, but the blunders of an incompetent president and his advisors dealt a serious blow to the notion that human freedom, autonomy, and self-determination are universal rights. We hold these ideals for ourselves, but we now tend to believe they are only for us, that only we can understand and practice them. We claim this, but I suspect the real reason we believe it is simply because we don't want to sacrifice anything for these ideals. It costs money and human life to promote and defend these ideals around the world. We did it in the past because we had confidence in the universality of these ideals. This is why I say isolationism is a crisis of confidence. Isolationism is cowardice.
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Didnt Iraq gas like 150,000 people at one point?
the Kurds I believe.
He attacked the Shiite as well.
Saddam was a homicidal madman ..... but he was our madman for a while. He was willing to fight Iran and keep them too busy to make trouble elsewhere, so that was good for us. Once he started to pursue his own agenda though, (like invading our ally Kuwait) we had to remove him.
Micah 6:8; He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.
John 14:19 Jesus said: Because I live, you also will live.
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j/c NBC just laid out the US attack on Syria....giving specific targets, weapons we will use, time of day we will strike, what ships will be in the area, etc. Saved the Syrian intelligence
And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.
- John Muir
#GMSTRONG
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I'll take a stab at it.
Morally are we responsible to do anything? It's not that easy of a yes or no. There are many variables, as Arch was pointing out, and to me the primary one, is proof. We have seen how our intelligence insists on something, only to later find out it wasn't so.
If we are going to do something in Syria, we had better be sure we are going after the right people, and it is probably best to have a second, independent, opinion on who that is.
As far as moral responsibility truly goes, that window is closed. At this point it would be revenge, which is morally wrong. Some would call it serving justice I guess, but again, to serve justice, you must have evidence that proves the suspect is guilty.
So again, we come around to the proof and identifying who is the suspect of this act, and right now I do not have confidence in our administration to come to an honest and unbiased answer.
We don't have to agree with each other, to respect each others opinion.
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Quote:
Quote:
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Didnt Iraq gas like 150,000 people at one point?
Allegedly! Not sure I've heard any confirmation of that. but that's not at all what I'm concerned about. I want to know it's always us carrying the load..
I understand that, I was just asking if that really happened.
I honestly don't know...
#GMSTRONG
“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.”
Daniel Patrick Moynahan
"Alternative facts hurt us all. Think before you blindly believe."
Damanshot
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Here is what I guess Im alluding to.
We know someone gassed 150k+ Iraqi's. We were told it was Saddam and went to war to remove him from power and save the Iraqi people. Then there were no weapons found.
This seems to be pretty similar to whats going on now. If we (the UN) starts another war, will we find wmd's?
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Quote:
Here is what I guess Im alluding to.
We know someone gassed 150k+ Iraqi's. We were told it was Saddam and went to war to remove him from power and save the Iraqi people. Then there were no weapons found.
This seems to be pretty similar to whats going on now. If we (the UN) starts another war, will we find wmd's?
This was at the end of the Iran/Iraq war though -- and in fact, the CIA was helping Saddam pick Iranian Targets to Gas:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/20..._he_gassed_iran
"When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God." Leviticus 19:33-34
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(CNN) -- What is widely recognized as the most authoritative study of the United States' responses to mass killings around the world -- from the massacres of Armenians by the Turks a century ago, to the Holocaust, to the more recent Serbian atrocities against Bosnian Muslims and the ethnic cleansing of the Tutsis in Rwanda -- concluded that they all shared unfortunate commonalities:
"Despite graphic media coverage, American policymakers, journalists and citizens are extremely slow to muster the imagination needed to reckon with evil. Ahead of the killings, they assume rational actors will not inflict seemingly gratuitous violence. They trust in good-faith negotiations and traditional diplomacy. Once the killings start, they assume that civilians who keep their head down will be left alone. They urge cease-fires and donate humanitarian aid."
This is an almost perfect description of how the United States has acted over the past two years as it has tried to come up with some kind of policy to end the Assad regime's brutal war on its own people in Syria.
