re: #95 Targetpractice

I’m not exactly thrilled about taking action either, but the alternative is to set a precedent that chemical weapons are not that big of a deal when used against civilians. That we don’t care whether they use them, just so long as they’re not used against us.

We shouldn’t do anything other than say Assad should be ousted, then, and make that the end goal. Otherwise “we’ll rough you up a bit, but not take you out” becomes the price for using chemical weapons.

And then we’re in regime change, which means we’re in nation-building.

I feel the urge to act too. I feel the urge to act against North Korea, with it’s millions of people destined for lives along the line of starvation, minds assaulted with propaganda and constant exhortations of fear. I just don’t know how, in either circumstance, we can actually get an end that I’d be comfortable with. It depends on the Syrian opposite being truly moderate and being able to win the sectarian portion of the civil war, post-ouster of Assad, against the extremists. I really don’t know enough about that part of the world to analyze our chances of doing that, but even in the best-case scenario, we’re depending hugely on outcomes that we can only influence, not control.