Quote Originally Posted by wm View Post
You asked in your title what point I was trying to make. I was trying to suggest that the record of recent military "punishment" operations shows that they have not had any of the 5 desired effects of punishment. I think it is probably the case that short of winning a general war and then trying the leadership of the losing side, that will always be the case. And, IMO, the only aim of punishment that this latter course will meet is that of retribution/revenge..

I will agree with that.


Although my thoughts on this are the same as they are on our actions in Iraq and Afghanistan trying to create democracies where they are not feasible - are we taking this action based on an understanding of how Assad will interpret events or are we taking it based on how WE interpret events? A corollary would be, are we taking this action based on how a reasonable (or unreasonable) third party dictator would interpret these events?