Capital Punishment on the Decline

This was an article from the "Washington Post."

The article discussed the decline of both murders and capital punishment in recent years.

The first thing the article reminded me of was the fact that less murder and other capital crime equals less capital punishment. It's always good to remember capital punishment wouldn't be necessary if we could reduce crime rates. That way more people are alive -- before AND after the crime. We should be working on crime prevention every step of the way.

If you haven't read it yet, you should read Ethan's post on capital punishment. Specifically, read his third argument.

Basically, it states that, morally, you can't deliver an absolute punishment (death is a pretty absolute punishment -- you can't do ANYTHING while you're dead) without being absolutely certain of guilt.

While systems like this have existed (cough-Nephites-cough), our country has never been able to create a system in which we are able to convict with one-hundred percent certainty. With regards to convictions that do not carry absolute punishment, it is reasonable to accept a certain degree of error. We try to minimize that degree, but we aren't perfect.

Let's say, for illustrative purposes, that we have 100 men accused of capital murder. Not necessarily guilty -- just accused. The trials commence, every one of them is found guilty under our current system, and every single one of them is sentenced to execution. Now, there is a chance that every single one of them is guilty, but there is also a chance that there were a handful, perhaps even one, that was wrongly convicted. Our system isn't absolute. It is quite probable that somewhere in the thousands of people our country has executed -- according to the article, 3,108 people remain on death row as of this year -- our system allowed for an innocent person to be executed. One innocent man executed is all you need to prove our system unjust.

Remember when I talked about a reasonable degree of error? When you are dealing with a person's life, the only acceptable degree of error is 0.

So why do we still let this system exist? In my opinion, it is because of a predominating irresponsible sentiment. What's more important? That your tax dollars go to something more important than paying for the prison cell of a murderer? Or that we don't allow for even one innocent person to be executed? I promise you that if you allow your apathy to cause you to forget that one person, you will pay for it. I like to call this philosophical phenomenon "moral plaque." It accumulates eventually. Essentially, every one of us has a hand in that innocent man's death. The government is by the people, after all.

Do I think it is acceptable to pay for the real murderers to have a place to sleep and eat the rest of their lives? If paying for their sustenance ensures that no innocent man will be unjustly executed, then yes, I do.

Comments are appreciated.   

Man Arrested for Trying to Join Al-Qaeda

This was an article in "Reuters" and can be found here.

A man from New York was recently arrested and accused of attempting to fly to Yemen to join the Al-Qaeda network in the Arabian Peninsula. The man has plead not-guilty to all charges.

I won't summarize the article anymore than that, because that is all that is really important, and if you want to know more you can click on the link above.

I have to admit my first thought was that this vaguely reeked of McCarthyism. As a nation we have become paranoid and are becoming more and more intense in our desire to prevent another 9/11. I agree with this sentiment, but disagree with all of the stigmas now associated with those from the middle-east and of the Muslim faith. That is beside the point, though, because this man wasn't from the middle-east, so it's not an issue of racism. Investigators found lots of pro Al-Qaeda material on his computer and retrieved a semi-automatic weapon that he had sent to a friend prior to his planned trip to Yemen. That seems pretty suspect to me.

The real ideological question to pose: should a person be allowed to associate with any group or party even if that group or party is Al-Qaeda? The Nazis? Communists? Some are easier to answer than others, because they pose real life tangible threats to our safety as a nation. It sure would be nice if we could operate idealistically without all of these threats to consider. The evidence compiled suggests that this man was going to participate in premeditated, malicious acts, so it is not just association we are talking about, but he hadn't committed any crimes. Yet. So was his arrest justified? I understand the apathy associated with parts of this question, as it isn't the most prevalent issue in our society, and I think for the most part the majority of this question could probably be answered in most of our minds and that the discrepancies are tangential. I appreciate any comments or questions below.

Marijuana is Just as Bad Legal as it is Illegal

This was an opinion piece from "Reuters" that can be found here.

