Here’s the crux of the problem: we can’t trust our government. The ‘powers that be’ never tell ‘we the people’ the whole story and oftentimes not even the real story. Subterfuge and deception are SOS. It’s unlikely we’ll ever really know who used the chemical weapons. I don’t want our country to ‘lead from behind’ anymore but I don’t want our country becoming the world’s policeman again either. There are atrocities being committed all over the world all the time. We can’t and shouldn’t try to militarily punish every tinpot leader that mistreat their people. We’ve got enough problems of our own. Let’s concentrate on fixing them.
Here’s the crux of the problem: we can’t trust our government. The ‘powers that be’ never tell ‘we the people’ the whole story and oftentimes not even the real story. Subterfuge and deception are SOS.
You have nailed it. Little trust anymore because of all the lies.
But there is a big difference between enforcing existing agreements and being the policeman of the world to stop all atrocities everywhere.
There have been good reasons to ban the use of chemical weapons in warfare and it has worked pretty well for about a hundred years.
As for maintaining freedom of the seas and transportation around the world, who will do it if we do not?
We took over from Britain doing it, basically after WWII. We pretty much did it for our Hemisphere from the Monroe doctrine on.
Someone has to do it, or the whole world devolves into chaos. We may not be hurt as much as most, be we would still be hurt a great deal.
We started doing this about 1800 with war on the Barbary Pirates. It is not a new policy.