two journalists killed in syria,



but all i can think of is elle driver

Apparently we don't have an all encompassing Arab spring thread, so here we go.

So, in Syria they just killed about 100 people, many of which were children. In comparison, Bill Clinton, Janet Reno et all killed about 80 at Waco. And yet our diplomats weren't expelled from anywhere. If only Syria had succeeded in painting the rebels as child abusers, they'd have an air tight alibi! (for the record, death by artillery and/or throat slitting sounds preferable to death by fire) Better yet, call them right wing cultist child abusers and you have free reign to murder them at your whim. Silly Syria, not learning from recent history.

/cynicism

Do we have a Waco thread? Because I think that's what you'd really like to talk about.

Apparently I haven't made any typos that are quote-worthy. But seriously, this 100 body count boundary seems arbitrary at the least.

American moral relativism is an interesting topic and relatible to Libya and what's happening the ME. How many hundreds of civilians have our drones killed?

Moral Relativism is entirely natural. You care more about people and value the lives more of those you feel a kinship with.

It took thousands and thousands more killings in Serbia/Kosovo before we got involved. And what about most of central Africa?

Or maybe you care more about intervening in places when there's a potential material gain to be made.

Well, yeah.

That helps make the a persuasive argument that people actually do learn from history. Avoiding "another Srebrenica" was a pretty widely marshaled argument in support of intervention when Qaddafi's forces were moving on Benghazi.

As for central Africa, you're right that we don't go everywhere that massacres occur, but feasibility and cost matter. Ideals aren't the only guides in foreign policy, and they meet hard constraints and the willingness of Americans to sacrifice for a given cause. Libya was very low cost for what it achieved (not that the outcome in Libya has been all that great either, but I don't know how many people expected it to be, and nothing ever goes according to plan, in part because people are self-interested and politics [i.e. the struggle for power and command over various resources, tangible and intangible] are always present in human relations).

BTW, I think we do have an Arab Spring thread, and maybe one on Syria too.

this is a better example of problematic morals/behavior than selective interventionism

Not sure the appropriate thread for this, but as a former intelligence analyst I'd like to say that this whole Embassy/Petraeus thing is just a f*cking nightmare. The amount of people talking to the press about this shit is just unacceptable. There should have never been a contradiction in information because there should have never been that much info given to the press in the first place.

What happened to the days of it's better that the public not know what goes on near the tip of the spear?

I don't really like this. The public should know what the government's doing (sometimes it has to wait until after the fact to find out, and I'm ok with that, but democracy depends on transparency).

I disagree. If we disclosed intelligence to the media/public, even after it happened, then we risk giving away tactics/sources etc. for future operations or intelligence gathering. This Benghazi thing is a mess all around though, so it may not be a good example to have this discussion over. Sure it's ok to disclose why we think the attack happened, but how we came about the information is not important for the general public to know.

Oh yeah, I agree with that. I'm thinking more along the lines of drone strikes (or back in time, support for coups and guerrillas around the world).

Yes, I'm fine with that. My mistake on conveyance. I was just referring to some methods we use. And I only brought it up because I've seen on some news networks people claiming that kind of thing should be made public.

But man, this Petraeus thing is a mess...

It's sort of absurd they even found out about it (at least going by this article: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... ealed.html )

Well, seems that story may have left out a few things.... Top general in Afghanistan involved. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/ ... 5Z20121113

This is getting veeeeeery interesting

I disagree. Those actions will be judged in hindsight with shifted moral norms and out of context. We (the public) will never know even a fraction of the intelligence and decision making inputs that lead to those situations and it end in the same type of politically driven monday morning quarterbacking that we see all over the media today.