I am watching our leaders debating the idea of attacking Syria or at least launching missiles into that sorry country to prove some point or another with amazement. Even more amazed am I watching Republican ;leaders like John McCain, Lindsey Graham, John Boehner and Eric Cantor lending their support to this president.
Can anybody explain what the mission is here? Why do we have to do anything about Syria? After the Syrian regime has killed some 100,000 people, now we want to begin military action because it killed a few thousand with chemical weapons.
And which side are we on besides against Assad? Is there a faction of the rebels out there who really are moderate democrats whom we can trust? Why should we help factions allied to al Qaeda? How many videos to we have to put up of these monsters executing truck drivers, children, and priests to make the point that we should not be taking any side here?
And what is the threat to the US? Is Syria getting ready to attack us? Are they preparing to attack Israel? They are trying to survive themselves.
We are at this point because our irresponsible president made a reckless statement last year about a red line and game changer. Now his bluff has been called. Unfortunately, he has wasted the past year not building a coalition for action, but making campaign speeches, traveling to fund raisers, taking vacations, and playing golf. As a result, he has no international support in this madcap venture except for the French, who will go only if he goes. The UN is against it (big deal), and the Arab league countries are not volunteering except to hold his coat while the US does their dirty work.
So now, this president wants Congress to pull his chestnuts out of the fire and save his face because the world is laughing at him. Yet he assures us there will be no boots on the ground, it will only last a few days, will not remove Assad from power, nor destroy his chemical weapons caches-wherever they are.
But it will send a message that using chemical weapons on his own people will not be tolerated.
But where was Obama when Sudan was massacring its own people? As for the attacks against Christians in Egypt by his Muslim Brotherhood buddies, he has nothing to say. North Korea? Dennis Rodman is once again en route as we speak.
And what about the spectacle of John Kerry testifying before the Senate today? Does it bring back memories of when he was testifying as a member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War and accusing his fellow soldiers of having committed "unspeakable atrocities reminiscent of Genghis Khan"? Now he is comparing Assad to Hitler. Yesterday, it was peace; today it is war that Kerry wants.
Just what is the strategy here? Everybody knows that the real threat in the Middle East is Iran. What is to be gained by bombing a couple of aspirin factories in Syria? Will it lead to a retaliation against Israel? Who knows?
When you look at the President's policies in the Middle East, you would only conclude that he wants to bring the radical Islamists to power, just as when you look at his domestic policies, you would conclude that he wants to literally destroy this country so he can rebuild it the way he wants.
And to watch the leading Republicans going along with him is beyond sickening.
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5 comments:
Graham and McCain are no surprise -- warmongers typical of their party. Boehner and Cantor -- I'm just relieved that didn't demand an amendment repealing the Affordable Care Act as the price of agreeing to go to war. I've read that the Republican leadership in the senate may not be so compliant.
However, I suspect that President Obama would be quite relieved if congress voted not to intervene. Obama is surrounded by people who argue plausibly that we have a moral obligation to do so, but I don't think his heart is in it.
We would have much more credibility saying that use of chemical weapons crosses a red line in the sand if we had acted similarly when Hussein al-Takriti made much more massive use of chemical weapons against Iran, and against the Kurds. If we didn't act then, we can't with credibility say that we must act now.
Of course we were cheering on Hussein against Iran, and we didn't much care about the Kurds.
It is such a snake pit there you don't know who to believe.
If Assad was smart, he would find some junior officer who launched the attack without authorization. He would try him and execute him the next day. Then he could tell the world that justice has been done and he took care of it. Problem over.
If Obama was smart, he would send a drone and kill Assad. After all, what he really wants is for Assad to be gone (after Kerry and Clinton called him a "reformer" and a " good friend of the family").
If Congress was smart, they would not approve the resolution. That would signal everyone, once again, that we have an amateur boob as a president. Don't pay any attention to what he says as he is too dumb to know the consequence of what he says. He is a liar on top of it.
This mishmash of a foreign policy that diminishes our integrity in the world is what you get when you elect liberals into office.
Strangely (and scarily??) enough, I find myself in the fairly rare position of tending to agree with Siarlys. Hussein clearly far outdid Assad relative to use of chemical weapons against both his "own people" AND Iran. The inconsistencies in our response(s) are apparent.
And as far as "moral obligations" are concerned, I believe that is what we did in Europe under Clinton. Both that effort and this threatened one in Syria seem largely if not entirely humanitarian. Nothing necessarily wrong with that, but why then have we not interceded in Rwanda, Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria, and elsewhere across the world (such as wherever it is that Siarlys describes Buddhists killing Muslims)?? A "civil war" is a civil war, and persecution is persecution, whether it is religiously based or otherwise (Muslims are certainly killing other Muslims).
And I agree with Gary that Iran is the primary (in fact the only real??) threat in that region. Appears to me that if we are to spend "treasure" (and "blood" will almost inevitably follow), we should take out Iran's nuke capability, whatever that takes, rather than doing anything in Syria. I will admit to density in being unable to discern any significant U.S. national interest, if in fact any at all, relative to Syria which could justify military action, which is not the case with Iran.
Amateur hour again, I believe. Or, for the conspiracy buffs, perhaps something more sinister??
El,
GW Bush got no credit5 for taking out the guy who gassed thousands of Kurds in Iraq. Certainly not from Obama. Now Obama wants to go after Assda for gassing his people. Congress is going to go along with him. When will we say enough of the ME? I agree with you. Iran is coiming whether we want it to happen or not. We should be taking out those nuke facilities. I just don't get it5. We are going to take ownership of Syria. Can you say nation-building again?
Well Gary, neither Reagan nor Bush Sr. did anything about Hussein al-Takriti gassing Kurds or Iranians AT THE TIME HE WAS DOING SO. One then wonders what the motive for taking out Hussein at the time we did so might have been? And the result has been terrible for the ancient Christian communities in Iraq.
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