US just attacked Syria

[deephiance]

written almost 30 years ago, performed 10 years ago, relevant today..... STILL

[LJay]

I have always put politics away but the last US election got me riled. How we could fall for such a pile of shit is simply beyond me. Though I don't have the poli-sci background to be completely sure of it, I think you are essentially correct [MENTION=24253]Zen[/MENTION]. As the reckoning is made at each stage of this massive game the little guy gets stomped. Big business, big money and the power brokers come out on top and those who are starving and need help just to survive suffer. The earth itself is abused. The beauty that could enrich us all goes begging. It makes me sick.

[Zen]

I have always put politics away but the last US election got me riled. How we could fall for such a pile of shit is simply beyond me. Though I don't have the poli-sci background to be completely sure of it, I think you are essentially correct [MENTION=24253]Zen[/MENTION]. As the reckoning is made at each stage of this massive game the little guy gets stomped. Big business, big money and the power brokers come out on top and those who are starving and need help just to survive suffer. The earth itself is abused. The beauty that could enrich us all goes begging. It makes me sick.

Well said my friend! The world is tired and sick. We need a holiday!

[Shouten]

It is what it is. The demonic US and equally hellish Russian Federation just don't know when to stop. They are both cancer to the human race and if you check the statistics for the last few decades, these two ruined more lives than the actual disease "cancer".

[Scootaloo]

But i'm an American.. I'm not demonic. Don't judge us by our "elected" officials.

[Shouten]

I didn't say americans are demonic, though. But the actions of your elected officials are. And it's not just now! How many wars have been started by the US just for the past 50 years?! How many more did they participate in? Do you know where's the US? Does it border Syria?

There are no evidence, that Assad is the one who used chemical attack. If anything, the whole chemical attack incident and the following reactions would help ISIS and the Rebels. I guess you might symphatize the Rebels, but ISIS wins just as much from a weakened Assad.

I find this whole thing disgusting and what troubles me even more is that this time, much to my dislike, I'll have to agree with Russia - US actions are beyound wrong and terrible.

[Cowboy]

I am also curious about how our weird relationship with Russia is going to play out in all of this.

And by curious I mean stressed.

Why are you stressed, do you have friends or family in the military or in Syria?

It might sound selfish, but I couldnt care less about this. On Monday I will still wake up and go to work. The war in Iraq didnt affect me, the ongoing war in Afghanistan doesnt affect me, and this future war in Syria wont affect me either. We should just go on about our lives as best we can. Stuff like this is why I havent joined the military.

[Emiliano]

I didn't say americans are demonic, though. But the actions of your elected officials are. And it's not just now! How many wars have been started by the US just for the past 50 years?! How many more did they participate in? Do you know where's the US? Does it border Syria?

There are no evidence, that Assad is the one who used chemical attack. If anything, the whole chemical attack incident and the following reactions would help ISIS and the Rebels. I guess you might symphatize the Rebels, but ISIS wins just as much from a weakened Assad.

I find this whole thing disgusting and what troubles me even more is that this time, much to my dislike, I'll have to agree with Russia - US actions are beyound wrong and terrible.

I'm not about to defend the motives behind a lot of US intervention in the past century, I'm absolutely not going to suggest Trump has any strategy or idea about what he's doing. Or that he is not going to get us in there and make the whole situation 100% more fucked. And I'm not going to try to simplify this to good rebels vs bad government - especially after the UN has declared all sides guilty of war crimes after what happened in Aleppo.

I've never been to Syria, I'm not well informed on its current situation or its history, and I don't have a political science background or anything like that. But I have been following what's been going down since the Arab Spring. The UN seemed pretty sure that Assad has used chemical weapons on his people before, though they do deny that too. But I personally don't know for sure either way or have any authority on my own to claim to.

But as a human being, one who feels for others strongly, can say with certainty, the civilians of Syria have been used as pawns by all sides and are in the middle of a worsening humanitarian crisis. Call me naive, but I am not yet so cynical as to believe that the US, or other international powers have absolutely no place in intervening in such cases. Gathering international support and all that first would be much better than acting impulsively seemingly after watching a tv show report on the dead children of Syria, yes. But is it better not to act at all?

This is a shit situation no matter how you look at it, but are we going to keep drawing red lines and then doing nothing as they are crossed and making empty threats? Should we actually try to be an isolationist country and just withdrawal all aid and personally, military or otherwise, close all our embassy's and just wall ourselves off? What responsibility, as a powerful, wealthy country so we have to en it comes to stepping in?

I guess what I'm hung up on is that these are actual humans, this is an ongoing humanitarian crisis with global repercussions. There are people there who need help. So much tells me not to trust the is's motives, to view Syria through the lenses of the other grand fuck ups of the past, to demonized Trump for an uncalculated and rash move. But there's this part of me that is like, all that aside, something has to be done though, right?

I do t know guys, I'm really disturbed by all this. Especially now that we are pointing fingers to Russia and the Russians are sending ships towards ours (or at least last I read).


Long story short, I don't think it's evil of us to be getting involved and it's too late to think about what the most appropriate way to get involved could have been. But at least right now in this moment, from my safe, stable bubble, part of me is glad we are finally stepping in. But maybe I'll be eating those words soon.


And at the very least, if WW3 is about to start, at least it wasn't launched by some fucking tweet though. That's how I figured it'd all go down. At least this is somewhat of a worthy cause.

[Emiliano]

Why are you stressed, do you have friends or family in the military or in Syria?

It might sound selfish, but I couldnt care less about this. On Monday I will still wake up and go to work. The war in Iraq didnt affect me, the ongoing war in Afghanistan doesnt affect me, and this future war in Syria wont affect me either. We should just go on about our lives as best we can. Stuff like this is why I havent joined the military.

I guess I'm a sensitive little snowflake. But I care about things outside of my direct experience.

[Emiliano]

Why are you stressed, do you have friends or family in the military or in Syria?

It might sound selfish, but I couldnt care less about this. On Monday I will still wake up and go to work. The war in Iraq didnt affect me, the ongoing war in Afghanistan doesnt affect me, and this future war in Syria wont affect me either. We should just go on about our lives as best we can. Stuff like this is why I havent joined the military.

Also if this escalates into something big between the USA and Russia, it's not just us fighting small countries in far off countries most Americans can't even put on a map, that don't have the means to retaliate against us on a major scale in our own country. That stresses me out about Russia. I'm a NYer, i remember clearly what it feels like to have my city attacked and not know what is going on besides fear and panic. I don't want to ever feel that again and maybe that experience has left me with some empathy with people who live with that as a daily reality.