Syrian officials deny use of chemical weapons

[pampango]

17. I am all for minding our own business. But I am not for allowing dictators to kill their own people

wether they use tanks, planes, machetes or chemical weapons. The fact that they are not killing Americans, but rather Syrians or Rwandans or Bosnian Muslims or Jews does not mean that we automatically do nothing. There will be times when we can do nothing - like Czechoslovakia in 1968, Hungary in 1956 or many others, but we should not automatically assume that we can never help anyone.

I'm extremely leery of the humanitarian justification for intervention. - I too am leery of humanitarian efforts. Many times they prove to be anything but humanitarian. That does not mean we give up on the idea of humanitarian efforts, just that we learn from our mistakes and be extra careful in deciding when, where and how to help.