Comment by Jamesbeam | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Jamesbeam | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I throw punches, I can take some, cowboy.

>That necessitates some degree of competence and flexibility to work with potentially conflicting groups and individuals beyond "off with the heads of everyone who doesn't believe what I do" type ISIS crap.

Well, about that. I have not seen a single man sentenced to death after Islamic law for any of the crimes they committed last year. He might not pull the trigger himself any longer, doesn’t mean he’s less responsible for the ISIS shit happening under his reign.

https://www.reuters.com/investigations/syrian-forces-massacr...

>If some half-baked Islamic fundamentalist theocracy crap is the price of local stability, that sounds pretty cheap to me, and it probably sounds even cheaper to the people who've had to live with the instability. If Europe has a problem with that in their back yard, they can whack him and they can own the quagmire.

Fair point. But at how many innocent souls do you draw the line?

Given the choice between Tito and the Yugoslav wars everyone would take Tito every time. These sorts of people are Dollar General Tito.

I'm perfectly happy to concede that this guy and his cronies are "bad" and rule with an iron fist and that will cause much bloodshed and suffering. But who isn't in that region? A brutal dictator or theocracy is still better than a slow burn (so like car bombs and AKs not ATGMs and DShk's) religious or civil war.

I don't think the US should be picking sides in these things except in the most obvious and undeniable cases of national interest (and even then I'd rather not, see for example Vietnam). Sell arms to everyone with the money or nobody. My default position is that American interests are best served by commerce, all dollars are green no matter who you are.

You speak like you’ve done your research, made your mind up, and are confident in your conclusion. I respect that, and I would be stupid trying to convince you of something else, because you’re not wrong.

We have common ground and both agree that this is a baddie. I am happy with that.

The rest is just a difference in problem solving.

How do we deal with the baddie?

We both can put a steak on the grill and have awesome steak, even if we would call each other crazy for how the other one might do the grilling.

I am happy I don’t have to make the decision how we deal with the baddies. Something we probably can agree on as well. It’s always easy to mess with the coach if you’re just standing at the sideline with nothing to lose.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com