Syria: What should the US do/not do?

Syria accepts proposal to give up chemical weapons

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/middle-east/syria-accepts-proposal-to-give-up-chemical-weapons-1.1522399?page=2


ok fine do this... but the result of all this as we know now is that Assad's war efforts has now been justified and the international community has officially washed its hands of stepping in on behalf of the 50,000+ Syrian civilians who have died so far under any circumstances.
Russia will look like the peacemaker and the US will look weak. Whatever I don't care about that.
At least the chem weapons will be off the table. That is important but Assad will not have been punished materially which means he's won. He wasn't going to win his war using chem weapons. That was never the plan. He doesn't need them to massacre another 100-200,000 more rebels/civilians.

Russia has given Obama a way to not do the strikes and to protect the convention against chem weapons. But there is still the matter of punishment. Assad's forces committed a chem weapon massacre, a massive war crime and need to be punished in real terms. Obama will still demand this.

His punishment if not in the form of strikes now - will take the shape of increasing aid either from nonlethal to lethal or just by using some cleverspeak for 'we're now going to really give the rebels some serious kit' .

He can't really do the strikes now with this on the table. Assad and the Russians have pulled a clever one. Nobody predicted this as a viable option .... not one of the think tanks even thought this could happen, I've been following them closely. It's an interesting one. Wonder if it has legs. You'd have to think that Moscow came up with this move and got Assad on side. It's all very China/North Korea.

Jonny7 wrote: »

democracy for all it's flaws has been a system custom designed to stop the above repeating itself ad nausem.

here here and to that end Democracy seems to work...

but its 2 apparent flaws are

1) The ability to lobby politicians with huge sums of cash absolutely guarantees that the interests of a few powerful groups like Big Oil or Big Pharma and the interests of very rich private individuals like the Koch brothers are put before the interests of the many and nothing will ever change that nor can it.

2) Political Dynasties and Career politicians that rot the spirit of what is supposed to be a democratic republic. They say the problem lies more with voters than candidates - the well-connected person stands a better chance of winning elected office than the better-suited person but I disagree in the way I blame the banks for the crisis - the game is rigged in their favor - 'they' understand how to game the system- how to get the votes they need - more than we (on average) understand how they do it!

These are the two problems democracy produces which pollutes the entire process forever. You're never gona beat the corporation and you're never going to entice enough young people into politics. I was in a class of 92 students, one of them had a small go at politics.

Democracy doesn't work a lot of the time but its the best idea we've got.

esteve wrote: »

our system is a lot more plutocratic than democratic

The Irish experience of democracy and the American experience is totally different as is the French and the Russian. Yes Ireland's system is less corrupt, much smaller and more transparent and we would have some nerve to gripe about our level of social freedom compared to a billion who live in Africa's emerging democracies or the vastly corrupt states in South America.

Democracy is an ideal, a goal... it's clear that humanity doesn't allow it to reach its potential because we are flawed. Many slaves wish not to be free, but to become the slave owner. But our good parts outweigh our bad sides hence evil is rare but it exists. Most people don't want to fuk everybody else over to get rich or attain power but some do and will. That is part of humanity and will never change.
Democracy gives us the freedom to be as good or bad as we are, as stupid or selfish or benevolent as we want.

The problem is that the playing field is not even - between selfish and good or power crazed and benevolent politics. Dynasties form, corporations become bigger than states, lobbying allows you to rig the game... and unfortunately there will always be those who are clever and driven towards wealth and power so much they will invent new ways to corrupt the system no matter what we do. We are Ying and Yang and we will always fight against our lesser nature and democracy or attempts at it and use law and structure and voting in some kind of effort to at least give us some pitiful chance in the fight.

History shows us that when push comes to shove humanity will stand up and die in millions to prevent totalitarianism. This is our last barrier. Those who would do evil for power and wealth and legacy are not usually willing to go that far hence the Hitlers and Kim Jun Ils of this world are very rare. The rest of the bad fukers out there are somewhere in between. They use lawyers, tax evasion, lobbying, media manipulation, connections and cut-throat business practice to get what they want and those willing to do that usually get it in the end because free market capitalism is an unspoken-about trade off involving money and power in society. With a lot of money you can have a lot of power in society, with some money you can have a middle class life and all that comes with that... and the trade off is - you get less power in the game. Most people just get a vote now and then. Some people can pick up a phone and change society with their power and money.

Order - is the key. Democracy in its very structure, the way it at least makes us 'feel' we have a part in the system and its ability to at least on some level distribute wealth, in some countries better than others, maintains order by and large, keeping enough people happy enough of the time not to hit the streets and start wreckin sh1t. It's a see-saw of wealth distribution, freedom of opportunity and the attempt to apply law to everyone equally which of course is a complete farce in so many cases.

The whole thing is an 'effort'... a last option... in a world of 7 billion and a global wish to never see the days of all out war again. We try and fix it all the time and some people will constantly wreck it all the time. I don't know do the poor get poorer but the rich get richer that's for damn sure. The wealth of the top 1000 richest people on earth, men who could fit in one large conference room, could feed every starving human on earth. 1000 feed 2 Billion. But a lot of those men would rather buy a 64th Ferrari right? Does that make them evil? not really, just rich a$$holes and just part of humanity and we'll always be like that. Democracy allows it as it should. We hold out hope that more of these rich a$$holes will go Bill Gates and Warren Buffets way and try and turn things around a bit. Democracy as an anti-thesis to totalitarianism allows groups to form to battle against inequalities and evils in society in the world and as hilariously mismatched as they are - at least there is a fight.

It is not a great idea in reality it's a fuk up in so much of the world outside of Ireland yeah damn straight.

Things only change when they hit a wall, like biological evolution - what is the reason to change? The Rabbit hears the fox because most of his distant ancestors were killed when they could not... his hearing is great now - change in the right direction. But the fox is smarter and uses strategy because he has higher thinking abilities the rabbit does not. Most of society wish the democratic system to protect their interests and their rights and freedoms but the rich powerful selfish power hungry foxes use their higher-wealth to outfox the system and so power and money remain intertwined.

The limits to democracy's ability to retain relative order in society will only be reached when the rich become so greedy and the poor so angry that we all stop sharing, stop adhering to the system, stop obeying laws and stop paying tax and start rioting and corruption explodes. Cue dystopian imagery.
The only thing which keeps us from the edge of this theoretical abyss which risks throwing away the very nature of civilization itself is our 'belief' that the world can continue to support us and that we can always invent our way out of problems, fresh water supply, power generation, transport, maintaining order in global commerce, adjusting to weather etc..
Democracy is a flawed belief in the better side of humanity. But it IS the best idea we've come up with.
Humanity doesn't allow for Utopia, Humanity doesn't allow for Totalitarianism, Humanity WILL GAME any attempts at democracy anywhere to a degree but as long as we stay the course and let the selfish rich fuk us over then we maintain the game, the system, the order because the alternative is ... well.... hitting the reset button. The irony in hitting the reset button is that we would kill each other for resources (some argue we are already) and we'd end up back at this point again at some point in the future.. maybe with some lessons learned.

Order out of Chaos, Ying and Yang, Light and Dark.... Humanity will always be both.