It argued that since the recreational use of marijuana is occurring whether legal or not, that rather than pay to enforce the ban on it and propagate the criminalization of the business that we should tax it and use the funds for both school construction and the regulation of its use.

First of all, I thought there were several fallacious and egregious points made in the article, but even if the article had been sound, I strongly disagree with the legalization of marijuana.

I am opposed to marijuana morally, but that is not the main reason I disagree with its legalization.

Firstly, lets take a trip back to elementary school. Does the term "gateway drug" ring a bell to anyone? No, marijuana doesn't have any direct negative medical ramifications other than those shared by traditional tobacco smoking; however, it does lead to drugs that do. It's not marijuana that is the problem - the problem is all the other drugs. If marijuana is legalized that inevitably leads to an increased availability and an increased consumption. With the increased consumption of  marijuana comes an increased market for other drugs such as cocaine, methamphetamine, heroine, and other extremely self-destructive drugs because of marijuana's role in piquing curiosity and wetting an endorphin-based appetite. So, if you increase the market for recreational marijuana, you increase the market for other drugs. Simple. No, not all users of marijuana will partake of these other illicit substances, but if you simply look at the population of hard drug users, out of all the increase in the marijuana usage population you will have a drastic increase in controlled substance abuse. The two categories are not mutually exclusive in any sense of the term.

Secondly, the idea that you will be able to regulate a drug that you have legalized that is already extremely difficult to regulate when illegal is fallacious. And to base that regulation off of taxes derived from the sales of that drug? How do you propose to legalize the presence of marijuana in households that contain the same children that you are spending marijuana-based prevention funds on and expect those funds to work? To elaborate, let me pose an example. If you never want to drink alcohol, where is a bad place to spend your time? A bar. So, if you are trying to prevent marijuana use in children, where is a bad place to legalize marijuana? The home.

Thirdly, the legalization of marijuana will eventually lead to the legalization of other, harder drugs. To begin this point I must address a common view. A lot of people think that much of the appeal of marijuana comes from the fact that it is illegal and that once legal the consumption of marijuana will wane. This may be true, but the appetite to partake in an illegal substance won't wane with it. If it is true that the appeal of marijuana lies in its unobtainable, illegal image, then the same is true for other things that are unobtainable and illegal, so as soon as marijuana becomes legal, its image becomes displaced. Soon, other drugs assume the role and the same debate we are having now ensues. Sure the debate will take longer because of the more immediate and direct detriments of harder drugs, but eventually, since every one is doing the drug anyway and it is becoming more and more expensive to enforce the regulation and since it makes so much more "pragmatic" sense to legalize it, the drug will become legal. And the next. And the next. I promise you that, although it sounds ridiculous now, after 50 years (or less) of these debates, the debate will be every bit as legitimate as the debate for the legalization of marijuana is now. Conclusion: it won't stop with the legalization of marijuana. Even if people are using marijuana right now in face of the illegalizations, let their sense of defiance be satisfied by the use of a drug that, like I said earlier, won't have any direct negative medical ramifications. If they go into deeper drugs, well, we told them so, and there will be much less of them than if marijuana was legalized.

Fourthly, the ramifications of a society with a high market for hard drugs (and there will be one; see my first argument) will be drastic. There will be very significant repercussions if the market for drugs is raised. It will extend into economics, education, ethics, the moral structuring of our nation, and the stratification of classes. If you think things like the glass ceiling, minimum wage, and education exclusion are stratifying America, wait until drugs are legalized. It will be a heavy hitter in the low classes especially. Those classes are where the markets for heavy drugs are already most prevalent, and as soon as it is even more available, cheap, and commonplace, class mobility will drop into the metaphorical hole. You think the incentive for an inner city child with working class parents or a single mom to go to college is already rare or even nonexistent? Wait until they are raised in a home with drugs. And if you think legalizing it will make it more cheaper, well you'd be right on. And so will the consumption. So will the overdoses. So will the domestic prevalence increase. So will the waste increase. Employment and income (and, as a result, national revenues) will drop. High school dropout rates will increase. Education will become more exclusive if it doesn't become outright oligarchical (and privatized. Don't forget privatized.) I don't mean to be delving into ad hominem arguments, but I don't think they are actually all that ad hominem.

