Sooo..no threads re Obama/bombing/dropping Aid to Iraq, etc, eh? — Page 2

One of the things that frightens me most about ISIS is what it is doing to my feelings about people.

I am a Jew and old enough to know some in the generation before mine who died in and survived the death camps. The idea that anyone should wish to wipe any group off the face of the earth runs counter to everything I have always believed.

Yet when I see those photos and read the stories, it makes me feel that ISIS should be exterminated to the last man. And that scares me.

Hopefully this isn't inappropriate to bring up, but this tragedy unfolding in Iraq is a potent reminder to me that there is so much more going on in the world than the mainstream narrative of "Islam" v. "Judaism" and "Christianity" and East vs West. Although I'm not really a practicing Zoroastrian, I am Parsi - an even smaller minority that once faced persecution from radical Islamists. Until this story broke a few months ago I had never even heard of the Yazdi people. So much more to be aware of, so much more to learn.

Namo (or anyone else who cares to respond), I swear I'm not picking on you, but I am curious if you've had time to read PJ's posts and if you're still opposed to any humanitarian mission in Iraq? Do you see an alternative to the short-term crisis other than air-drops and limited bombing campaigns? Or perhaps I misread your original post and you're actually not opposed to our involvement?

I believe it's against board rules to accuse other posters of being 9/11 Truthers.

---

Kinda like LH is being a "Finding Namo Truther."

---

I am completely bewildered how my comments here in this thread, on this board or ever in my life would lead anyone to conclude I am a 9/11 "truther."

Life' too short for that kind of bullsh!t.

"I looked at a few of those horrendous photos before I started to feel nauseous. How can someone be born as a human being and be able to do the things they are doing?"

Not being intentionally frivolous, but I suspect it has a lil' something to do with testosterone and religious zealotry. Thank the stars above for women!

Men bully each other at every turn and unsupervised boys become feral. I'm aware that not everyone is comfortable with reducing others to their respective genders but men today in various settings are struggling to find their footings in the present world order, I suggest.

Obama's biggest burden is that he must be seen by GOP simpletons and bad guys the world over as a tough-as-nails whoop-ass-and-take-names right-of-center leader of the free and unfree world alike.

My biggest fear is that a future POTOS of the USA will become the world's most notorious human rights abuser in the name of intervention for humanitarian reasons. I love this great nation which has given me so much but is there a fuggin' limit to our hegemony in the affairs of others on this planet? We can't seem to curb the slaughter of innocents on inner-city streets due to the pervasiveness of handguns and assault rifles sometimes possessed by teens and tweens.

Perhaps this is neither the time nor forum to over-think things when tangible action is called for but if as a nation we lack the political will, fiscal wherewithal, and government-business acumen to roll out some semblance of a single-payer healthcare system, rollback portions of the 2nd amendment in part or whole, normalize marriage equality nationwide, either give undocumented workers a path to citizenship (or round-up/repatriate) and break up the 2-party political stranglehold on public thought (and corporate funding of elections), is anyone really convinced that we'll be effective at containing yet another conflict abroad that might require a show of force?

It just seems that foreign affairs sometimes become a convenient distraction from pressing domestic concerns.

Sorry for the run-on sentence

---

jav - what better place to have that discussion? Hopefully, unlike in some other threads (ahem), we can have a civil discussion and even disagree with each other without attempting to drown out the discourse.

While I understand the frustration of seeing domestic issues like gun violence and health care unresolved while the US gets involved in international affairs, I think it's wrong to suggest that it's an either/or situation. We can't just be isolationists. I also don't buy the argument that when there is a will and capability to intervene in a humanitarian crisis (not to mention, a direct appeal from the Kurds themselves), we shouldn't do so because there have been crises in the past in which we have not intervened, and doing so would be hypocritical. I know you didn't say that last one, but it does get bandied about a lot in these types of discussions. BTW, it should be noted that the UK and France are currently assisting the US in Kurdistan, though our troops are doing most of the work.