Posts Tagged ‘Syria’

Syria: The Establishment’s War

Sunday, September 8th, 2013

The message went out from the establishment intelligentsia: Link Syria to Iran and talk about the Iranian nuclear weapons program, and more in Congress will buy it.  John Boehner continues to “lead” House Republicans into President Obama’s pocket, as the word circulated that if a House vote on the use of force looked like a loser, they would spare Obama the embarrassment by simply tabling the matter.  Why are House Republican leaders seeking to spare Barack Obama the humiliation of losing a vote on anything?  If Boehner were any kind of opposition leader, he would revel in it.  The plain truth of the matter is that one can imagine a vital US interest in Syria’s civil war by the most contorted linguistic machinations.  We, the American people, have no interests there, and as polls reveal, we damned-well know it.

John McCain(R-AZ) can shout down detractors at town hall meetings all he likes, but simply put, the Senator is representing somebody the interests of somebody else when he advocates sending American forces to attack Syria.  Karl Rove is pushing, and all the rest of the DC intelligentsia is demanding a war on Syrian dictator (until recently referred to simply as “President”) Bashar Assad.  What is Assad’s grave crime?  Allegedly, forces under his command employed chemical nerve agent(s) against some number of civilians, estimated by the media in the range of 1,400.  Meanwhile, in the last two years, under the horrors of civil war, nearly 100,000 people have perished.  The calculation in use by Washington DC is that because Assad is alleged to have crossed this “red line,” employing these weapons of mass destruction, he must be punished(and ejected or killed) while they deny being after regime change.

Civilian death is horrible, but it is also an ugly and sometimes unavoidable reality of war.  The US has bombed civilians into oblivion in every war since the advent of the airplane. We excused those deaths as unavoidable  “collateral damage.” I don’t believe the method much matters.  This is another instance of Washington DC imposing its morality on the rest of us.  In 1994 Rawanda, when an estimated one-million Tutsi were murdered by the Hutus, nobody in Washington DC batted an eye.  You see, they weren’t slaughtered with chemical weapons, but in the main by Hutus wielding machetes.  Once again, the Washington DC establishment is more concerned with the weapon than the fact that people died.  More Americans will die prematurely as a result of Obama-care than have died in Syria as a result of chemical weapons.  Can we consider Congress and the President war criminals too?If chemical weapons are weapons of mass destruction, what then must we call Obama-care? It’s a legalized genocide machine, but nobody in the DC establishment seems the least bit perturbed by it.

For his part, President Obama has conducted his foreign policy like a lunatic.  Since he’s a looney-tunes leftist, this isn’t much of a surprise, but what has been more maddening is the voices of establishment Republicans rushing in to support him.  Most notable among these is that daft bugger with an anger-management issue from Arizona, who cannot wait to oust dictators in the Islamic world in order to replace them with even worse enemies of freedom in the form of al-Qaeda and its affiliate groups.  What sort of madman would demand a replacement of a known quantity of evil with a potentially more vast one?  John McCain believes apparently that any change is good change.

In fact, it seems as though McCain has been on a mission to sabotage the American people.  Some will cite his status as a war hero when excusing his bizarre policy positions in favor of illegal immigration, restrictions on the Second Amendment rights of Americans, as well as the First Amendment rights against which he legislated(McCain-Feingold.)  Frankly, it doesn’t much matter whether he’s incompetent or nefarious.  The fact is that his open support of this President’s anti-American agenda is all that one needs to know that something is wrong with McCain.  McCain was openly challenged by Arizonans at his town-hall meeting this week.  Every one of his detractors appeared more sensible than did the Senator.  While some think he’s senile, I think it’s worse than a touch of dementia.

The fact is that John McCain has joined the DC establishment-class at least a decade-and-one-half ago, as he sought the GOP nomination for President in 2000.  His treatment of the American people is driven by apparent disdain, and his contempt for plain old American values is shocking.  Why would he impel our country to intervene on behalf of rebels who are linked to the people who attacked us throughout the 1990s and particularly on 9/11/2001?  There are plenty of conspiracy theories, naturally, but whatever his reasons, they simply don’t add up in the manner he’s pitching them.  Of course, it’s more than John McCain.

The entire DC establishment wants this war.  As our economy careens toward a cliff, and as Washington DC inflates our money while preparing to stiff us on amnesty/illegal immigration and the funding of the WMD known as Obama-care, they want us watching Syria.  After all, if people in a town-hall are clobbering McCain over Syria, they’re not clobbering him over immigration or Obama-care.  I’m not suggesting that Syria is entirely a distraction, except that as creatures of opportunity, the establishment doesn’t mind using it that way.  Once again, however, the people who run this country are pushing an agenda the American people largely oppose.  Obama-care, amnesty, and military action in Syria are all things to which the citizens of this nation currently stand opposed.

