"Anti-war" argument #3: Violence breeds violence

Note: for a list of arguments and responses (one per post) and more background on why I'm doing this, see this index page.

Maybe I take my Facebook feed too seriously, but I've been seeing "the Syrians don't need more violence," "more bombs will not help," "violence is not the answer," etc too much to ignore it anymore. This argument is beautiful if you're running for miss Universe - or #missHabalon - but you need more to be convincing.

The only case in which this argument can be consistent with the rest of your beliefs is if you're what I call an absolute pacifist - meaning you think avoiding committing violence is good regardless of the situation - OR if you're what I will call an optimistic pacifist, meaning you think that avoiding violence will always lead to a better situation. Otherwise, you believe that violence is desirable/effective/useful in certain conditions and, in order to be consistent, you need to specify what these conditions are and show that they are not met in Syria today.

I will ignore absolute pacifists because I am assuming that my reader cares about what happens to people in the world and not only about whether or not one is resorting to violence. Therefore, instead of engaging in more abstractions, I'm going to contradict optimistic pacifism by providing a few historical examples where it seems like violence was used to being about a better situation in the world or was good more generally:

• The Allies fighting Nazi Germany in WW2: This example is so overused I don't feel like going into it.
• Operation deliberate force: In August-September 1995, in response to the refusal of Army of the Republika Srpska (VRS) to put an end to massacres of Bosnian Muslims, NATO forces conducted an air campaign that saved a lot of lives. Most writings I have seen on the Bosnian side assert that inaction by the UN and NATO earlier in the conflict allowed for terrible things like the Srebrenica genocide.
• Maybe this is more controversial, but there's no doubt in my mind that some - not all - of the violence we see and have seen conducted against perpetrators of oppression by its victims is justified - either because there is something about it that makes it justified in itself or because it can lead to a weakening of oppression. I won't choose a particular case here but there are plenty, from colonialism to apartheid.
• This cool video of an Australian kid standing up to his bully.

Non-violence can work in certain contexts, but its success in this context can't be used to justify inaction or decry violence on the part of people who, like in Syria, don't have access to the luxury of non-violence being effective anymore.

A final point: to those who are against violence because it allegedly prevents a diplomatic solution, this post by Elias Muhanna is the most realistic proposal for a diplomatic solution by people close to the regime, and it is utterly unrealistic. How can a a regime that just massacred - by the most credible estimates so far - 1400+ of its own people be trusted to hold free and fair presidential elections within a year, give a prime minister real powers, etc??

I'm serious, if you have good evidence for the possibility negotiated settlement at this point or reasons to blame the opposition for its impossibility, please send them my way.

Remark: there are good articles pointing out that Syria is not Bosnia or Kosovo and that the case for intervention is more difficult to make in Syria; I don't dispute that. I'm just hoping for people to go into the specifics instead of using this unrealistic, lazy call for avoiding violence.