Follow the conversation. My argument is that US government declarations on Syria demand skepticism due their intelligence failures in Iraq, especially when the current Syria chemical weapon claims have even less proof than the Iraq WMD charade.
Did you join this forum just to argue about the Syrian Civil War? Not attacking, just curious you say you're a refugee from Oregon (living in Austin ironically,) but you act like you're still there. Maybe in Oregon you were considered a conservative or even a moderate, but here you're showing some extremely media influenced bias.
A few things, first we did find weaponized chemical weapons in Iraq, the United States house Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence release some classified reports that said troops in theater recovered over 500 shells of mustard gas, many of which were degraded but still harmed the troops that found them. By 2014 even the liberal (little l not big L I assume you know the difference) New York Times said that there had been more than 5000 weapons recovered and that servicemen (some of whom I know personally) had been exposed during disposal and destruction.
Fast forward to 2009. Against all advice from military commanders Obama gives the ok to draw down in Iraq of combat personnel. Elements from Ansar al-Islam begin migrating to Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Syria from Iraq. Thanks to weak interference they begin revolutions in several countries. In Syria they go hard line and transform into Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham now known as Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. Chemical weapons that were transferred from Iraq during the war (Obama's own Intelligence director admitted as such in 2003) to Syria were first used on populations in April of 2014 and March of 2015 with the UN fact finding missions saying that there were at least 4 other previous cases (still classified but put on your credentials and go find out what happened for us.) That's not the US intelligence community saying it, that's the UN group that is tasked in finding chemical weapon usage saying it. So your argument about US intelligence failures is a mute point here.
So Mr. Cornell, I'm not sure what the hell you're getting at here, but the CWC (Chemical Weapons Convention) signed in 1993 by 192 countries INCLUDING SYRIA has been violated multiple times. Should we be going in there and interfering? As a Libertarian I say probably not, but if we are going to be sticking our wee wee in the middle east we should be going in full force in the event Chemical weapons are used.
Feel free to use ad hominem attacks on me as you have others in the thread, but I'd tread lightly here. Gun owners tend to be some of the most polite and kind people I've met, but intentionally stirring up a rattlesnake nest seems like an unintelligent and UNEDUCATED thing to do.