Truthout Author Lists Reasons Why a Military Strike Against Syria Is Ill-Advised

Steven Zunes, at Truthout.org, has delineated numerous reasons why the proposed military strike against Syria is ill-advised. For reasons of copyright, I am unable to reproduce the entire article here. However, reason #3 seems to be among the strongest. I am happy to post it here:

3) Military intervention likely would lead to more death and destruction[.] Despite advances in military technologies which make cruise missiles and other explosives far more accurate than in previous decades, US attacks inevitably will result in civilian casualties. Furthermore, empirical studies have demonstrated repeatedly that international military interventions in cases of severe repression actually exacerbate violence in the short term and can only reduce violence in the longer term if the intervention is impartial or neutral. Other studies demonstrate that foreign military interventions actually increase the duration of civil wars, making the conflicts longer and bloodier, and the regional consequences more serious, than if there were no intervention. In addition, military intervention would likely trigger a "gloves off" mentality that would dramatically escalate the violence on both sides. History is replete with examples of supposedly "limited" military actions that dramatically escalated. The International Crisis Group, a reputable and mainstream organization of some of the world's leading policy and strategic analysts, noted that it could "trigger violent escalation within Syria as the regime might exact revenge on rebels and rebel-held areas, while the opposition seeks to seize the opportunity to make its own gains" and, depending on the scale of the US strikes, even result in "retaliatory actions by the regime, Iran or Hizbollah, notably against Israel."