[DanaC]

I'm sorry - I can't feel that casual about mass casualties. And that's what we're talking about if we go down the carpet bombing route. Thousands would die. And some variant of ISIL would reemerge in a new part of the region. Rinse and repeat.

My god, those poor people. They've been forced to live under these lunatics, and now the west is going to bomb them back to the stone age.

And as for this: 'You have 2 options: Civilian casualties or US military casualties drug out for years'. US soldiers sign up for that risk. Joe Raqqa and his wife and kids did not. And I get that each country's leaders have to think about their own people's safety first - but those US casualties drug out over years are unlikely to ever reach the heights that civilian casualties will reach in carpet bombing. So what we are saying there is that a few hundred US lives are worth tens of thousands of Syrian lives.

What is the end goal here? Is there one? Or is just that doing something is somuch better than doing nothing? Do we really think carpet bombing Raqqa is going to make us safe? Bullshit, is it.