After chemical weapons were used in Syria(Sarin gas), The US has threatened military intervention. My only thought was... why now?

Up to that point, more than 100,000 Syrians had already been killed, It didn't seem to matter when they were killing each other with guns and explosives. So the precedent that we seem to be setting here is that you can kill as many people as you want... as long as you don't use chemical weapons,  which seems a bit ridiculous to me. 2 million people died in Darfur, would we have intervened if chemical weapons are used? I guess we'll never know

Anyway, do you think that this the way military intervention should be decided? If not, at what point is military intervention justified?(if at all)

sloanstar1000 : Foreign politics should be learned from 3rd and 4th graders. If there is a bully, have nothing to do with him. If he starts hurting you or your friends, make him wish he hadn't. Military intervention should only happen when a nation or one of it's allies is attacked.

I do not support bombing the Syrians because the Syrians are killing Syrians. That is stupid.

Yeah, as txgangsta said, there is no need to get involved where it is not necessary, so I really think that we should only get involved with war if we are being involved in it, otherwise, it is just best to stay out of it and avoid involvement where it can possibly get us in trouble.

Only when one of our allies are attacked, then that is or cue to get involved and take action, but aside from that, I think it is just best to keep out of unnecessary situations that could end badly. So it all really depends on what is happening and who is being attacked that should determine if we should get involved or not. 

I don't think a country should take any action unless we absolutely gave to, like during WWII, that, we understand on why a country should take military action, but right now with the Syria issue, I don't personally think it's at that point to have military action because I think the Syrian government and the rebels can both fight it out and supping aid is one thing, but taking military actions is a whole another ball game, I think the United States is good enough giving aid to the Syrian rebels, but don't need to invade the country. Even if it's another country not related to Syria, we still shouldn't unless we have to.

You know I really dont think their is a one size fits all rule for this. Certainly you should never use war to resolve arguments. As they say, war doesent prove who is right, merely who is left.

If their is something really serious like a genocide then i think you need to step in.
If their is a bunch of people killing each other over ideological differences then how can you even discern someone in the fighting to support.

Syria for instance is a shambles, and i really cant see intervention going well.

Its really hard to consider every circumstance. In the case of people killing people (right now I'm talking about before chemical warfare) its not exactly right but they should sort it out themselves. Now when they used chemical weapons to kill people then yes let the US step in but not military means. That still does not give us a right to send in the military to force the people to stop using chemical means, otherwise we're just acting just like the government over Syria. That's right we're acting like bullies. Now asking them to stop would be a good way to intervene. If they don't listen maybe talk to some of their allies to convince Syria to stop. 

The only real time the military should step in is if there's any threat to us. With the situation of Syria there was no immediate threat to the United States. Could there eventually have been a threat? Of course I'm not ruling out that possibility. However, since there was no immediate threat we shouldn't have stepped in military wise.

I don't know. Last time my country saw military action was 70 years ago.

If you ask me, you should have knocked out Syria long time ago when the opposition was still in the hands of the democratic resistance instead of the islamist mercenaries. And you also should have done away with North-Korea long ago.

But then again, who knows, might not have been that good way either. Anyway. Most people who you have wars with are not even on the same continent as you and don't share even borders with. It is just hard to figure out what are your wars trying to accomplish in the long run anyway except to profit the arms dealers.

And as far as Syria goes, it is already a lost cause. It is either pro-Russia dictatorship or another fundamentalist Islamic state.

When should a countries military force take action?, well in my opinion a countries military force should take action immediately when the lives of the common people are threatened by a external or internal force or when a countries basic liberties are threatened by another country. Also in my opinion we the United states should not take military action against North Korea because of the civilian population North Korea has (plus most of the civilian population doesn't even want to be there).Also North Korea's dictator seems like the kind of p**** who would use child soldiers and well I wouldn't except or condome the U.S or U.N soldiers killing children.
Also the only reason why countries even trade with North Korea is because of the civilian population if it wasn't for the civilian population basically starving no one would trade with North Korea, thus basically killing the country.At the most send in 1 squad of highly ranked seals to just assassinate the leader then have big bad american democracy come on in and show the North Korean people them how they should live with basic liberties and freedoms.

Any chance it gets.
"National Defence" is no joke.
The only business that never sleeps or stops.
Every country should always "stick to its guns" (Translation = Always ready.).
Who could ever be slack at a job like that?
Good Luck.
Peace.

the title of the thread and the content of the original question are not the same.

I think military intervention in a sovereign state should only happen with nearly universal global agreement. The idea of a handful of countries deciding to invade a country militarily when the majority of the world disagrees is wrong.


As for an individual countries decision to go to war my instinct follows many people in this thread: you go to war to protect yourself from an aggressor. That is the only reason in my opinion. And you only fight long enough to defeat the immediate threat and then you stop. That's just my opinion.

geeogree : My question isn't specific to any country, I used the example of Syria to simply point out possible absurdities in how countries set precedents for military intervention. My question was simply when is a country's military action justified.

As far as "global agreement", I personally don't think that's morally practical. There was no global agreement to intervene in the Rwandan genocide, or in Darfur. In a world where there is no global attempt to stop genocide, should individual countries not attempt to stop genocide if it's possible?