I'm sure there are arguments that I am forgetting. If I remember them I will post them in the comments. Ultimately, the legalization of marijuana isn't about personal rights. It's about that, although it is expensive to enforce the current regulatory laws and the illegalization of marijuana, it is much more expensive in the long run and much much less sensible and pragmatic on so many fronts to legalize marijuana. I appreciate any comments or questions below.  

UN asks US for Drone Strike Transparency

You can find the article I read here, in "BBC."

President Obama's use of drone technology in the middle east is drawing a lot of criticism. A British lawyer, Ben Emmerson, has been investigating the US use of drone technology to report to the UN. He recently gave and interim report to the UN's Human Right's Council saying that national security doesn't justify withholding middle-eastern civilian casualty reports. He ultimately states that use of drones themselves is not illicit, but the withholding of reports is.

On this case, I am pretty ambivalent. I think that drones are a pragmatic, efficient method of counter-terrorism. I do however, admit that since US intelligence is sometimes ambiguous, it does not necessarily lend itself to exactness. I do think that there is a lot of paranoia associated with the word "drone" and I think that since the military is a volunteer organization that it doesn't lend itself to quite as much corruption as people tend to think it does. 

On releasing civilian casualties, I think that if it were only the UN the US were accountable to that the US could justify withholding the reports; however, the US is not only accountable to the UN, it is accountable to its people. I think that there ought to be a little more transparency (and I realize that some of the reports relate to ongoing counter terrorism and therefore must remain secret) toward the people. I won't go into the manifestations of this transparency, because, frankly, I don't know what would be a pragmatic way to do so. Perhaps I am just being ideological and that realistically the US is just as transparent as it can safely get. 

I appreciate any questions or comments.  

Obama Challenges Boehner on Budget Vote

This article, here, in "The New York Times" focuses on President Obama's recent visit to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). In his address given while there, he challenges Speaker of the House John Boehner to call on the House to vote. He accuses Boehner of having alternate interests in not calling the vote, which is an allusion to Boehner's firm stance regarding ACA concessions. The President states that he believes there are enough bipartisan Republicans and Democrats to pass a budget bill and that Boehner is prolonging the government shutdown unnecessarily. President Obama reiterates his willingness to discuss the ACA as well as other policies, economic and otherwise, but says it is inappropriate to harm Americans in order to gain leverage in the ACA debate.

This is not President Obama's first call for a vote. I don't have a link to the video, but President Obama appeared the day prior to the actual day of the shutdown and called for congress to pass a budget bill. He said that holding the nation hostage to prevent the ACA is irresponsible.

Party affiliation is irrelevant when I say that Boehner and the Tea-Party minorities in the House are handling the budget bill and ACA concessions extremely ineffectively.

Let's muse for a minute. Suppose I was adamantly opposed to Obamacare; defunding it is an excellent way to undermine it. However, it is not the only way. If the ACA is just as detrimental to our economy and society as its opponents make it out to be, even in its worst form it is a slow killing policy, much more slowly than the damage a shutdown government is doing right now. Remember in class when we talked about the projected 1 to 1.5 percent decrease? That's in the space of just two weeks. That's not in anyway comparable to the damage that the ACA would do, and that's assuming it would have any damage at all.

On a side note, I tried to find sources that explicitly defined the ACA's methodology and implications, but was relatively unsuccessful in finding one that was objective. I found the .gov sites about it, here, here, and here, and "Forbes" did an article on the implications here, but those were the best I could find. If someone could comment below and give me some good ones, I would be appreciative. I would really like some quantitative work that show things like, the intended effect, the theoretical effect, the effect on different demographics, the business implications, and other things like that.