It is for this reason that Iran and its nuclear weapons have now resurfaced as an issue linked to Syrian action.  Meanwhile, the people in Washington continue to angle for the creation of a vast new caliphate spanning the Islamic world, and they’re willing to use US forces as the mercenaries in that pursuit, as the Saudis and others offer to pay for the costs of removing Assad.  It’s become so bizarre that McCain claimed “Allahu Akbar” means “thank God.” Literally translated as the battle-cry it has been, it means “Allah is greater[than your God.]”  For those who have bought the misplaced notion that Islam worships the same god as Christians and Jews, this might pass the sniff-test, but for those who have studied the matter, McCain’s comment reeks of a naiveté or blatant dishonesty, either of which represents a clear and present danger to our country.

We have no business in Syria, never mind assisting the radical elements there.  1,400 civilians have been killed allegedly by chemical weapons, allegedly employed by Assad, but the American people have seen no evidence.  Instead, the DC establishment chatters about “intelligence briefings” as if the same people who didn’t prevent 9/11 are some sort of omniscient Oracle that knows, or that having seen such alleged intelligence, we, the American people ought simply to believe them, and accept it without further discussion.  Honestly, we’ve been here before.

While Washington DC prepares for war against Assad, we should remain mindful that the government is largely in a war against us.  No longer interested in serving the interests of the American people, and no longer bothered by that fact being obvious, they intend to have their war whatever we may think about it. Just like Obama-care, and exactly like amnesty.  It’s all part of one war: Washington DC against us.

 

Why Sarah Palin Is Right About Syria

Sunday, June 16th, 2013

Why Should We Go to Syria?

At Saturday’s session of the Faith and Freedom Coalition Conference in Washington DC, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin made some remarks, and among those that prompted the media to go berserk, she said of the potential of US involvement in that conflict that we “should let Allah sort it out.”  I actually saw one site on which she was referred to as an “isolationist” for this view, but such claims are laughable given her in-depth understanding of international trade and national security.  I saw another site suggesting that she didn’t know what she was talking about, or wasn’t qualified to comment.  Either way, it seemed more likely that the sites and authors in question had more trouble with who said it, or how it was said, because I believe the vast majority of Americans probably side with Governor Palin on this issue.  Apart from the fact that most Americans haven’t the patience for another middle-eastern  military engagement with indistinct goals and a muddled mission, there are some very practical reasons why she is right about all of this.  Mostly, it comes down to the fact that it’s a no-win situation for us, because while the horrors of what is going on in Syria is tragic in human terms, nothing the US can do will effect an end to the suffering, instead only adding to it with our own losses.

The reports this past week that the Assad government had crossed Obama’s “red line” on chemical weapons seem not to be as certain or as specific as our engagement should require.  There are reports that Sarin nerve gas had been used, and that more than one-hundred had been killed in this manner.  If true, it’s an egregious and brutal use of some very insidious weaponry, but it must also be said that if killing one-hundred or more civilians by this manner is a trigger for war, why did it take so long for us to engage Saddam Hussein? In the early years of the Clinton administration, Hussein used precisely this sort of weapon on his own civilians in Southern Iraq.

Advocates of intervention in Syria claim that what we should do is enact a “no fly zone” over that country.  They insist that this is as far as we need go, but there are a few problems with this thinking.  Russia has recently delivered more advanced surface-to-air missile capability to Syria, meaning that our aircraft would be subject to shoot-down in a much more threatening fashion.  Is all of this really worth losing our airmen and our aircraft?  I don’t see a rational justification.  If this were about defending the United States, our men and women will go to the ends of the Earth in pursuit of our defense, but I know few who think we ought to spend their lives frivolously or as a matter of charity, particularly in a place where we have no particular interests or friends.

The fact is that the so-called “rebels” are simply al-Qaeda or al-Qaeda-backed fighters much like those who took down Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. Nobody misses Gaddafi, but as the events at Benghazi last September demonstrate, the volatile nature of an environment only loosely-controlled by provisional governments but dominated on the ground by foreign fighters is not the sort of outcome for which Americans should be fighting.

Bashir Assad is a brutal dictator, but those “rebels” who face him are not much better.  We have seen this scenario play out before, and we’re witnessing its aftermath in Libya and Egypt.  The attack on our facilities at Benghazi was born of a similar situation, inasmuch as after we provided air cover for the “rebels” in that country, they immediately shifted gears and wanted us out as they began to build their Islamic Republic.  In this sense, we have no friends at all, by any definition, so that it’s impossible to understand why we would put Americans’ lives at risk to assist any of them.  In this context, it is easy to understand Governor Palin’s sentiment.  We don’t have any friends there, no real national security interests, and therefore, no justification for jumping in.

