Intervene In Syria? Intervene In Iraq? Intervene In Peru?

[Lilllabettt]

Why is it that America and the UN go out of their way to invade countries they have no business invading, but when it comes to stop genocide and saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, they do nothing?

 

 

 

Rwanda was a civil war you know. Some people feel we should not intervene in civil wars even if there is genocide (Iraq) or weapons of mass destruction deployed (Syria)  because we should not "take sides." 

[PhuturePriest]

Rwanda was a civil war you know. Some people feel we should not intervene in civil wars even if there is genocide (Iraq) or weapons of mass destruction deployed (Syria)  because we should not "take sides." 

 

I disagree; we should take the side of humanity and save the refugees, no matter which side they are on. I don't agree with saving just one side or not, but I definitely don't agree with not saving anyone at all when genocide is going on.

[Lilllabettt]

WASHINGTON –America’s ambassador to the United Nations raised the specter of genocide in Syria, after officials this week sounded the alarm about spiraling violence in that country’s civil war.

 

 

Gruesome photos of purported civil war victims were shown earlier this week to the U.N. Security Council, depicting corpses with bones protruding and eyes gouged out. It was a haunting and grisly reminder that, as Ukraine and other trouble spots grab international attention, Syria is crumbling under the weight of a vicious war.

 

Speaking at a U.N. Security Council briefing on genocide, U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power on Wednesday compared the fighting in Syria to the genocide in Rwanda 20 years ago.

She described the photos of Syrian prisoners as showing “systematic, industrial-style slaughter and forced starvation killings” – photos which, she noted, were from just three of the 50 Syrian-run detention centers.

[Lilllabettt]

I put this in KoC's thread re: Iraq, but I think I'll put it here. Collect the shame in one place.

 

 

 

[REUTERS ]: How would you describe the events taking place in Rwanda?

[State Department Spokesperson Christine Shelly]: Based on the evidence we have seen from observations on the ground, we have every reason to believe that acts of genocide have occurred in Rwanda. 

[REUTERS]: What's the difference between "acts of genocide" and "genocide"? 

[Shelly]: Well, I think the—as you know, there's a legal definition of this ... clearly not all of the killings that have taken place in Rwanda are killings to which you might apply that label ... But as to the distinctions between the words, we're trying to call what we have seen so far as best as we can; and based, again, on the evidence, we have every reason to believe that acts of genocide have occurred. 

[REUTERS]: How many acts of genocide does it take to make genocide? 

[Shelly]: Alan, that's just not a question that I'm in a position to answer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Lilllabettt]

 

"If we use the word 'genocide' and are seen as doing nothing, what will be the effect on the November [congressional] election?" 

 

--- Susan Rice, April 1994, referring to Rwanda. (She is now President Obama's National Security Adviser.)

 

 

"I don't think we have any national interest there [...]  The Americans are out, and as far as I'm concerned, in Rwanda, that ought to be the end of it."

--Senate Minority leader Bob Dole, April 1994, commenting on the evacuation of the American embassy in Kigali.

 

 

 

Edited August 8, 2014 by Lilllabettt

[Ice_nine]

So ... you all do not support intervention to stop the genocide of Christians in the Iraqi civil war

or intervention to stop the Rwandan civil war or the Syrian civil war. Correct?

 

I do not support interventions that lead to the slaughtering more innocent people and that create more hostile environments for people there. What is happening in Iraq right now, is precisely the reason I think US intervention would wind up being more disastrous. I mean the evidence of that is unfolding right in front of our eyes.

 

But if you want to reframe that using verbiage that makes it seem like I am indifferent to the suffering of our Christian brethren in the middle east, that's your prerogative. I don't know if that's what your doing, but in any case it doesn't matter what I think because my opinion has zero effect on the outcome and I read recently on abc that obama ordered airstrikes over Iraq.

[BG45]

Catholic Online (Warning, graphic photos):  ISIS begins beheading Christian children.

[KnightofChrist]

When they begin the cut the heads off of children… how much more hostile could things get?

[Ice_nine]

It's becoming really, really hard to not wish a swift death on all of these . . . people. I almost hesitate to call them people. I know Christ said to pray for your enemies, but this is pure unadulterated evil we're witnessing here. I almost think the US has to intervene because it was a US invasion that caused this after all, but will it just lead to more of this?