Now, back to strategy. If I were trying to repeal a bill and do so with national consent, I wouldn't hold the economic growth of my voters contingent on that repeal. To the voters, that shows that agenda comes before them. I would pass a budget bill and include funding for that bill, and then engage in post-bill negotiations. Then the economy can breathe while the debate over repeal is hashed out, and even in the bill's worst form, I still have more time to prevent an economic breakdown than I would have otherwise. The irony is that in trying to prevent economic breakdown and the devolution of medicine and insurances, the GOP is accelerating that process by threatening economic breakdown.

It seems to me that there are more than just the ideals of the GOP and the economy of the U.S. at stake for the Republican Party right now. I just can't quite put my finger on it. One idea that has been thrown around by Obama and the media is that Boehner is more afraid of the Tea-Party element of his party than he is of the damage a shutdown government would do. I think this has some merit. In this article, Paul Krugman theorizes that the Republican Party is devolving due to extremism (Note: This is an opinion piece and I myself am not sure what I think of it. It has a real lack of objectivity, but opinion pages by definition aren't objective. I think he makes some interesting points, but I don't think the Republican Party is quite as blind as he makes them out to be). I think that the uncompromising nature of the Tea-Party minority is causing Boehner to make some decisions that he himself doubts, but to maintain the full support of the Republicans, he is being forced to make a stand on the ACA.

In this poll done by "The Washington Post," we see that with regards to handling negotiations over the budget bill, The President's approval rate has risen, while the approval for both Democrats and Republicans have fallen, with the Republican rating the lowest (70 percent disapproval). This is probably due to the fact that Obama has been very vocal about an end to the shutdown, while Republicans have also been vocal about an end, but they include their conditional concessions about ACA in their vocalizations. To the public, not even necessarily an educated one, this sounds less compromising than Obama has or even the House Democrats. I think if the budget bill isn't passed soon, that the GOP will suffer a lot more than if they relinquished their demands for concessions.

As far as the ACA goes, I am ignorant. Like I said earlier, I would love some sources that could further develop and form my stance. If you wish to comment on what you think is the prudent decision with the standoff right now, I appreciate any comments. Thanks.

Putin, John McCain, and a very Russian American

I thought it was interesting that Ethan decided to do his latest current event on an opinion post, so I thought I might do the same. The story I read was a response to a response to a plea. My opinion page comes from a Russian News Website called “Pravda,” the same news site in which John McCain recently published an opinion piece in response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s appeal to the American people that was published in "The New York Times." The appeal can be found here, McCain’s rebuff can be found here, and the actual opinion page I am writing about can be found here. I would love if someone would check the legitimacy of my "Pravda" links. While reading the articles in "Pravda" I couldn't shake the feeling that "Pravda" wasn't terribly trustworthy; however, "BBC" references McCain's article here which suggests that "Pravda" is legitimate. I'll let you check the sources and decide for yourself. 

Allow me to give a brief chronological summary of these articles. Back in the midst of congressional debates over Syrian intervention, there was a lot of noise coming from Russia, who supports the Assad regime. On September 11th, only a little under two weeks ago, the Russian President Vladimir Putin published an opinion page in "The New York Times" directed toward the American people. In it he urged America against intervention using some shifty rhetoric. The biggest hole (and the ultimate downfall of Putin's appeal) was his concluding paragraph when he took a stab at what he called "American exceptionalism." I feel that this is the most significant part of the article and I will explain why later. On the 19th of September, Senator John McCain published an opinion piece in "Pravda" which offered a pretty emphatic attack on the Russian government and its legitimacy which was almost assuredly a response to Putin's appeal. He called Russian officials corrupt and made claims that he believes more in the Russian people than the Russian government does. On the 23rd, just yesterday, another opinion piece was published in direct response to McCain's article by Mike Lazuka. In it Mike Lazuka calls himself an average American citizen and he ridicules McCain and other American politicians, calling them corrupt in a vehement appeal the justice of an underprivileged mass, or at least the sentiment would imply so. 

