I thought only Congress could declare war but after reading some articles on the subject, it appears that there is a "tradition" of US presidents stepping into situations militarily that don't necessarily qualify as 'declaring war' since WW II. Our government has a way of getting around things it wants to ignore.
One reason not to intervene is that the rebels are essentially terrorists themselves. It's awful what is happening to the civilians so it's hard for us to just sit by and do nothing. I feel pretty selfish sitting here in my comforts and safety while children and civilians are being killed over there. Yet, if we intervened we would be helping terrorists overthrow their own government, who would then turn on us. One note from Syrian protests said "how would you like it if we chose your American president for you?" which I thought made a good point.
After what happened in Egypt and Libya, I wonder if the U.S. is being used as a means to meet the objectives of a very violent people by playing on our compassion for people (ignoring the fact that we perform millions of abortions) and then turning on us after they're done with us. Also, we have, and would be again, be putting hi-tech weapons in the hands of terrorists who will probably later use those very weapons against us.
I saw one article that mentioned the possibility that the rebels used the nerve gas themselves in order to pressure the US and other countries to come to their aid. Wouldn't that be terrible if they did that to their own people!? Who knows what really happened? They were stored in a tunnel....they could have gone off accidentally...or a lone rebel (s) decided to set them off to force the US into aid....or the Assad regime used them. The UN group said they had proof that the government used them yet they would not give the Russians the information because it was classified.
I'm sorry but after seeing what our government is doing to it's own people with the IRS, Obamacare, etc. it's very hard to trust what our leaders say
. I really don't think we should 'step in' if the other major countries aren't going to. We really would become the 'world police'. Yet, isn't there something else we can do to help the innocent victims?
Sorry this is so long
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