The author who wrote the scathingly critical history of how the United States has generally dithered in the face of genocide and mass killings went on to win a 2003 Pulitzer Prize for her book "A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide."
A decade after winning the Pulitzer, that author is now the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Her name, of course, is Samantha Power, and she is a longtime, close aide to President Barack Obama. She started working for Obama when he was a largely unknown junior senator from Illinois.
Power called her 610-page study of genocide "A Problem from Hell" because that's how then-U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher referred to the Bosnian civil war and the unpalatable options available to the U.S. in the early 1990s to halt the atrocities by the Serbs.
One of the U.S. officials that Power took to task in her book is Susan Rice who, as the senior State Department official responsible for Africa, did nothing in the face of the genocide unfolding in Rwanda in 1994.
Rice is quoted in the book as suggesting during an interagency conference call that the public use of the word "genocide" to describe what was then going on in Rwanda while doing nothing to prevent it would be unwise and might negatively affect the Democratic Party in upcoming congressional elections.
Missile strikes on Syria likely response to chemical attack
Rice later told Power she could not recall making this statement but also conceded that if she had made it, the statement was "completely inappropriate, as well as irrelevant."
Rice is now Obama's national security adviser.
In 2012, at Power's urging, Obama announced the creation of an interagency task force to help stamp out atrocities around the world. Called the Atrocities Prevention Board, it was led by Power during its first year. Meanwhile, the body count in Syria kept spiraling upward.
For the past two years, Obama hasn't wanted to intervene militarily in Syria.
Who would? The country is de facto breaking up into jihadist-run "emirates" and Alawite rump states. It is also the scene of a proxy war that pits al Qaeda affiliates backed by Qatar and Saudi Arabia against Hezbollah, backed by Iran.
U.S. military action in Syria expected Analysis: Next steps for U.S. in Syria What are Obama's options for Syria? Response to Syria's 'moral obscenity'
Whoever ultimately prevails in this fight is hardly going to be an ally of the U.S. It's an ungodly mess that makes even Iraq in 2006 look good.
It is, in short, a problem from hell.
Power, Rice and Obama today face some of the very same unpalatable choices that have confronted other U.S. national security officials as they tried to prevent mass killings in other distant, war-torn countries.
They can continue to do little as the Syrian civil war drags on into its third year with 100,000 dead and rising. It's a state of affairs now compounded by the fact that the regime of President Bashar al-Assad appears not only to have crossed the "red line" with its use of chemical weapons but seems to have now sprinted past that line, killing hundreds with neurotoxins in a Damascus suburb, according to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. He's blasted those attacks as something that "should shock the conscience of the world. It defies any code of morality."
Opinion: How Al-Assad used chemical weapons to poison debate on Syria
Doing nothing will not be treated kindly by future historians writing in the same vein as Power.
The issue now in Syria is not simply that al-Assad is massacring his own civilians at an industrial rate, but he is also flagrantly flouting a well-established international norm by this regime's reported large-scale use of neurotoxins as weapons against civilians. It seems inconceivable that the United States as the guarantor of international order would not respond to this in some manner.
But on what authority? There is scant chance of a U.N. resolution authorizing military action. When she was U.N. ambassador, Rice skillfully ushered a resolution through the Security Council that authorized military action in Libya in 2011. But Russia and China will almost certainly veto any similar kind of resolution on Syria.
Russia is one of Syria's few allies, and Russia and China are generally staunchly against any kind of international intervention in the affairs of other countries, no matter how egregious the behavior of those states might be.
That leaves the possibility of some kind of unilateral action by the United States.
The U.S. regularly infringes the sovereignty of countries such as Pakistan and Yemen with CIA drone strikes on the novel legal theory that terrorists planning strikes on the U.S. are living in those nations and those countries are either unable or unwilling to take out the terrorists on their territory -- and therefore their sovereignty can be infringed by drone attacks.
But making a claim that the Syrian regime threatens the U.S. is implausible, and therefore some kind of unilateral American action seems quite unlikely.
