The Hypocrisy of Conflict

Half of me agrees with you Bruce. The other half hopes that by this action no more slow and agonising deaths from chemical weapons occur. And yes I know that conventional weapons also cause slow agonising deaths to innocent civilians.

Fingers crossed I guess...

Stu

I agree with Stu. War is messy and not a rules-based engagement overseen by an umpire.  But chemical weapons?   Arguably the US might have pursued Assad himself but instead targeted the airfield from which the chemical weapons attack was launched.  If this makes Assad less likely to use chemical weapons again I guess the action will have been worthwhile.  It might also send a clear signal to Putin that the US is no longer going to sit on its hands in Syria. This awful civil war has dragged on for years and a solution is desperately needed. I hope this action proves to be a step towards that rather than a step away but we'll see.    

Unlike the WMD situation from a few years ago, this is very real.

Was it not real before this? Yet the western powers did nothing.

I guess I'm railing at this odd set of values that allows us to look the other way when hundreds of thousands are killed by conventional weapons (or millions by machetes: Rwanda) yet suddenly we are spurred into action by 'bad' weapons.

I see no coherent policy here. I see no reason we won't go back to watching the non-chemical carnage.

Bruce

There is no "logic" or rationale that will cover ALL human situations.

We "survive". It is the Law of the Jungle. Humans are burdened with the gift of "care", and "reason". But underlying this is the nature of survival.

There is little, if any, sense of coherence between these opposites.

Some of us try. We know it would make sense, to co-operate.

But in the big picture, there are just too many issues and too many people for coherence and global co-operation to be predominate !

Sad ! We could do better. Much better.

The biggest hypocrisy here is of western nations and some of their Arab allies that take the opportunity to meddle in this civil war which originally erupted because of economic reasons (severe draught and government cutting food subsidies). Dreaming about a regime change, they pick some obscure 'democratic guys', arm and finance them, thus prolonging the war and drastically increasing the scale of violence and destruction, only to be 'shocked' by the barbarous results.

i recall having to prove "existence theorems" in mathematics when i was last at Uni -- long time ago. the idea being that, if a solution doesn't exist, then, no point looking for it.

of course, Syria is not a mathematical problem -- but i still wonder whether a solution even exists? too many players with vested interests.

and this world of ours gets more and more unstable... refugees, Kim Jong Un, Russia, ISIS, Al Qaeda ... and the list goes on...

Sigh...

enjoy...

ken