OK, I'll admit my opposition to military intervention in Syria isn't rational.

[Jackpine Radical]

It's simply based on the fact that I'm a chickenshit on the topic of war.

My gut-level opposition to Iraq was sort of similar; I'm just a sissy about the business of people killing each other.

I've been that way ever since a few occasions in 1967-68 when I saw human body parts scattered all over hell by high explosives, put another soldier in a body bag, saw the remains of a napalm strike on a hillside "infested" with NVA regulars, got myself medevaced for gunshot wounds, and a couple of other experiences like that.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. But mine is, and trust me, I saw plenty of that shit as well

To me this could be a very bad mistake.

Best case scenario we launch, people scream, point fingers, call us all kinds of names, and that is that. (And yes, people die where those missiles land, but I count on our glorious media never showing us that)

Worst case, guns of august scenario. (Yes, WW III)

The truth, i fear, will be somewhere in between. I fear this is a hell of a miscalculation, and no, it is not about saving people from Sarin (and yes it was used), that is just the excuse. It is about resources, like it always is.

[defacto7]

4. "It is about resources, like it always is"

That is not just true in the 20th/21st century view, it has always been true. History is the dead give away if people would just look at it.

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. So you telling me that war is not about resources?

Ok.

Even among chimps and yes dolphins, where war like activity has been observed, it is about resources.

[defacto7]

12. No Nadine. I didn't say that.

I said that it's not "just" true in the view of the 20th and 21st century as in modern war... it has always been true that war is about resources since the beginning of life. I was saying that the word "always" is the correct word in the historic sense and people would find the answers to their questions if they paid more attention to history.

I was agreeing with you.

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. Sorry, I misunderstood

Yeah, yeah I could blame the pain meds, but I have not taken them today.

[dionysus]

20. .

[BeyondGeography]

2. What are disagreements in the face of such humble and honest testimony?

I'm glad you made it home and are still here with us. Confusion is mankind's common ground. From the Swiss Guards in 1793:

Notre vie est un voyage
Dans l'hiver et dans la nuit,
Nous cherchons notre passage
Dans le ciel ou rien ne luit

Our life is a journey
Through winter and night
We look for our way
In a sky with no light

[Skittles]

3. better a chickenshit than a chicken hawk

[jimlup]

5. No your instincts are correct in this case...

It isn't OK to use violence to resolve problems. Your gut knows this but it is perfectly rational for a sentient being to feel this in their gut! At least with my gut - it is usually trying to tell my brain something important that my brain is irrationally denying.

[Jackpine Radical]

6. Cold rationality is inhuman.

Or, at best, psychopathic.

[Hydra]

9. I can do cold rationality

And using that, I don't see how our missiles make people's lives better. If that's not our goal, then we're just another failed empire.

People who take and destroy from others, and then later from each other...until there is nothing at all.

Nice legacy, huh?

[Jackpine Radical]

15. Cold rationality doesn't give a shit about making the lives of others better.

Cold rationality is only about the pursuit of self-interest.

[Hydra]

17. Rational self interest relies on other people doing well

A polluted world doesn't work very well, for instance. Neither does a world full of poor/hungry/sick people.

By the way, yes, I'm calling the 1% sick. They are destroying everything in their pursuit of absolute power. Orwell called it.

From a purely logical standpoint, as EarlG pointed out, no good result comes out of us using our missiles on Syria...that means we're not being logical or we're benefiting a very small number of people at the expense of everyone else.

So let me put it this way- your gut is pretty smart. So is the logic against this war...so why are we going to do it?

[AtheistCrusader]

19. I can make a cold rational case, that I, the safe, comfortable american far from the war

is safer physically and economically by NOT inflaming tensions in the middle east.

I think the human element is more compelling, but I'd stand on that cold calculus of less blowback, and less economic disruption.

[Bjorn Against]

7. Actually you just proved that you are rational

No rational person who witnessed what you witnessed would ever want to witness it again. You have seen the reality of war and you know how awful it is, it would be irrational for you to support it.

[MisterP]

13. IOW, it's rational based on it's predicates: that Mideasterners are human beings

[Old Union Guy]

8. I won't.

The current bi-partisan foreign policy is war forever.

There is always something bad going on somewhere that can be used as a justification.

[NuclearDem]

10. I'll admit, I'm just as irrational.

The absolute butchering that was the Korengal Valley two years ago and the subsequent flag-draped coffins and seeing people burned and ripped apart in a flash by a B1's 2000lb bomb made me a giant pussy when it comes to war.

[jwirr]

16. I am beginning to doubt my own sanity on this issue. I watched as much of it as I could tonight and

all that was running through my head was - they don't have any proof - bushie said he had proof and he lied. What has happened to the idea of having real proof before acting?

[nadinbrzezinski]

21. They have proof that Sarin was used

that they do have. The treatment, the description of symptoms, all that matches.