In 1986, the Reagan administration launched air strikes at the homes of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, but only after an incident in which Libyan agents had bombed a disco in Berlin, killing two American servicemen. No such casus belli exists with Syria today.
Since neither a U.N. authorized military mission nor a unilateral American strike seem likely, what options are left?
One appealing option could be something along the lines of the Kosovo model. The Kosovo War in 1999 was entirely an air war in which no American soldiers were killed. The goal of the air campaign was to push Serbian forces out of Kosovo. Russia was allied with the Serbs so, as in the Syrian case today, there was no chance a U.N. resolution authorizing force would pass.
Instead, the war was conducted under the NATO collective security umbrella. Kosovo is, of course, in Europe, and NATO is a Europe-focused security alliance while Syria is the Middle East, so NATO action there would be much more problematic.
(A NATO force does fight in Afghanistan today, but that is only because one of its member states, the United States, was attacked on 9/11 from Afghanistan by al Qaeda, which triggered NATO's Article 5, the right to collective self-defense of the members of the alliance.)
If an air war were to be launched against Syria, one scenario could be that Turkey, a member of NATO, could invoke Article 5 because Syria has fired into its territory on a regular basis.
So far, Turkey has proved reluctant to invoke Article 5 but the reported large-scale use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime might change the calculus of the Turks.
A further source of legitimacy for military action could be some kind of authorization by the Arab League. The Arab League is generally a toothless talking shop, which seemed to have surprised even itself two years back when it endorsed military action against Gadhafi.
That endorsement gave substantial international legitimacy to the subsequent air campaign against Gadhafi, led by the United States and other NATO countries such as France.
It is hard to believe that some kind of military action against Syria won't now take place, likely in the form of U.S. cruise missile attacks from ships in the Mediterranean.
Such attacks have the merit that they won't put U.S. aircraft at risk, which could well encounter problems with Syria's well-regarded air defense systems. And the operation will likely have the blessing of some mix of NATO and Arab League authorizations, giving it at least some semblance of international legitimacy.
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Okay, I was wrong, obviously.
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I just want to set the record straight on the genocide. There was a massive amount of genocide that Saddam ordered. It was manifested through his cousin, Chemical Ali. You've probably heard of him.
The acts were committed in the 1980s right around the end of the Iran-Iraq war. Iraq was nearly bankrupt from the war and they wanted to suppress any possibility of revolutions occurring. Their financial situation was also the reason they invaded one of their biggest creditors (Kuwait). Our 2003 invasion was not based upon this genocide. However, we captured him during our invasion. Iraqi prosecutors claimed he killed around 180'000 to 200,000 Kurds with chemical weapons (used to know exact # but my memory is fuzzy). Deaths into the low 100'000s was a very conservative estimate.
Following the Persian Gulf War, he was required to get rid of any WMDs. We alleged he did not do this which resulted in our invasion 12 years later.
Blue ostriches on crack float on milkshakes between the sidewalk titans of gurglefitz. --YTown
#gmstrong
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No problem! Also, I just wanted to say I hope I don't come off as a know-it-all in this thread. It's just something that really is a core part of my interests and career.
Blue ostriches on crack float on milkshakes between the sidewalk titans of gurglefitz. --YTown
#gmstrong
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Quote:
Here is what I guess Im alluding to.
We know someone gassed 150k+ Iraqi's. We were told it was Saddam and went to war to remove him from power and save the Iraqi people. Then there were no weapons found.
This seems to be pretty similar to whats going on now. If we (the UN) starts another war, will we find wmd's?
That is part of the reason I'm questioning us getting into this in a lead role. If we don't know the truth, then we don't belong in the fight.
#GMSTRONG
“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.”
Daniel Patrick Moynahan
"Alternative facts hurt us all. Think before you blindly believe."
Damanshot
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Quote:
Quote:
Here is what I guess Im alluding to.