 

I'm so sickened. I'm not even shocked because I know the depravity of man knows no bounds, but it still turns my stomach inside out.

 

All Christian martyrs, pray for us.

[brandelynmarie]

:cry:

If we were in their shoes, we would be crying to the world to save us as well...

[truthfinder]

Now that the air strikes have started, I'm a bit concerned the way the media has been representing this.  It seems like they had to wait to find another 'minority' group to be attacked first before they would take any action - in this case the Yazidis.  And Obama and others are justifying this because of Americans in the area - big whoop.  So once the Americans are out, that's it? I have only heard one mainstream media source mention Christians and it was from a British reporter.  One MSM messed up the number of people on Sinjar - stating something around 4,000 rather than 40,000.  

 

ETA: Further, I'm not too sure whether evacuating people to refugee camps is the best.  There are enough terrible horror stories of things happening in camps.  But the more fundamental question, why evacuate a people from their own land? Shouldn't they be helped in protecting their land?

Edited August 9, 2014 by truthfinder

[Aloysius]

the evacuating idea is to make the best of a bad situation, to acknowledge that we are not capable of holding that land as we have proven in the last decade--our invasions in those areas cause more harm than good.  remember: the purging of Christians from that area started during our tenure as occupiers, it has gotten worse since ISIS but it started with us in charge.  an Iraq occupied by the United States will always be a powderkeg for persecutions and festering genocides... and the mere fact of our presence there will, as it has done in the past decade, keep the numbers of the extremist islamists constantly growing.

 

you are right that there doesn't seem to be much talk about the Christian persecution, and that they have honed in on the plight of the Yazidis.  I think this is partially because the West fears doing anything that could be a rallying point for an anti-crusade narrative... any intervention on the West's part that looks like it's particularly motivated by protecting Christianity will have the impact of strengthening the militant groups even worse than our previous actions in the last decade has strengthened them (which is a lot, we went in and metastasized the tumors making the cancer of extremist islam a much bigger phenomenon today than it was before our poorly planned interventions)

 

ultimately I think this area desperately needs the Kurds to be strengthened.  Perhaps even assist in strengthening the Kurds.  Heck, when even Turkey says "let's help the Kurds get stronger, and maybe we wouldn't mind an independent Kurdistan even"... then you know things are serious.  The fact that ISIS has weapons we left behind and is capitalizing on the instability that we caused, both in the invasion of Iraq and the covert ways we have supported the rebellions against Asad in Syria (we even got close to fully supporting that rebellion... which if patterns from Libya would have followed through, would likely have led to the further empowerment of groups like ISIS) leaves us with some responsibility in the matter no matter which way you slice it... but that responsibility needs to find a good outlet and try to provide real solutions... I think strengthening the Kurds would probaby be a good solution right now... attempting to help people evacuate as refugees is another good solution.  Blind faith in USA military invasions is not a solution, and if people haven't learned that from our last decade of intervention that has actually CAUSED these situations, then I don't know what it would take to get that point across to them.  US occupations of these countries metastasize the tumors and breed increased terrorism and lead to these kinds of dreadful situations.

[Aloysius]

I am not against the current bombing campaign and assistance to the people in danger.  I am not sure to what degree I am supportive of that bombing, I'm wary of what consequences it might have, but I am not particularly against it... I can only hope there are smart people involved working to do things with some strategic competence so we don't get lured into a trap again, like the trap that Bin Laden set for us in Afghanistan (he even laid out that this was his strategy... a strategy clearly built off of the strategy the CIA trained him to fight the soviets with--wear them out and rally people to your cause by having them as invaders in your land causing real damage to people's lives) that has been at the root of the strengthening of Islamist militancy around the whole Arab world.  or the trap that Bush and Cheney's greed set for ourselves that really ended up causing this absolutely predictable disaster (a disaster Cheney himself predicted in 1994 when explaining why he didn't invade Iraq in the first gulf war)

 

God help us all, I hope we can save some of these poor souls.  We can at least take solace in the fact that there is final justice, that the martyrs they are creating will be a powerful force in heaven, and that if these people don't repent, they will receive eternal torment for these atrocities.  (But as hard as it is to do in our present justifiable rage, we must always pray that they will repent, we must do our best to respond to evil with love, a very difficult task indeed in these dark times)