08-30-2013, 07:09 AM
(08-29-2013, 09:09 PM)Lissa Wrote: Bolded is the rub of this. Russia is getting money from Syria for all the arms they're selling and China is willing to take a blind eye to it so long as they can get oil from Syria and Iran (yes, Iran is illegally shipping oil through Iraq and Syria and everyone knows it). There is no way you're going to get Russia or China to back a resolution again Syria that has any teeth. This is the problem with the 5 permanent members having veto power.
True, but even without that these situations are too difficult for us to know exactly what to do.
You feel very powerless because you can't do anything simple for these people (at least the women and children) but you also don't know exactly what is going on. Who is using what violence or what type of weapons.
You also know that Assad is an oppressing dictator but if the muslim extremist rebels are in charge things will probably get worse anyway. Helping them means helping Al Qaida.
I am also thinking that best is to do nothing because recent interventions in the gulf have shown that what you try to obtain doesn't work anyway.
What the world needs is a good system of apprehending and trialing war criminals. So single persons. This way you don't have to take sides in the conflict but you give a signal that people should play by the rules otherwise we will get you.
I mean look at WW2. How many nazi's have finally been convicted after the war? What percentage? The fact is that people can do what they want in wars because the chance that you get punished for your crimes against humanity are close to 0.
Of course this is not so easy practically.