My article is not a direct response to any one of these articles; instead, I am addressing the denoted sentiments in all of these articles. Allow me to return to Putin's stab at "American exceptionalism." Putin's appeal was a leaky sink and that anti-American sentiment came dripping out of a very maltreated hole. It is a very Russian sentiment to believe that Americans are a pretentious, arrogant people, and I am sure that it is not exclusively Russian. The sentiment is assuredly the thought child of cold war sentiment, sort of how we still refer to Russia with a tinge of animosity. I'm sure that when Putin decided it was time to grab the attention of the American people, he couldn't pass up the opportunity to give America a little soap box talk. I do not believe that all or even a majority of Russians hate America; however, I do think that there are quite a few that are aggravated by us a little more than occasionally and that Putin's hit-and-miss concluding paragraph exemplifies this. 

Onto McCain. There was a lot of indignation at Putin's pretensions. A slew of opinion writers rose up to attack the violation of American ideology and to attack Putin himself. Americans viewed Putin's article not only as thinly veiled hostility, but vaguely hypocritical. I am also sure that the fact that Putin's appeal was directed to the American people over the heads of their elected, decision making representatives was felt as a kind of patronizing move to a lot of politicians. McCain's attack was probably some combination of all the aforementioned sentiment. Why not take the opportunity for our Compact Constitutional Democracy to take a couple of swings at Russia? It has long been considered effective rhetoric to drop a couple of "corruption" bombs in your attack of a foreign state. Corruption as an accusation has become pretty nebulous, after all. This is not to suggest that McCain's accusations were incorrect. This is not either to suggest that they were correct. This is to suggest that McCain's response was probably birthed much more out of indignation than a sense of concern for the Russian people. I think it was more of a response to the fact that Putin challenged America and that McCain didn't want to leave that fact hanging. I think as a galvanizing agent for the Russian people it was ineffective.

Onto Mike Lazuka. Honestly this perspective doesn't sound average at all. It sounds like a lot of teenage angst piled onto some voting rights. Whoever this was kind of sounds like a conspiracy theorist (maybe a little paranoid?). There was a lot of "trust no one" and "the bourgeoisie feed their children off of blood money" rhetoric in there. I think the bourgeoisie as a political and economic entity are a very real part of the world; however, I don't like it when people use the concept of bourgeoisie as a default accusation, relying solely on the pathos of the concept to persuade their listeners. It's almost sacrilegious. If you forget what really defines the bourgeoisie and the concept becomes more about mud slinging than it does about the dangerous economic extreme of skewed wealth and power than you become desensitized to the reality of the bourgeoisie. That can become dangerous. I really don't think this opinion page should be regarded with real consideration, or at least with much less consideration. The entire article isn't erroneous, but it really doesn't work as a galvanizing agent and it really is too biased to be representative of large demographics, Russian or American. If you can filter through all of the noise and lights there are some interesting things to consider. Probably the most prevalent is that it was published. If "Pravda" felt that the article would appeal to at least some of their readers then there must be some Russians who found this article very agreeable, and that would suggest some very anti-American sentiment.

As far as the articles go, I think both Putin and McCain make some very good points. I actually agree with Putin's "American exceptionalism" attack. I think that both arrogance and jingoism are dangerous and I think that Putin is referring the American versions of both those ideas which are relatively prevalent in our society. America is exceptional, but exceptional does not imply superior. I think we will dig ourselves into the same hole the Romans did if we don't reconcile a little bit of humility. As soon as humility in a society is recognized a lot of problems disappear. Responsibility, both individual and governmental, becomes more prevalent and a lot of issues take care of themselves, such as personal debt and a large amount of the need for welfare. 

I also think some of McCain's accusations have meat to them. Putin has shown himself to be impatient with protesters and with dissent. There have been a fair amount of people arrested for this action. The last Russian presidential election still shows some signs of illegitimacy. If these accusations hold true, than maybe McCain is more correct than we initially thought. 

The summation of all of this is supposed to be that Russia still holds a fair amount of anti-American sentiment and that this should be recognized and considered as we deal with Russia in the coming months and years.