After that it gets sketchy. I guess it is more than receipts at CIA and State for the WMDs we sold Sadam.

I am getting way too cynical I know.

[jwirr]

25. All of us are getting too cynical. It is hard not to be when you know your own government is in

with the corporations and MIC and considers us the enemy.

[AtheistCrusader]

18. I'm not chickenshit on the topic of war.

I'm prepared to kill as many as it takes with my bare hands if necessary to survive.

But I agree with your premise anyway. I can only kill in self defense, and only when I have no other options.

There are sometimes valid, horrible circumstances that warrant warfare. But only when ALL diplomatic effort has failed, and ALL options are exhausted, because war always kills bystanders, always twists in ways you didn't anticipate, and always changes you, the combatant.

I am not squeamish about war. Nor do I enter into it lightly. If there is ANY way to avoid it, I would choose that instead.

[Jackpine Radical]

28. How often have you "entered into" war?

I am not squeamish about war. Nor do I enter into it lightly.

[AtheistCrusader]

31. Politically?

Several times, unwillingly. (War is between nations/peoples) As an individual, I have had a couple occasions where I had to fight for my life, but not in military combat.

I think when I initially responded to you, I hadn't read your entire OP, and didn't catch that you have been in combat. Your choice of words was based on direct first hand war experience. (I do apologize for glancing over it, I should have taken the time to read it)

Politically speaking, I would never have sent people to fight in Vietnam, if that clarifies my position. Warfare can be necessary, but most of the wars we have engaged in as a nation, were not absolutely necessary, or highlight diplomatic failures.

[OnyxCollie]

22. My opposition to military intervention in Syria is entirely rational.

Economically rational.

I'm opposed to the objective monetary incentives that will be received by those pushing hardest for war, i.e. McCain, Lieberman, Graham (the Three Amigos), John Kerry, the Project for the New American Century/Foreign Policy Initiative guys, Saudi Arabia, and Israel.

[delrem]

23. Mine is rational: US military intervention will be *illegal* under international law.

Secondly, but no less important, the US has *NO* moral credibility w.r.t. yet another bombing campaign.

So I kindly ask my American friends to *shut the fuck up* about bombing yet another country. You have no fucking moral standing and you are losing standing continuously, year by year. And no, US moral standing is NOT greater than Russia's, or China's -- because you blew it.

Where's the *change* and *hope* that was promised? Where?

[truedelphi]

35. President Obama has a family to take care of.

In a few short years, he will be out of the Oval Office. And then it will matter if he delivered to the One Percent on what they asked him for. Does he want at least $ 100,000 a speech in front of corporate podium, as Bill Clinton got from his benefactors? Or does he want to go back to practicing law.

Big difference between the two men - when the One Percent, PNAC crowd asked Bill Clinton to start up their dirty little war in Iraq for them, he said no. Of course, they retaliated. A short six months alter, and Monice Lewinsky made the headlines, and impeachment was underway.

[Wilms]

24. ^

[get the red out]

26. Sounds rational to me

[Scuba]

27. Both my gut and brain tell me it's a huge mistake.

But that's just me.

[pinboy3niner]

29. "I got a bad feeling about this one..."

[Romulox]

30. What nonsense. Which country's civil war have we EVER successfully intervened in?

Unless you can answer that, there is no rational basis to argue for intervention.

[felix_numinous]

32. That is why I can't get Kerry's or McCain's change

after the violence they saw. I used to think anyone exposed to blood and guts would never wish to see more, but I now think people can make themselves believe anything.

Defining what is 'necessary violence' is where humans get into the most trouble. It's one thing to physically defend yourself, for a country to defend invasion, to isolate and prevent a group from planning attacks. There must be many examples, being not a soldier this is not my specialty.

Yet what is clear is what is UNNECESSARY violence--when war profiteering has been identified, when obvious conflicts of interest lie with those making the decisions--this is obvious to any non soldier.

Yet the debate is about what is a JUST response to the chemical deployment. Bombing has not been shown to be just, no matter how 'smart' they make them out to be.

We need a national Department of Peace--which would work WITH National Defense in collaboration with international war crimes tribunals and the UN.

We cannot and should not shoulder the burdens of international human rights abuses, nor should any nation hold sole sway over the decisions made on any other nation, because it is a recipe to turn us into that which we fight.

[nashville_brook]

33. k and r

[indepat]

34. It was in '67-'68 that I began to question if the US were fighting the wrong enemy at the wrong

place at the wrong time for the wrong reason. In almost every military/CIA-styled action thereafter I have questioned as to whether such action were in our national interest. But for Republicans, war is often not only the first choice, but the only choice, and Democrats apparently don't have the ca-jones to risk being labeled weak on national defense, soft on communism, soft on terra et. al, so imo play along giving the right wing their way of war and gorging the coffers of the MIC in the process notwithstanding President Eisenhower's admonition.