Or Our Merry Ride Into The Syrian Abyss Continues
In the event Syria imploded, for instance, or in the event there was a threat of a chemical weapons cache falling into the hands of al-Nusra or someone else and it was clearly in the interest of our allies and all of us, the British, the French and others, to prevent those weapons of mass destruction falling into the hands of the worst elements, I don’t want to take off the table an option that might or might not be available to a president of the United States to secure our country.
—Secretary of State John Kerry before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee 9/3/13
When John Kerry let that little nugget slip, the entire tightly wound war yarn began to unravel. This neat little saving of the Syria people will once again turn into a long and painful ownership of all-things Syrian. This is how things go around here, and have gone for a long time. You dabble, you hang. You lend a little support and try and right the wrongs and soon you are the proud owner of chemical weapons in a country where nary a soul believes you are anything less than Satan.
But don’t look here. I’m already Satan. I oppose this Syrian maneuver.
You know the drill…
In 2002, you weren’t American or didn’t love America or supported the terrorists if you spoke out against the coming Iraq War. This time you are anti-humanitarian or missing the point of international law or even side with massacring women and children.
In 2002, it was someone making up enriched uranium and slapping it into a State of the Union address with no viable evidence and the president of the United States telling the press there were rocket launchers in Turkish hog stables. This time it is the Secretary of State sitting in front of the U.S. Senate and pitching hair follicles and unmarked dead bodies in the Syrian streets.
In 2002, it was slam-dunk intelligence, now it’s slam-dunk intelligence.
So I ask you; why should we believe it? Whom can we trust with vital information that will drag this country into another Middle East clusterfuck?
These people are so disoriented; they can’t even be honest about their motives. This is all about the horrors of chemical weapons? Who used napalm in Viet Nam and aided Saddam Hussein in gassing the Iranians during the ‘80s?
The Syrian regime?
Nope. The United States of America.
This is the plumber who just flooded your house asking to redo pipes.
Yes, no thank you.
And for the record, I would like to divest my argument from those who support my point like Senator Rand Paul, whose understanding of executive powers allowed by the Constitution is wholly non-existent. Apparently sometime in his half century on this planet he was woefully unaware of Jackson’s genocide of Native Americans, Lincoln’s complete annihilation of the South, Truman’s murder of hundreds of thousands of Japanese, and Reagan’s nifty arms trade with Iran to support jungle rapists.
Congress was not consulted on any of these.
The president can do whatever the hell he wants. And we have seen the handiwork. We have to stop acting as if these things never happened; these Koreas and Viet Nams and Iraqs et al.
Please refer to Lyndon Johnson’s speeches about weakening the enemy’s resolve or Dick Nixon’s “peace with honor” shtick or Dick Cheney’s “we’ll be treated as liberators” nonsense.
Then we can discuss Syria.
Do yourself no favors and “like” this idiot at www.facebook.com/jc.author
James Campion is the Managing Editor of the Reality Check News & Information Desk and the author of “Deep Tank Jersey”, “Fear No Art”, “Trailing Jesus”, “Midnight for Cinderella”, and “Y”.
