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As most informed Americans know, President Obama issued a dare/threat to the Syrian government in August, 2012, warning them not to use poison gas in their civil war against rebel forces. The President then proceeded to do nothing to operationalize that threat over the next twelve months, despite numerous and long vacations and many, many rounds of golf. He did not get Congressional approval to strike militarily if poison gas was used, he did not get United Nations approval to strike, he did not get the American public behind him, he did not pressure Syrian allies to force Syria not to use chemical weapons, nothing.
As a result, if reports are to be believed, the Syrian government did use poison gas on its people and the President is out on a very thin limb. He has now gone to Congress, twelve months too late, and is trying to get them out on the limb with him by authorizing a military strike on Syrian targets. Over the past week, Congressional hearings and meetings have been held to determine if Congress should give him this ill thought out and probably ill fated power to attack.
The first Congressional voted was held by a Senate responsible for such matters and a resolution passed, 10 votes for military action vs. 7 voted against military action. That resolution will now move along the Congressional process for a vote by the entire Senate. We have made the case this week, as have many other, smarter Americans why attacking Syria is a very bad idea. Those posts can be reviewed starting with the first one:
http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/09/political-class-insanity-special.html
So, given that so many Americans are against military action, I wondered why a majority of Senators on this committee voted to support military action. Was there something going on behind the scenes that we are not aware of? Well, an analysis posted by the Wired magazine website provides a theory and hypothesis of what is really going on.
Before going on, a quick discussion on correlation and causation. Just because two factors look to be interrelated, it does not mean that one caused another. Simple example. I recently went on a diet and as my weight dropped, my golf game improved. On the surface, it looks like my weight loss made me a better golfer, or said another way, my weight loss caused my golf improvement.
But I also took some lessons and bought new golf clubs in the midst of my weight reduction effort. In all likelihood, the new clubs and lessons CAUSED my golf game improvement, while the weight loss was CORRELATED with the improvement in my golf game, it did not cause the improvement.
Okay, that is a long winded way of saying that just because defense and intelligence companies and contractors gave a lot more reelection campaign money to the Senators who voted yes to go to war does not necessarily mean that their money caused them to vote yes for war, it could just be a correlation or a coincidence.
But it is a worthwhile avenue of investigation since we are talking about spending billions of dollars to attack Syria and putting our fighting service men and women in mortal danger. It would be a shame if those costs were incurred for a few thousands dollars of campaign contributions from companies that would profit handsomely from another Middle East military action.
The following graphic of how the “yes” voters got more money from defense contractors and companies vs. those that voted “no” to war is lifted from the Wired article (double click on the image for a larger view):

The data is based on campaign contributions from 2007 through 2012. The information comes form the fabulous Open Secrets website that tracks all money being donated to all politicians over the years and what was the source of those contributions.
For this analysis, these sources include political action committees and employees from defense and intelligence firms related to such companies as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, United Technologies, Honeywell International, and others. This category of contributors in the Open Secrets website gave $1,006,887 to the 17 members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who voted yes or no on the authorization Wednesday, The analysis and data research was done by Maplight, a Berkeley-based nonprofit that performed the inquiry at WIRED’s request.
Let’s review the findings and do a little math work of our own:
- Those Senators that voted yes for war on average received 83% more money from defense contractors than those that voted no to war.
- A majority of those Senators that voted no to war (four out of seven), received less money from defense contractors than the lowest recipient of funds among the ten Senators that voted yes to war.
- If you assume that McCain on the yes side and Barrasso on the no side are outliers which distort the results, removing these two highest paid recipients on each side of the issue and recalculating averages show even worse results, with the yes side getting about 92% more from defense firms than the no side.
- If you leave Barrasso in and just remove McCain, the results are still damning, with the yes voters getting on average 54% more than the no voters.
- The top three recipients of defense contributions on the yes side received, on average, 94% more than the top three recipients on the no side.
It is tough/impossible to cut the data anyway possible and not come away with the conclusions that those that voted yes to going to war with Syria were much better financially supported by defense firms, companies that would do very well in a war environment, than those Senators that voted no. Again, this does not mean that heavy financial support to the yes voters influenced their vote, remember correlation vs. causation. It could just be a coincidence that it ended up that way.
But who really believes that. Consider another viewpoint that again, could just be a correlation/coincidence and have nothing to do with going to war or not. In the past month, the stock market’s S&P index is down about 2.49% while the Dow industrial stock average is down even more, 3.83%.
However, if you look at four major defense firms, firms listed above that are heavy contributors to Senators’ reelection campaigns, we see that the Lockheed stock price over the past month is down only .43%, Boeing’s stock price is down just .91%, United Technologies is down 1.87%, and Honeywell is down 2.97%. Thus, in general, defense firms have done much better than the overall stock market in the past month as war talk and attacking Syria talk has ramped up.
Again, the better than market performance of defense firms in the midst of Senate debate on going to war could just be a coincidence. But if war is your business and the potential for engaging in military action is on the table, than business can be very good, especially if you can influence the events via lobbying and campaign funding.