   

Russia Proposes Syrian Cooperation to Avoid U.S. Attack

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-24022866

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/10/world/middleeast/kerry-says-syria-should-hand-over-all-chemical-arms.html?hp

Both of the above articles, one from "BBC" and the other from "The New York Times," give different accounts of the same event. 

Recently Secretary of State Kerry was asked if there were any measures Syria could take to avoid U.S. military intervention. Kerry responded that Assad could relinquish his entire chemical munitions stockpile within the week. Russia, taking advantage of his rhetoric, proposed just that: Syria submit all illicit chemical stockpiles for inspection and then eventual destruction. The articles raised several concerns which include the fact that Assad still denies possession of the Sarin gas used and the fact that this could merely be a ploy to distract President Obama from his already difficult task of swaying congressional approval. 

There are several key points to consider with this proposal. Both of the aforementioned concerns are valid and problematic. The first of them, Assad's denial of possession, is a large road block. There is more evidence that Assad does posses chemical munitions than not, such as the evidence procured by the U.S. and U.N. used in Kerry's earlier accusations, and the fact that Syria's major ally, Russia, has given no such denials. Assad is up to his neck if he really is guilty of chemical warfare, and even if there weren't so many logistical consequences of his actions to consider, after such vehement denials, it would be embarrassing to the dictator to procure the munitions. In short: Assad will probably want to save face more than he will be eager to deter American intervention and appease his allies. 

The second of them, the theory of ploy, is also valid. Russia's actions are shifty. This is the first real cooperative stance that Russia has taken on the issue since the Syrian business began. There are two prominent possible explanations to this sudden change of heart.

The first of which is that Russia is merely buying time for Assad to win the war or to secretly dispose of his chemical cache (or something else along those lines). Obama is struggling to win congressional approval, especially in the House of Representatives. If the vote on the issue was today, the House would almost assuredly vote against intervention, even if every representative who is currently undecided voted in the affirmative. Most all of the President’s efforts in the past weeks have been focused on intervention. If Russia continues to push for compromise and the strongest sentiment behind intervention continues to be the use of chemical weaponry, then the President would have to seriously consider the offer. If the President immediately denied what seemed to have been the nonviolent solution to the issue, then allegations of the U.S. being an imperialistic warmonger would have a lot more stick than they usually would. Russia could be counting on this to buy their ally the aforementioned time that it desperately needs.

The second explanation is that Russia is very afraid of the solidity of American intervention. With events like Iraq and Libya as examples, the chances of Syrian victory against the United States in a war, even one that only included the U.S. air force and navy, are next to none. Syria holds Russia’s last foreign military base and one of the best points of access Russia has to the oil-rich Mediterranean, so Russia has very large incentives for the current Syrian regime to remain in power. Short of entering war against the U.S., Russia encouraging their ally to relinquish their chemical weapons seems like the most plausible way to save Syria from America.

Plausibility of the solution aside, the fact that Russia is making cooperative moves is a good thing. Although Russia isn’t the threat it was when it was part of the USSR, it is still a major power house that is to be reckoned with and still harbors a fair amount of anti-American sentiment. Russia feels threatened by the United States in many ways by things such as its unrivaled military which occupies a fair amount of the globe and its economic standing in the world. The current President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, in my opinion, is a scary man in regards to global stability. He is not proven himself to be a patient man when it comes to vocalized dissidence and the previous election still vaguely reeks of illegitimacy (not to mention is the physical epitome of a James Bond villain). It feels like he harbors some of that anti-American sentiment and a lot of the Syrian situation has aggravated that. So these recent actions are more comforting in regards to Russian-American relations.

As far as whether or not the U.S. should comply with the Russian proposal, time should be the judge. Russia may or may not pursue the proposal and depending on whether or not congress votes to support intervention, it may become the only available solution. I think Obama should continue his efforts to sway congress in favor of a limited involvement policy (“no boots on the ground”) and let the results of that determine with what seriousness we regard the Russians proposal.

