There is a great danger with convincing Americans that “they are bad and we are good” is justification enough to invade, kill, or otherwise bring destruction on another nation. Such simplistic reasoning allows those in power to do whatever they wish to other nations provided they can paint that nation as the bad guy.
I do not in any way support Assad. I also don’t fully understand what is going on there and what the various actors desire. But I do know that just saying Assad is evil is not enough to justify military action.
Overall though, your point here supports my view. It is hopeless at present to expect an informed populace. We are not psychologically prepared as a species to resist sustained, subtle propaganda and said propaganda is far too easy to do nowadays. Hence, I’m content to bury my head in the sand.
Never Again is a serious duty to uphold. I refuse to bury my head in the sand. That would yield the world to agents of chaos and malice. Inaction is a choice. To not act when a genocide is happening is to be an accessory to that genocide. There is no opting out. Note that I have not said what "action" would entail, but I want everyone to reflect on how the Allied Powers ultimately rescued the Jews during the Holocaust. Reflect on how Clinton saved the Bosnians, racked with guilt for not helping in Rwanda. Needless to say, those actions were 100% necessary.
I hope you achieve the peace you seek by turning off the news though. I get it.
The U.S. should intervene in Syria
Pro
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Con
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What makes it complicated? If you're unsure of the truth of pro/con arguments or need to dissect them, you can use https://en.howtruthful.com/o/ to make a hypertext representation of the tree of arguments.
I made HowTruthful, so this is self-promotion. But I'm going to keep self-promoting because it's important to let people know that dissecting arguments doesn't have to be as arduous as they think.
Unintended consequences. Exit conditions. Will it inflame passions in neighboring areas and cause greater harm? Suppose we overthrow Assad and Syrian Kurds breakaway from a weakened Syria and establish a nation. Are we prepared to thwart the inevitable Turkish invasion? Suppose a worse tyrant ends up in power after Assad. Suppose enmity against the United States greatly increases as a result of our intervention and this unleashes attacks we aren't really prepared to deal with.
At a higher level how do we distinguish as a people from the mass killings we disapprove of versus the ones we approve of or perpetrate ourselves? How do we know that the intervention will be done with good intentions or that there is not an ulterior motive at play? How bad does a person have to be to warrant American military intervention? What about the cases where we actively support the genocidal maniac? For example in Cambodia. How do we know our intervention won't lead to a worse outcome? Is our leadership competent enough to justify a belief that our intervention will be good? Are we prepared to properly care for our soldiers who get wounded there? Do we have the money and will to properly care for them? Does it matter? Is the military capable of winning the conflict? Is there a winnable strategy that we are willing to engage in? Is our leadership sufficiently knowledgable and well informed to make good decisions?
We famously intervened in Lebanon in the 1980s. After one terrorist attack on Marine barracks we left. Do we have the political will to see the intervention to the end? Do the American people have the attention span/desire to see the thing through to its end? Do the American people care enough?
The world (not the U.S. alone) should engage in a large peacekeeping mission in Syria.
Why?
Because Syrians aren't subhumans. I'm actually being completely serious when I say that. 500k+ Syrians Arabs have been slaughtered. Tens of thousands are being tortured and raped in ways that would make Satan blush. We're talking about a government that removed the genitals of the 12 year old kid (Hamza Al Khatib) that started the revolution and mailed them to his parents with a warning letter, followed by his bruised and cigarette burn-laden corpse. (see the Syria thread further below for links)
If that isn't the worst-case scenario, then the implication is really grim: that Syrians are subhumans, and the chance of consequences on Western interveners exceeds the value of the lives of a half-million Syrian Arabs. Replace "Syrian Arabs" with "half a million Danes" or "half a million French civilians"," does that make you feel any different about the situation? What if I replaced "Hamza Al Khatib" with "12 year old Johnny McCormick?" All human life is equally precious, so that really shouldn't change anything.
To avoid "consequence entropy," I'll jump right to this: the expected negative value of the hundreds of potential consequences of action is far smaller than the very real, 100% actualized present-day situation extrapolated to the future.
