To all those who say "both sides don't like us" "not our business" "the rebels are worse". In many cases....correct. But this isn't about supporting one side or the other. I actually believe most Governments in the west and Israel hope Assad or his party at least hold on to some power....albeit in a weakened state. This is about the use of WMD's. (And no, I don't think the US, or any government is all that torn up about Syrian children). Since WWII we have managed NOT to have nukes thrown about willy-nilly. This is in large part due to psychological barriers against their use. Using any WMD erodes the barrier. First it's a little gas attack. Seems to work, maybe a bigger one. Soon, why not take out a city with them. Then a small step towards "well, a tactical nuke isn't that much worse....let's use that". A slippery slope. It has been widely reported that Assad has been using them on a small scale before....small enough that the world could turn a blind eye. This one got out of hand (or the rebels got some, no one knows yet, though most evidence would seem that one of Assad's small uses got out of hand). We need to keep the psychologic barriers in place....to delay the day when the nukes come out (it WILL happen some day...we can only hope to put it off, and make the consequences bad enough it doesn't happen again for a long time). And to those who say a blind eye has been turned in the past....past mistakes don't mean they should be repeated forever. By that logic....since we didn't wipe out disease 50 years ago....we should never do anymore medical research. (am neither Dem or Repub....tend toward conservative world-view, more liberal in domestic policy...which would get me hated by both...as they are major points of hatred for both parties) If this seems a little dis-jointed....I pasted it from an American forum I replied on.