At the same time, the Russians are heavily invested in Syria and the Assad regime.  Iran is pledging forces to his defense.  Should we really consider placing our already over-stretched forces at risk for this?  Do we risk a wider war in the region if some Russian technical advisers are killed in a raid on a surface-to-air missile site?  More, if al-Qaeda-connected groups were to take over Syria as they have done in Libya, what will that mean for Israel that must live under the constant threat of Syria.  Which is worse for that island of liberty:  A neighbor that is predictably antagonistic and dangerous, or a volatile tempest filled with elements that feel no restraint born of relations to Russia or any other major power?  I’m not inclined to guess as to how the Israelis might feel about the matter, but I suspect that an al-Qaeda-driven neighborhood is not the most pleasant prospect the Israelis could imagine.

There is one final consideration in all of this, and it goes to the absolutely detestable leadership we’ve had over the last few years:  Americans can hardly trust a foreign policy that has squandered opportunities and lives in the manner that has been the hallmark of the Obama administration.  Do we wish to subsidize a foreign policy that is concocted by the likes of Samantha Power?  Do we wish to see the United States entangled in yet another quagmire in that region in which we have far too few friends given our more than two decades of exertions?  How much treasure has been spent, and how much of our blood has been spilled in the pursuit of policies with only vague platitudes about creating or supporting “democracy?”  In which pest-hole has that so far succeeded?

When critics of her remarks launch into their narrow-minded tirades against her alleged lack of foreign policy knowledge, or her supposed “isolationist” views, I can’t help but remember that these same critics would attack Governor Palin whatever her position had been.  Instead, her remarks serve as a flashpoint not for their true policy objections, but instead for their unabashed, unremitting hatred of Sarah Palin, the person.  When one carefully evaluates the facts on the ground in Syria, the hopelessness of the situation becomes evident, and the foolishness of any American engagement there becomes clear.  In Syria, we have no friends, but only enemies, who hate us as much or more than they hate one another.  Were we to intercede on behalf of the so-called “rebels,” were they to prevail, we would soon find ourselves under the gun to get out.  Most Americans are well beyond fatigued by this procedure, as it has been the trend in all our engagements throughout the Muslim world in the last two decades, so that unless the United States or its interests come under direct threat of some sort from actors in the region, our answer should be as Governor Palin wryly noted:  “Let Allah sort it out.”

 

Hillary Inconsistency: Need Syrian Consent for Troops – Why Different From Libya?

Tuesday, February 14th, 2012

Different Thug, Different Policy?

I must admit that I don’t quite understand this one yet, because while we entered the fray in Libya on the basis of the Samantha Power argument of a “Responsibility to Protect,” the idea that nations had a duty to protect a people from a tyrannical regime, this same theory doesn’t apparently apply in Syria.  Instead, after a meeting with the Turkish Foreign Minister, Hillary Clinton said in a joint press conference with Foreign Minister Ahment Davutoglu that there would be no troops sent to Syria without the consent of the Syrian government.  Why is one brutal thug’s regime exempt, while the other was not?  While leftist protesters marched under the banner of “no blood for oil” in successive wars initiated by Republican presidents, there’s no similar outrage now that it has become patently obvious that this is the only justification for the differential in policy: Syria has no oil. Libya has plenty.  It’s either that, or something more nefarious.

This is another example of the apparent contradictions in Obama’s foreign policy.  When the people of Iran were rising up, Obama said nothing, and did nothing.  In Syria, we’re getting some words from the State Department, but nothing of substance, and it seems there’s no intention on the part of this administration to have a consistent policy.  We surely didn’t wait for Gaddafi’s consent before bombing in Libya.  We were trying to bomb him!  Meanwhile, Assad is every bit as monstrous as Gaddafi, and perhaps worse, yet there we are wearing kid gloves.  This doesn’t make any sense at all unless one begins to account for the differences between the two countries, or leaders.

Is there some reason the Obama administration favors Syria’s Assad?  If one applies the principles of the idea called “Responsibility to Protect(R2P,) one must wonder as thousands of civilians in Syria have been murdered in the streets over the last few months.  If Gaddafi was a rabid dog who needed to be removed for the safety of his country’s people, why not Assad?  Why is he exempt from a similar fate?

Don’t misunderstand: I am not advocating an attack by NATO on Syria, but I find it curious that the same people who less than one year ago could not wait to pound Gaddafi into submission before he was slaughtered at the hands of a mob(as he deserved) are now reluctant about treating Bashar al-Assad in similar fashion.  This discontinuity in policy means something, just as the reluctance to criticize Ahmedinejad in Iran meant something, but it’s not yet clear what the meaning is.  Cynical folk would point to the Libyan oil, but even if that is a factor, I don’t think it’s the only one.  Something else must account for this differential in policy.  Could it be that Assad has something else Obama wants?  Could it be related to the proximity of Syria to Israel?

Time will tell, but when one sees such distinct and different actions by lefties in similar circumstances, one knows there’s something more to the story.  Leftists are simply too stuck in their ideological ruts to act this way without ulterior motives.