The ambivalence of many Congressmen mirrors my own. You can't wage war
by bureaucracy and with pre-defined limits (and bombing another country
is making war, no matter how you try to "nuance" it). If you establish to
the world beforehand that your military actions will be narrowly defined
and follow a pre-established script, you fundamentally undercut one of
the prime fears of your enemy -- that he doesn't know how far you are
willing to go in pursuit of your goals. We saw this demonstrated in
Afghanistan and Iraq once the wars there were put on timetables.
Afghanistan suddenly got a lot more dangerous for our troops, and in
Iraq whatever good we had done for the country swiftly unraveled.
I
reject the notion that the chemical weapons represent any more threat
to U.S. interests than the conventional weapons both sides are using. The
reality is that the U.S. is acting as morality cop for a conflict it
has little interest in, otherwise. And why? Obama and the anti-war left
have repeatedly chastised the U.S, for its interventionist arrogance,
claiming that this arrogance has soured the world's opinion of the U.S.
Fair enough, if that's what they think, let's follow that to its logical
conclusion. We have here a situation where no major nation but France
seems to feel that the situation warrants intervention. So why do we
presume that it falls on us? If this is such an important humanitarian
disaster, why is it *our* job to do something about it when the U.K.,
Germany, Australia, Canada, India, Canada, Israel and every other
supposedly free western nation with money or an army feels like it's not
worth stepping in?
If the chemical weapons are so bad, let the
oh-so-civilized, nuanced EU do something about it. Let Sweden, whose
Nobel Peace Prize Committee is so willing to engage in frivolous
anti-Americanism pony up some blood and money instead of mere words.
amen.
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