Imminent mistakes in Syria

[Taem]

When is the use of chemical weapons on people [in general, not even talking civil war here] ever condoned by our society, or by the world at large?

The US uses chemical weapons on it's own citizens all the time as well as enemy combatants. Tear Gas is a chemical weapon. It's not a particularly deadly weapon but it can in fact kill especially in closed spaces. The military uses it in closed spaces a lot. So are chemical weapons bad or are only some chemical weapons bad? Is a morality argument that subjective?

If it isn't then why shouldn't we be punished for using and actually inventing many of the chemical weapons in the past (WW1, WW2, Korea, and Vietnam)? Once we decided we shouldn't use them, we decided that no one should use them. You can say the same thing about nuclear weapons. The US has a pretty bad track record of doing horrible things with weapons to other people and then leading the charge of saying "No you can't use those! Those are bad things to use!"

How interesting. I never considered that when I made my statement, but on a broad scale, I suppose you are correct. For clarity, I was referring only to chemical weapons designed specifically for mass murder, you know like the "all guns aren't created equal" argument for handguns versus fully automatic rifles. Regarding the US doing "bad things," I agree, but this is hardly a reason why not to support doing the correct thing now; however I might add I only brought it up to show how jaded we've become as a society - the whole human race - including myself, and I say this because I choose not to agree with morality's stance when coming to my decision to support power.

My personal, logistical reasons for not entering the fray of Syria's civil war would be: 1) A far worse dictator might take over and we may find these chemical weapons we're taking a stance on in the hands of terrorists and used on American, and allied, soil,

If any part of your argument is based in moral objections this doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if they are used on Americans or their allies. You talk about the moral compass, this statement has nothing to do with that at all, and hurts your credibility.

The point here was that a far worse dictator might cause more deaths. Is that not logical san emotions? Regarding terrorists using chemical weapons on Americans, this is also a logical statement. I suppose my post was a bit hair-brained because I was supporting multiple arguments with separate points of view for my end paragraph, and because of that, you are in fact conflating two irrational ideologies which I meant to be clearly separate thoughts: power in the first paragraph, morality in the second, and logic in the third, with the fourth paragraph pulling it all together. I suppose I failed to convey that message?

3) Even though I feel this chemical warfare business is a true human atrocity, I feel Syria needs to fight Syria's war, not us, and earn their own freedom and independence. By interfering this this process, we are stopping that country from becoming what we ourselves became,

Get me a time machine and let's see how the American Revolution would have turned out had France not covertly then openly supported and fought on the side of the Rebels (Americans). The reasons they got involved are not the same, but they still interfered heavily in what, at the time, was a British Civil war.

While most countries didn't get directly involved in the American Civil war in the 1860's it was a near thing they didn't in some case and there was still a leveling of meddling being done that we are currently at.

I'm not too familiar with France's involvement in the American revolution unfortunately, but off the top of my head, I'd suggest that perhaps with Canada so close by, France had a vetted interest to intervene in the affairs of Britten.

and finally 4) It's most likely illegal to intervene and this could do far worse to our already tarnished image than doing nothing.

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And finally, Power: I'm compelled to do what I say, and by this I mean when I say "chemical weapons are a red line," that I'm going to take action no matter what the outcome! My word is law and I don't want others to question my motives or to push me further to see how far they can go to get away with abuses of power against my country.

So it might be illegal, but I'm going to do what I say because my word is law. So the law be damned! I realize you admitted it was a no win situation. However; if our countries power is supposedly based in the rule of law this is a very bad stance to follow.

Heh, so it's a no-win situation for us now that the redline comment was stated. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. You are correct that we will look equally as bad to foreigners if we intervene than if we did nothing at all after that statement, but I prefer to have other countries know we are a country of our word, and when we commit to a statement like that, we won't back down!

Thank's for playing devils advocate against me; logical and sound counter arguments for me to digest on a slow day at work !