Syrian Chemical Weapons and Human Rights Violations

Article from "The Washington Post" on the Syrian chemical weapons attack.

Video of President Obama's comments on the situation in Syria.

The U.S released an intelligence report regarding the suspected use of chemical weaponry in Syria last week against rebel held neighborhoods in the Damascus area. The report indicated that the chemical munitions were indeed traced back to government held positions and that there was an increase in conventional artillery fire to cover up the use of the illicit weaponry.

President Obama released a statement shown in the above video in which he states his consideration of a limited involvement policy in Syria.

As far as the factors that will ultimately decide the U.S.'s fate in Syria, I will try to summarize them as far as I understand them.

There is no inherent ideal faction in this conflict. On one side, there is the tyrannical Syrian regime which has proven itself to be consistently militaristic on the domestic front. The U.S. would be in a strange situation if it supported the same violent government that shelled Homs, its own city, and massacred the city's inhabitants. I still think about the awful images that emerged from the city of black smoke rising from damaged oil lines and room after room of dead families killed by both government and rebel snipers. If U.S. intelligence is accurate, the government must also be held responsible for the use of chemical weapons. On the other side, there is the fundamentalist rebels who have been officially recognized by the U.S. government as the legitimate representatives of the people of Syria ("BBC" talks about it in this article), but have the potential to become the next radical insurgents that the U.S. mistakenly supported. Not to mention that Russia has vocalized its support of the current Syrian government, so entering the conflict against the regime could stoke old Cold War tensions (my understanding of the different Syrian tensions and the history of the regime itself is very limited, so I recommend this article by  "The Washington Post" which offers immense clarification on the entire situation).

Two simple solutions present themselves immediately in my mind. The first (which is actually the second one I considered but it works better to talk about it first) is a limited involvement policy similar to the one that President Obama mentions in the above video. While a full scale ground war is unreasonable and unrealistic (many of those concerns are listen in this "Washington Post" article), there are other ways of intervening. I feel that the No-Fly Zone (which included air-to-ground strikes) in Libya is a perfect example of how U.S. military involvement can be effective without being totally committed. The U.S. air force disabled several key targets in the conflict that allowed the Libyan rebels to be much more expeditious in the removal of Gaddafi without as much expense in the way of lives and resources. While the overall goals would be different in a Syrian campaign, the U.S. could be similarly helpful while remaining relatively uninvolved (the word helpful being a reference to the removal of any vehicle or vessel with the potential to deliver chemical munitions). The U.S. Air Force and Navy both have the potential to disable rocket launchers (it was decided that the vehicle for delivery was a government held rocket launcher) by the use of surgical strikes and precision bombing. This would be a way to eliminate human rights violations without committing thousands of U.S. lives.

The second solution that presents itself is to remain uninvolved and not use American tax dollars or lives to fight a conflict that has no direct relevance to the United States itself. This is a fairly common opinion with arguable merit, but denotes isolationist attitudes (see remaining paragraph about why I disagree with isolationism) about American foreign policy, especially with regards to American intervention. It is my fervent opinion that human beings have a responsibility for other human beings. We, as Americans, have unified together in the society of the United States of America, but that does not exempt us from any human responsibilities to voluntarily submit our resources to the common welfare of the world. Ethnocentricity acknowledged, it is arrogant to assume that because of our forefather's success we are exempt from any responsibility regarding the situation of others especially when it involves the violation of human rights (it has long been nearly universally considered a violation of human rights to use chemical weaponry). It is also arrogant to assume we understand in the least degree what consequences should come from the fault of mankind and that we hold the power to punish by negligence and isolation as we please. Just because our government has proven more successful that others doesn't mean the citizens of one that does not should pay for the shortcomings of a system derived from imperfect men.

All of this is to say that I believe that because we have the potential to stop the violation of human rights in Syria, we have a responsibility to do so. It would be ideal if we could enforce the human rights of every human in the world, but right now all that we are able to do is halt the use of chemical weaponry in Syria, and I think it is evident that it should be a priority in the coming months to do so.