The United States should immediately intervene in Syria

Con, thank you for your response. I believe this same debate is taking place in multiple places and we can only hope in the Oval Office as well. I am not going to link to Wikipedia as it is the best encyclopedia in the history of the world and everyone has access to it for fact checking. Unlike Pro, I would never use about.com as a source as it has been labeled by reliable press as a "content factory". http://www.wired.com... I also do not source editorials. Con has presented a reasoned and well formed argument, but I disagree. Here's why I am #winning: Con presented several fallacies in the last round: Straw Man - An intervention in Syria has to be a protracted and long campaign similar to Iraq -- not true. I favor a Libya style intervention, though I would not be opposed to a declared war on Syria, which we should do if we are to go to war in any sense. Slippery Slope - Intervention in Libya will lead to an all out war in the Middle East. It won't. Moral Equivalence - Occupy and Syrian Protests. A few instances of excessive (Maybe even reasonble?) force [#occupy]does not equal repeated use of unjustifiable deadly force [Murder going on every day now for almost a year in Syria]. Con was wrong on several key points: Iraq is affected by Syria. Syria is the highway for foreign influence into Iraq. I've shown evidence of this. Con asks when the hell has the US Ever intervened in a country based on Moral grounds: I'll provide a few examples that I think will resonate as I should not have to use all my characters, which I could, on this subject: 1917 - World War I 1939 - World War II 1950 - Korean War ... 1986 - Libya 1989 - Panama 1991 - Desert Shield 1992 - Somalia 1992 - Bosnia 1994 - Haiti (Operation Uphold Democracy) 2000 - Sierra Leone 2011 - Libya Since I have answered Con's question quite thoroughly, I pose the following question to Con: "When has Syria intervened in a country based on moral grounds?" Should the enmity that Arab Governments feel for the United States Government prevent the United States from stopping an absolutely brutal murdering spree which will happen in the next few weeks if we do not intervene? Con argues that the "anti-western anger and resentment it would cause would be aimed at Israel in the long term". They already hate Israel. There is no military scenario where any one of them, or combination, or totality of, could win in a fight against Israel. This alone is why they do not fight Israel, because when they do, they get beat down. If you hit a dog in the head every time it tries to bite you, a little harder each time, eventually it will stop trying to bite you. Con also argues that the Middle Eastern countries protest a very abundant US presence and this is the reason we should not intervene in Syria. Americans love protesting. Protesting is a good thing. American courts protect the right to protest. We're not going to intervene in Syria because of protesting, we're going to intervene in Syria because the protesters are being murdered. Economical Benefits Again, I never said we should invade Syria or deploy troops for longer than it takes to cut the head off this snake. An emergent Syrian Government that is dedicated to peace would need to raise funds for reconstruction. The main peaceful way to raise funds is to sell something valuable, say, oil. We could buy it. Good for them, good for us. Imagine in 1770 when the US protesters were not treated fairly by the British empire, should France have immediately declared war on Britain and get Americans to fight also? of course not. I'll assume we're talking about the Boston Tea Party. YES! They should have, but of course what can you expect from the French. They probably debated how to sell weapons to both sides. Luckily for the World, they did eventually make the correct decision. -2 - Imagine a country, where people who are campaigning for democratic reforms in a rather oppressive country are suddenly open fired on by government forces, does that mean the US should invade that country and remove that government? If you answered yes then 10 years ago you would have wanted the US to invade China Tiananmen Square, 1989. Chinese protesters wanting democratic reform who are peacefully protesting the lack of democracy in the Chinese government, and to solve the problem China used live fire and other extreme crowd control measures to eliminate the protests, in the process killing anywhere from hundreds to a couple thousand civilian deaths, creating a martial law, banning foreign newspapers, controlled media coverage of the event within the country, and earned itself several economic sanctions for its actions. First of all, 1989 is like 23 years ago, not 10. That is just straight math. Second of all, imagine that instead of being defeated at T-square, rebel groups emerged and there became a resistant movement within China. The Chinese Government began mobilizing against them. The rebel group is asking for assistance. I would make the same case I am making here. Con seems to think we have to be consistently violent in order to not be a hypocrite. I say we only need be consistent. We do not have to be violent in one country because w e choose to utilize violence in another. We do not have to use our Military in N Korea because we use it in Syria. Con is also claiming to know how the Egyptian, Tunisian, and Libyan rebellions turned out. Common sense tells us it is too soon to tell. And now, on to more of my constructives: On April 29th, 2011, the President transmitted the following message to Congress: the Government of Syria’s] actions and policies, including continuing support for terrorist organizations, damaging the Lebanese government’s ability to function, and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and missile programs, continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.’. Pasted from <http://www.govtrack.us...; ‘Syria continue[s] to provide safe-haven as well as political and other support to a number of designated Palestinian terrorist groups, including HAMAS, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) . . . Pasted from <http://www.govtrack.us...; The situation in Syria is deteriorating and other countries do not possess the unique military capability that the United States has to offer. The US uniquely has the tools needed to stop the violence that Assad is committing against his people, through the use of violence, with the least quantity of violence. The goal is not to provide violence for the sake of violence, the goal is to promote peace. Precision strikes, special forces, Predator drones, these tools allow a finer granular control over how much force to use to achieve a desired outcome. We're already in the region and we're already mobilized. Syria is mobilizing thousands of troops for a ground assault against civilians: http://www.dailymail.co.uk... Pasted from <http://www.dailymail.co.uk...; Arab coalitions have made numerous requests to the world to stop the Syrain Onslaught, but they're too slow. Therefore we should try. http://www.bbc.co.uk... China and Russia will not go to war over Syria http://www.cbsnews.com... As much as they might talk, they are not willing to risk confrontation on Syria. It's so cut and dry morality wise, even the leaders of China and Russia would not get support for supporting such an oppressive regime.