Whatâs
Wrong Today:
50 years after the
March on Washington, we are proposing yet again to spend $billions to bomb another distant country, but
we still canât muster the will to lift a third of our own nation out of
destitution and despair.
So the US MUST attack Syria because the
administration says that it has âcredible evidenceâ that the Syrian government
used chemical weapons. The reasoning is that using chemical weapons is so wrong, and we need to protect
the Syrian people.
Donât ask
Congress to authorize it, because this is a dire emergency! Our politicians and
media prefer fake reasons for war, reasons that they can change to fit the
needs of the moment.
The media
spends more time scripting than reporting. Itâs insulting that our leaders
canât be bothered to offer facts for their justification for war anymore. Itâs all
so predictable.
From Andrew
Bracevich:
did, in fact, order last weekâs chemical
attack that killed hundreds of Syrian citizens, including women, children
and others who had not taken up arms against the Assad regime.
Bracevich suggests
that before ordering any such action, President Obama should answer three
questions, and share his answers with the American people, before, not after,
pulling the trigger. Here are Bracevichâs questions:
First, why does this
particular heinous act rise to the level of justifying a military response? Why
did a similarly heinous act by the Egyptian army elicit from Washington only
the mildest response? Why the double standard?
Second, once US
military action against Syria begins, when will it end? What is the political
objective? What exactly does the United States intend to achieve and how much
is President Obama willing to spend in lives and treasure to get there?
Third, what is the
legal basis for military action? Neither Russia nor China is likely to agree to
an attack on Syria, so authorization by the UN Security Council wonât be
forthcoming. Will Obama ask Congress for the authority to act? Or will he, as
so many of his recent predecessors have done, employ some dodge to circumvent
the Constitution? What is his justification for that?
Booman describes the flawed strategy
of what he calls the âDo Something Caucus”:
who argue that we should commit acts of violence not because they will make
things better but because we can’t be seen as bluffers. If people see that we
were bluffing once, they’ll never think we’re serious again. Here’s my suggestion for the Do Something Caucus: why don’t
you try your strategy in a game of poker?
He goes on:
time you get dealt a pair, why don’t you go ahead and bet like you’ve got a
straight flush. And if someone calls you on it, just keep throwing money in the
pot so they won’t get the idea that you were bluffing. Never fold.
Being
good at poker involves the same skills as being good at statecraft. Sometimes
you can bluff your way out of a jam. Sometimes you can’t. And you have to know
when to cut your losses or you are going to go broke.
The Obama administration
seems to be making a bad choice between two poker strategies: the âKnow when to
fold âemâ strategy seems to have lost out to the âall-inâ strategy.
Mr. Obama started
with a bad mistake with his âRed Lineâ comments. You don’t want to get involved
in a civil war that will harm our national interests, but you don’t want people
to be killed with chemical weapons, either. So, you talk tough to try to
prevent the use of chemical weapons. It didn’t work.
Also talking
tough was your Senator from the Green Room, (John McCain R-AZ) appearing yet
again on the Sunday shows, who said:
actions. The United States must rally our friends and allies to
take limited military actions in Syria that can change the balance of power on the ground
But the world
understands that at best, we hold a pair of deuces in Syria. We are also holding
a pair of deuces with regard to Iranâs nuclear program. One is a problem we can’t fix, and the other
we might still be able to work on, provided we don’t get in the middle of their relationship with Syria’s al-Assad.
First, we
need to admit that as of today, there
is no outcome that we want in Syria, so success is an impossibility. Second, once we start
bombing, we will be sucked into choosing an outcome that we don’t want and then
pursuing it until the American public punishes the Obama administration for simply
being idiots.
When the
best the administration can come up with is “This won’t work, it will
probably make things worse, but we have to do it because…” it doesn’t
really matter how you end that sentence. The administration is choosing to end
it with “we have to maintain the taboo on chemical weapons”.
Fine. But
you could end it with any other conceivable phrase and the logic does not
improve.
If the United States enters this civil war on the
side of the opposition in Syria, the
United States will be blamed for the opposition’s crimes, and they have already committed
many. Most people in the greater middle east hate al Qaeda and other
terrorists. They are also coming to hate the United States and its drones,
missiles, bases, night raids, lies, and hypocrisy.
Imagine
the levels of hatred that will be reached when al Qaeda and the United States
team up to overthrow the government of Syria and create an Iraq-like hell in its
place.
An unpopular rebellion put into power by an outside force
(US) does not usually result in a stable government. In fact, there is not yet on record
a case of US humanitarian war benefiting humanity or of nation-building
actually building a nation, and don’t bring up Croatia as the model for Syria.
Why would Syria, which looks
even less auspicious than other potential targets, be the exception to the
rule?
I wish we would stop the madness. This cannot go well. Sorry. I can’t.