Moreover, consider this. Assad has been continually creating the consequence entropy that people fear. That's what makes the "but what about ISIS?" type of question so ridiculous. He brought ISIS into Syria. He helped fund the precursor to ISIS (AQ in Iraq) to destabilize Iraq. He assassinated the beloved prime minister of Lebanon (Rafik Hariri). This behavior will continue as long as he presides over Syria. Remember, that's all besides the genocide that he is undertaking. Also remember that ISIS isn't Syrian, it's mainly composed of North Africans and Iraqi nationals that invaded Syria. The primary victims of ISIS are the same people that Assad is genociding. These are Muslim Syrian Arabs that lived happily alongside Christians, Druze, Alawites (note: Assad is Alawite), Kurds, and Armenians prior to the revolution. They are the majority of the population and they have no ill will towards other races or creeds. These are the people that were asking for freedom before they got massacred.
So the choice isn't "Assad vs. unknown mix of potentially bad consequences" it's "Assad, guaranteed continuation of genocide, guaranteed debasement of human life, guaranteed obliteration of the cradle of civilization, cultural trama, orchestrated demographic replacement, terrorism, anarchy, international assassinations, and unknown mix of potentially bad consequences vs. unknown mix of potentially bad consequences"
> There is a great danger with convincing Americans that “they are bad and we are good” is justification enough to invade, kill, or otherwise bring destruction on another nation.
You're right, if the jews start getting gassed again we should attempt to understand Hitler's point of view so that we can claim that we're not falling into the trap of "they are bad and we are good".
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I'm just going to say it now, you are a morally corrupt individual who is putting their own "intellectualism" in front of millions of lives. This is the political version of nihilism. That there is no act so atrocious that you shouldn't stop and try and consider the nuance in the moment. You're the person that will sit down and try and consider the nuance while your neighbors children are being raped in the background by some perpetrator.
The idea of stop the violence, worry about the nuance later flies over your intellectual head.
That's a pretty damning conclusion given the paucity of evidence to support it. Are you so sure you have enough facts to determine that I'm morally corrupt? What evidence do you have that I think there is no act so atrocious that I wouldn't act without considering the nuance? All you know about me is that in the case of Syria I think it's nuanced. I haven't made any statements about other situations so how can such a conclusion be made? Are you sure you understand my position?
But let's look at the historical example you brought up. Did the United States really care about the plight of Jews in Europe? Didn't we famously prevent a ship full of Jewish refugees from landing in the United States? We didn't enter the war to help Jews. My dad fought in World War II. In modern times we'd have diagnosed him with PTSD. The war left him a drunk and he had issues his whole life as a result of it. Should we have fought the war? Of course. Were there costs to it that never showed up in the statistics. Of course and we shouldn't forget or ignore these types of costs when we advocate military action.
Did we invade China to prevent the mass killings that occurred under Mao? Did we invade Cambodia to prevent the Khmer Rouge? Did we really care when Saddam gassed Iraqi Kurds? Why did we support Saddam invading Iran but not Kuwait? Where was our moral outrage at the former? Where was our moral outrage when Latin American dictators brutalized peasants whilst we supported them militarily?
Given our history of exploitation, support of brutal dictators, and active engagement in mass killings are you so sure our leaders' intentions in Syria will be altruistic? You are so sure of the necessity for intervention why don't you go there and fight it yourself? Why are you so quick to send others in your place if you aren't willing to go yourself?
What doesn't fly over my intellectual head is that there is a propensity for those in power to rally the populace with pithy slogans and calls for patriotic action in order to mask malevolent intention.
To send our armed forces to go kill others without any thought is a truly dangerous idea. We don't give carte blanche to our leadership to engage in killing simply because we've been convinced the other person is bad. It should be more.....nuanced than that.
Addendum: In 2005 I was on a light rail late at night on a Friday night. There was a drunk guy on the train and he was pretty annoying. Sort of harassing women on the train. I decided to engage him in conversation. Found out he was a Marine. We talked a bit and then he turned me and said, "I killed kids in Iraq. That's fucked up. I'm too young to kill kids." He repeated it over and over. I didn't know what to say to him. It was very sad. Fuck war and fuck the people who so easily advocate for it.
