Show of Hands

No, you're confusing the facts. Kurdistan claims they have independent lab confirmation that a chlorine attack occurred in January, but it is the international community that could not independently confirm yet.

That's not confusing facts. That's waiting for facts. It doesn't make any difference how much "independent verification" the group making an allegation claims to have, if none of the claims have yet actually been independently verified.

A European Union-certified laboratory has confirmed this. That is independent confirmation. It's not yet international confirmation, but it is independent of Kurdistan.

Then the article that the claim is based on is wrong, flatly stating "The Kurdish allegation could not be independently confirmed." There is independent confirmation of chemical weapons use, and by whom, or there is not. It isn't a grey area.

What they mean is that it could not be immediately verified by France24 or other governments. It does not mean that it has not been confirmed by an independent laboratory because, if you read further, it specifically says "the analysis was carried

out in a European Union-certified laboratory after the soil and samples were sent by the Kurdish Regional Government to a “partner nation” in the U.S.-led coalition that is fighting Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria."

That's what I'm saying. One lab. No second verification of the analysis of the sample, but much, much more importantly, no independent verification of what the sample represents or that IF it unquestionably was from a chemical munition...who's?

Haha, I guess so. It was a good debate though.

Sounds like a tu quoque fallacy.

The only fallacy here is folks advocating war without thinking about the people we will put into harms way for small matters. Enough Americans have side in the Middle East.

Just because a person votes in favor of a military operation does not mean that they do not consider the consequences of that action. My question for you is, do noninterventionists question the consequences of inaction? Would you volunteer to die in

the stead of a Yazidi family? Is the life of one American soldier worth more than the life of several Turkmen families? Even if we adhere to this ethnocentric ideology that American lives are worth more than foreigners, can we be assured that Daesh

I'm retired army and fought in two wars. I will not go again for some nonsense that people are supporting on the other side of the world. And I disagree if people are not going, haven't been, or don't have a love one impacted they have no real

won't kill more Americans? Not just journalists like Steven Sotloff, but also ordinary Americans who could one day be the victim of a Daesh attack on the homeland.

Consideration. It's too late when you need to send letters to dead folks relatives.

One question? Have you been to war? I have. I've seen people die and it's not pretty. America is not the world police. We cannot and should not seek to solve every problem with American blood. Period.

A Daesh attack will not and cannot ever happen in America.

A state of war already exists so this question is meaningless. We are not trying to start a war, but rather to end one. The only question is whether we will engage with the international community and defeat terror or if we will let it fester and

uncontested, does not stop at our borders.

grow in strength. You may not want to face that reality, but Daesh has launched attacks in other western countries and it is by no means impossible that they would do the same here. 9/11 should have taught us the lesson that terror, if

Let all the other countries like Saudi Arabia get involved. Problem with wars like this is we go in kick their behinds and before we get there more than a little while they drop their arms and blend back into the population. Then we have another

Un-winnable policing action. The only people who gain are defense contractors. We stay a few years then when the American populous can't stand the carnage anymore we cut and run. Happens all the time from Vietnam to Korea to Iraq to Afghanistan.

Peace with honor we always say - bring our boys home. Lol. We always declare victory as we cut and run. Lol. It would be funny if it weren't so costly in American lives. The wars we won were in Germany and Japan. There we whipped them until they

Gave up. Then we completely reorganized their societies and imposed our will on them - both modern Europe and Modern Japan are US creations. Oh, and we're still there. We went we beat them, we disarmed them, we retooled their entire societies so if

This the war you're talking about perhaps I can sign on. But today if someone gets droned and accuses American of killing innocents we recoil in guilt. Yet in Dresden for example we bombed until there were literal fire storms and people - men,

If you go in to win. What kinda war are you for?

women, and children were cooked alive in their bunkers. So are we prepared to really do "war" or just go over and shoot a few folks and come home? I don't even need to mention Japan it's well known what we did there. War is an even dirtier business

Saudi Arabia and other Arab states will not intervene on their own. Hoping other actors solve the problems of the world is not a strategy. In the events where we don't act and someone else does, it has rarely worked to promote provincial human rights

mass civilian casualties are a necessary component of being victorious in a military conflict. Quite the contrary, when we make mistakes that cost civilian lives it only whets the opposition against us. I agree that success will require long term

, western values, or American national interests. Daesh itself is a ramification of US inaction. Without US support, FSA cells were forced to turn to jihadists for survival and this produced the monstrosity we see today. I reject the notion that

effort and political courage by the US, but we don't have to occupy Iraq and Syria for 70 years. The only reason we remained in Germany and Japan was because we still faced a threat from the communists and we needed to protect the allies of the

capitalist order. If we foster a strong and independent Iraq, Syria, and Kurdistan, then in the long term we can shift towards a situation where they govern their own security without any US ground forces, but that is a process that will take

discipline and patience.