About Syria (I wish we could do polls): Is it our job?

[Stinky The Clown]

Syria is seeing mass murder of its citizens by its government.

Is it our job to intervene? If so, how far ought we go? Advice? Money? Arm the opposition? Our boots on their ground? Are we the global police force?

What do you think?

Of course, this sort of question ALWAYS begs this question in answer: If we are to go into Syria, why not Darfur? Why not North Korea? Why not other places?

[EFerrari]

1. It's not our job because there is no oil there.

More seriously, whoever goes into Syria is entering a proxy war with Iran and that will likely lead to unintended consequences like Iran arming itself for real.

This is a hard situation, imo.

[elleng]

2. Its 'our' job as members of the human community.

WHAT we could do is the real problem.

[eissa]

3. Nope

Who would you arm against the government? McCain and his ilk seem to think the issue is Assad vs. the opposition, ignoring the fact that there are many factions of the opposition. Are some the young, pro-democracy idealists similar to their Tunisian and Egyptian counterparts? Yes, a small faction consists of them. But make no mistake, the majority are religious fundamentalists who view the Assad clan's Alawite sect as heretics, decry the many female (most uncovered) represented in government (or just walking around the streets unchaperoned), and the large Christian population. If we get involved, we would be facing yet another proxy war with Russia, and that always ends so well for us.

[KamaAina]

4. The Syrian opposition has a bad case of "Libya envy"

See, this is why we should have let the French and Arab League (led by the Saudis) take the lead in Libya. Now McCain wants us to bomb the crap out of a place that, lest we forget, shares a border with Israel. Got WWIII?

[MineralMan]

5. An excellent question.

I think it is not, based primarily on our dismal record in that part of the world. We have never succeeded there by interfering in the course of things in an individual nation. I make an exception of the formation of Israel, but that was not our doing alone, by any means.