Syria Crisis

I think that it's time that I share my opinion about the current situation in Syria.  Keep in mind, I'm hardly a hawk, I was adamantly opposed to our invasion of Iraq, I feel that our dealings in Afghanistan were badly bumbled and I generally support diplomacy over military intervention.  All that being said, I'm hardly a pacifist either, I fully supporting the initial invasion of Afghanistan, I feel there is a place for drone strikes and I supported the bombings in Libya.  Sometimes tough decisions just need to be made.

All that being said, in my opinion, we cannot condone the use of chemical weapons by any regime, that crosses the line of human decency and there must be consequences for those actions.  We are not talking about boots on the ground here, the goal isn't regime change (although would that be such a bad thing?), we are talking strategically targeting and crippling Syria of their ability to use chemical weapons moving forward.  I say it needs to be done.

I'm not buying the "unintended consequences" argument against intervention either, in my opinion there would be far greater "consequences" to doing nothing, we would just be emboldening rogue leaders everywhere into feeling that they may act with impunity.

For those critics who argue that the U.S. shouldn't be the world's police force, I ask you this, if not us, then who?  The U.N.?  Not as long as Russia and China have veto power (BTW, I find it humorous that many of those pushing for U.N. action are also the same people pushing the "New World Order" conspiracy theories).  So who does that leave?  Aren't we the world's reigning superpower?  Shouldn't we be the ones taking the lead?  Or should we really just let regimes poison their own people at will (knowing full well that they'd also continue to do so).

For those calling for diplomacy, don't you think that's been tried over the last couple of years?  This crisis didn't happened overnight, it's been years in the making.  How does diplomacy work with someone who has no interest in diplomacy?  

Lastly, for those idiots who are blaming the President for "backing us into a corner" with his "red line" statement in the first place, let me ask you this, isn't the use of chemical weapons of an unspoken red line?   Wouldn't we be in this exact same place even if he didn't make that pronouncement?