[detuur]

Worse yet: "the opposite policy of my enemy is my policy". We're seeing situations on both sides where people are taking positions in arguments solely because it's the opposite position of their opponents. Because taking any less than the polar opposite position would be seen as "going soft on them" by their electorate. It's a total shitshow.

[jessaustin]

The funniest example right now are the Rs who are against USA violence in Syria but for it in Iran, juxtaposed with the Ds who are against USA violence in Iran but for it in Syria. Syria and Iran are allies, and there is no compelling reason for USA violence in either nation. The whole war media narrative has really gone off the rails...

[labster]

False equivalence, though. Syria is a country already in a civil war, where the nominal government has used chemical weapons on its own citizens multiple times, afawk. Iran is a stable partial democracy that is, afawk, complying with an international agreement to prohibit nuclear weapons.

South Korea and the US are allies too, but only one of us is at war, albeit technically.

[jessaustin]

Yeah if we talk to a Republican she'll have her own ridiculous arguments in the other direction. There is no "afawk". Every new detail we hear about supposed Syrian chemical attacks is worse for the war media narrative. And what's the point anyway? USA weapons are killing innocent people in at least five nations, right now. How would deaths of innocents in some other nation justify adding that other nation and its nuclear-superpower ally to our list? The only reason the "civil war" wasn't over years ago is that we have continued to flood it with munitions. Even after the supposed "good rebels" fled the area we continued to ship arms in, only to "whoops, they've mistakenly gone to ISIS again". ISIS only exists in the first place because of our ridiculous yet in retrospect remarkably similar decision to kill a bunch of innocent people in Iraq. How many times do they have to repeat this desultory performance before Americans remember what happened the last time they believed it?

[throwaway84742]

You appear to be thoroughly brainwashed.

1. It’s not a “nominal” government, but the actual one.

2. The use of chemical weapons by Syrian government has never been proven. Moreover, it has no incentive whatsoever to use them.

3. Iran is not a democracy, partial or otherwise. Ayatollah decides everything.