Here is a sample:
16 years old
12 years old:
There is a slew of pictures that will illustrate who is doing the fighting in Syria’s civil war.
Click the link above or here to see them. Remember them on Tuesday when President Obama addresses the nation and tells us about the children the Assad regime is killing.
Then give the children in your lives an extra hug.
T.B Rickert's Call 
Emotional pics, but it does not make a good case for a humanitarian bombing. If we carry out a humanitarian bombing, all we do is hasten the coming of a total free-for-all, where we can successfully topple Assad’s government (and if you don’t belive we’re trying to bring about a regime change, pour youself a cold glass of water and then pour it on your head and read the news again). We can topple Assad but we will not be able to stop the civil war that comes after that. How do I know? Because this is precisely what happened in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Egypt. With our support (sometimes physical military presence, sometimes not), in each case we got rid of the old government which was admittedly evil, and in each case acual conditions got worse.
Read it and weep, as they say, which is how I feel reading your post. I don’t want these kids to die or be pushed in a situation where they have to kill, any more than you do. But considering our very recent experiences in the same situation as now, with the same results every time, what makes it different this time?
I can’t think of anything.
We should direct our sadness/anger towards the Obama administration, for not learning ANYTHING from Bush. And also for all the suckers who meant well, cared about the world, and then voted Democrat. That is the real problem. We are a democracy, we have the power to do more than just destabilize governments and hand out guns to civil war combatants. But we cannot expect any more than this kind of pro-violence diplomacy from the Bush government, or the Obama-aka-NeoBush government. Sorry to throw such ugliness in your face but I don’t see any other way. I hope this sinks in over time.
I’m not trying to make an argument for action in Syria, quite the opposite. The Administration likes having a call to action on the basis of “the children” in this case he is lamenting the death of women and children. This points out the children are the soldiers, my sadness stems from that fact. Soldiers die in war, we should not feel any more emotions for the death of a 16 year old soldier than any other soldier.
Comparing Bush’s policy on Iraq and Afghanistan, to Obama’s Syrian policy is comparing apples and oranges. WE WERE ATTACKED!
If you believe that America should not have been involved in the middle east dating back to the establishment of Israel, that’s a whole different discussion. One that would have to take into account the environment that existed during the cold war. Do you want to point to Jimmy Carter allowing the Shaw to be overthrown, thereby creating the Iran that exist today? Reagan arming Afghanistan to fight the Soviets, the list goes on.
I have to agree, though, administrations never seem to learn from previous ones.
Thanks for clarifying.
First of all I’m glad you’re anti-intervention in Syria, even if we might have different reasons. I think in this day of conquer-and-divide politics by our “leaders” , if we want to have an effect, as a democracy, on our government’s policies, we have to reach out to people who we might have big disagreements with. So don’t worry too much about the rest of what I’m going to say. I just want to share where I’m coming from. I think we actually agree on a lot of stuff.
Going in reverse… I do not accept the logic that was used during the cold war. Namely, that “it was right to use Any Means Necessary to prevent to spread of communism, including supporting oppressive fascist dictators, if they were the only ones who could prevent some country’s local population from turning communist”. We are still paying the price for this old logic ourselves, and the middle east is paying for it even more. Al Quaeda came from this, and well over half the dictators in the middle east, africa, southeast asia, south america, etc.
I guess we attacked by Afghanistan, or rather, Afghanistan chose to shelter some Saudi’s (including Bin Laden) who attacked us. So is indeed apples to oranges.
As for the Iraq war, we were most certainly NOT attacked. Saddam had nothing to do with our actual security, other than he was a scumbag who used to do favors for us in exchange for us doing favors for him. By the time of the Iraq war, we had him completely contained. That is my #1 beef with Bush, the Iraq experience was completely inexcusable, purely based on lies, and a huge crime for which nobody got punished.
Going back to Afghanistan, after we defeated the Taliban, we then made an effort to make peace and set up a democracy, which failed. The country is run by warlords. So I think it’s fair to include Afghanistan in the list of examples where our interventions have been harmful, despite the self-defense justification for the Afghanistan regime change in the first place.
Finally, not sure where you’re going with this, but you probably know that the Shah of Iran, who was overthrown by fundamentalists in 1979, was himself a dictator we supported, who overthrew the democratic government that came before him, with our help, in 1953. Had we not done that, Iran may have remained a more moderate, if somewhat socialist, state, and not our enemy that it is today.
Ok, All the best…