> Did we invade China to prevent the mass killings that occurred under Mao? Did we invade Cambodia to prevent the Khmer Rouge? Did we really care when Saddam gassed Iraqi Kurds? Why did we support Saddam invading Iran but not Kuwait? Where was our moral outrage at the former? Where was our moral outrage when Latin American dictators brutalized peasants whilst we supported them militarily?
You're citing these as precedents, but really they're failures. How would things be different if the world had taken a stand against them from the beginning?
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was written in the wake of WW2 - it would have been grand if the world tried to live by it.
Let me try to say my position in a different way. Clearly genocide is wrong and it would be great if it were stopped every time it happens. Humans are easily manipulated and in this era of Facebook we can see the result of this fact. Something as obviously stupid as being anti-vaccination has gained traction. If we can convince large numbers of people that something so clearly beneficial as vaccinations are in fact dangerous then how much easier is it to convince large numbers of people that in Country A something bad is happening and we need to invade?
If invading another country can be reduced, in its essence, to “we are good, they are bad” then this effectively gives carte blanche to those in power with bad intent. They just need to easily manipulate the masses into thinking that Country A is bad.
The U.S. has been fantastically inconsistent when it comes to intervening for humanitarian reasons. It has effectively become the case that if those in power don’t like the leadership in a given country they just need to drum up moral outrage in order to unleash our military forces. This is a bad state of affairs because it is so easy to paint a given country in a bad light. Since thoughtful consideration is not a requisite for military action we tend to engage in military conflicts for dubious reasons and for short terms goals without considering long term implications. This is bad as I see things.
We've banned this account for breaking the site guidelines. Obviously you can't post like this here, no matter how wrong the other person is or you feel they are.
If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.
You appear to be upset. I'm sorry that what I wrote made you think that I'm immoral and that I'm a piece of shit. This exchange exemplifies what started all these threads. That is, that it's better off for people to quit social media. Had we discussed this in person I'm certain you'd not think I'm a piece of shit.
What's missing in internet discussions like this is the assumption we make about people when we first meet them in person. Namely, that the other person isn't bad even if they have a different opinion. It's too easy in faceless discussions like this to paint an incorrect picture about the other person.
I have not written anything to suggest that I advocate standing by while children are raped or that the U.S. should not have fought WWII. Indeed I specifically wrote that the U.S. should have fought WWII. How does one draw such wild and clearly false conclusions? You should try reading what I wrote without already forming a conclusion. I didn’t even say that intervention in Syria was wrong. I just said that the situation there was nuanced and suggested that in depth analysis was warranted. How does that imply anything about my beliefs on WWII or the rape of children?
You’ve committed numerous argumentative fallacies. It behooves you to reflect on your responses and reflect on how it came to pass that you think a person who claims the situation in Syria is complicated implies they are a piece of shit and implies that they would not try to stop Hitler.
Where have I suggested that inaction is always the best course? Where have I suggested that intervention is never warranted?
I didn’t say that Assad isn’t evil enough. I didn’t say that intervention in Syria is not warranted. I never said that it’s wrong to think in terms of good vs. evil. I never indicated any of the things you accuse me of. Where do you get this notion that I think it’s wrong to think in terms of good vs. evil?
You’re clearly very passionate about Syria and ridding world of Assad. Why don’t you go there and fight his regime? Does your moral outrage stop at the point of actually getting involved? Is your moral compass so weak that anger and invective at an internet stranger is enough to feel you’ve done something good in the case of Syria? You are quick to send others to kill for you but it appears you lack the ambition to go yourself.
It’s fascinating that you can be so firm in your conclusion with so little evidence. Despite never having said or even remotely implied the things you think I believe you have an unshakeable certainty that I’m a piece of shit. Despite directly stating twice that U.S. involvement in WWII was the right thing to do you persist in the delusional belief that I’d not have been opposed to Hitler.
I do not in any way support Assad. I also don’t fully understand what is going on there and what the various actors desire. But I do know that just saying Assad is evil is not enough to justify military action.
Overall though, your point here supports my view. It is hopeless at present to expect an informed populace. We are not psychologically prepared as a species to resist sustained, subtle propaganda and said propaganda is far too easy to do nowadays. Hence, I’m content to bury my head in the sand.