We know someone gassed 150k+ Iraqi's. We were told it was Saddam and went to war to remove him from power and save the Iraqi people. Then there were no weapons found.
This seems to be pretty similar to whats going on now. If we (the UN) starts another war, will we find wmd's?
That is part of the reason I'm questioning us getting into this in a lead role. If we don't know the truth, then we don't belong in the fight.
Saddam had gas weapons........we gave them to him when he was our Ally in the 80's to use against Iran. We went to war because our intelligence said he obtained Yellow Cake uranium which is used to build a nuclear bomb.
In the end our intelligence was wrong. Some people feel we lied to go to war. Some feel Saddam go the weapons out before we went in. Some people feel Saddam tried to get them but failed but due to being surrounded by enemy countries and to maintain his dictatorship role in his own country he made it seem like he got Yellow Cake and we bought it.
The world will never know. I expect in 20-30 years this will rival the Kennedy Assassination theories in terms of books and "experts" on the subject.
![[Linked Image from mypsn.eu.playstation.com]](http://mypsn.eu.playstation.com/psn/profile/Letherface.png)
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Quote:
Two questions:
1. Do you believe you are morally obligated to intervene in a situation where a person is being harmed by another, assuming you are capable of doing so and the intervention will not result in your demise?
Yes.
Now let's look at reality using your group dynamic again. For reference, here is your supposition...
Quote:
Suppose you are standing in a group of people. One of the members of the group starts to attack the weakest member of the group, and everyone else in the group stands by watching with apprehension. You are clearly the strongest, most capable person in the group, and the others occasionally look in your direction to see what you will do. You know that if you intervene, you will sustain physical damage. A decision to intervene in the attack will not be a consequence free action. Furthermore, it is clear that you will not receive help from some of the stronger persons in the group for whatever reasons. No one in the group is keen to take the lead in interfering because of the personal danger. So, what is your moral responsibility in this situation?
So I view the question not as "Do you have an obligation to intervene?" but rather "How many times do you have an obligation to intervene?" If, in this group, some bully member is constantly attacking the weaker members of the group, almost daring you to intervene, then at some point you have a choice to make. That choice is to either stop intervening or wipe out the bully completely. Correct? You have disciplined, whacked around, and beat the crap out of the bully on any number of occasions but that bully or some new bully keeps attacking the weaker members....... And you make this decision with the understanding that wiping out the bully completely is going to cause serious harm to many of the weaker members of the group in the short term but could be better for them in the long run. It also opens up the possibility that new bullies are just going to move in and take their place. Because you know, in your group dynamic, that every single time your or anybody else has intervened to help the weaker members stand up to the bully, it hasn't really provided any long term relief because as soon as you turn your back, the bullies are going to attack the weaker members again.... and again... and again... and again.
yebat' Putin
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Legend
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Legend
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Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Here is what I guess Im alluding to.
We know someone gassed 150k+ Iraqi's. We were told it was Saddam and went to war to remove him from power and save the Iraqi people. Then there were no weapons found.
This seems to be pretty similar to whats going on now. If we (the UN) starts another war, will we find wmd's?
That is part of the reason I'm questioning us getting into this in a lead role. If we don't know the truth, then we don't belong in the fight.
Saddam had gas weapons........we gave them to him when he was our Ally in the 80's to use against Iran. We went to war because our intelligence said he obtained Yellow Cake uranium which is used to build a nuclear bomb.
In the end our intelligence was wrong. Some people feel we lied to go to war. Some feel Saddam go the weapons out before we went in. Some people feel Saddam tried to get them but failed but due to being surrounded by enemy countries and to maintain his dictatorship role in his own country he made it seem like he got Yellow Cake and we bought it.
The world will never know. I expect in 20-30 years this will rival the Kennedy Assassination theories in terms of books and "experts" on the subject.
Please allow me to say it again,, If we don't know 100% for sure, we shouldn't attack. that's my opinion.
#GMSTRONG
“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.”
Daniel Patrick Moynahan
"Alternative facts hurt us all. Think before you blindly believe."
Damanshot
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