These facts and figures could all be just a coincidence. But why take the chance? Shouldn’t Congressional actions, decisions, and votes be based on the merits relative to the majority of American citizens and not based on how much money incumbent politicians can potentially sell their vote for?
And if we are not talking about a coincidence, isn’t it a disgrace that just over a $1 million in campaign donations can risk billions of dollars in war supplies and the potential deaths of American troops and seamen and airmen?
That is why we need to remove the chance for causation by implementing two steps from “Love My Country, Loathe My Government:”
1) Step 7 would allow only American citizens to contribute to political campaigns. No companies, no unions, no PACs, no Super PACs, and no lobbyists would ever be allowed to contribute to any political election campaign. Washington politicians should be voting on issues as dictated by citizens, not defense firms or any other kind of organized entity.
2) Step 39 would impose term limits on all Washington politicians. We get into these difficult situations because the primary purpose of anyone serving in Congress is to continue serving in Congress, election after election after election. These perpetual elections require money from various sources.
And with money comes debts that need to be paid back in order to get more reelection campaign funding. Make reelection impossible and that would certainly focus sitting politicians on the real issues, making the proper decisions since reelection and the need for reelection funding goes away.
If those ten Senators that voted yes to go to war, those ten that had received much more campaign money from defense firms than the seven no voters, knew that reelection was not possible, it would be interesting to see if they still would have voted yes.
In any case, we need to remove this suspicion of acting for reelection rather than the safety of our country, our taxpayer wealth, and the safety of our armed forces. You can help make that possible by joining our effort to impose term limits on all Washington politicians at:
www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
Because, really, how much worse could it get when just over a $1 million could cost us much more in treasure and lives?
Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:
www.loathemygovernment.com
It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
Please visit the following sites for freedom:
Term Limits Now:http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w
This is our fourth discussion regarding the probably idiotic and insane notion from President Obama and other sin his administration that intervening in the Syrian civil war would be a good idea for America. The previous three discussions/posts laid out the many, many reasons why such a military effort is a very bad idea. Those reasons include, but are not confined to the following:
- We are not absolutely sure that the Syrian government actually used the poison gas, there are very good reasons and news sources to believe that the rebel forces used the gas, either intentionally or unintentionally.
- A limited and narrow military attack, as proposed by the administration, will not remove Assad from the head of the Syrian government and will not deter him or other tyrants from considering the use of poison gas in the future.
- Over 100,000 Syrians have already been killed as a result of the civil war, the time to act was years ago prior to 100,000 people being needlessly killed. To act now when a relative handful have been killed is way too late to have any positive impact on the ground in Syria.
- Russia has already pledged to replace any military hardware destroyed by a U.S. attack and is considering giving the Syrians an advanced missile defense system. So again, how is a limited U.S. military strike going to do anything to impede the ability of the Syrian government to wage war on its citizens?
The vast majority of Americans across the political spectrum and across the country do not want to go to war against Syria, no matter how limited that war is promised to be. Most sensible Americans realize that historical U.S. military activity in the Middle East has NEVER ended well so what makes Obama and others think this will be any different.
Other reasons were put forth for not acting militarily starting at the following post:
http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/09/political-class-insanity-special.html
Today let’s focus on what people are saying about this disaster waiting to happen, both those in Washington and others outside of Washington who seem to have a better grasp of reality, integrity, and truth telling than those within the Federal government.
1) This fiasco started when President Obama issued a dare/ultimatum to the government of Syria in August, 2012, the now infamous “red line” proclamation: “We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus. That would change my equation.”
But just this week the President retreated from this ultimatum, actually claiming that the red line concept was not his, even though he stated it clearly last August: “First of all, I didn’t set a red line. The world set a red line. The world set a red line when governments representing 98% of the world’s population said the use of chemical weapons are [sic] abhorrent and passed a treaty forbidding their use, even when countries are engaged in war.”
Of course you set the red line, Mr. President, you stated it clearly and publicly last year. But we probably should not expect anything different from this President, this individual who would blame anyone else for his shortcomings and the shortcomings of his administration. It was Bush’s fault. It was Congress’ fault. It was the fault of the Japanese tsunami. It was the fault of ATM machines. All of these excuses have been tried by him in the past. This is just another example of him trying to shed blame, impinging his integrity in the process.
So if you are lying about something we are sure you are lying about, how can we trust you and your justifications for going to war when you have lied so many times in the past?
2) Senator John McCain, a big proponent of launching the missiles into Syria, had the following to say relative to the Congressional discussions going on about whether to authorize the President to militarily act: “Now that a resolution is going to be before the Congress of the United States, we want to work to make that resolution something that majorities of the members of both houses could support. A rejection of that, a vote against the resolution by Congress, I think would be catastrophic, because it would undermine the credibility of the United States of America and of the President of the United States. None of us want that.”
Senator, the credibility of the United States is pretty much shot already, given the fact that Obama throw out a dare and then never backed it up with an operational plan.
He did not go to the United Nations to get the world behind his bluff and bluster.
He is trying to get Congress to support him in the eleventh hour, he should have been working the halls of Congress the same day he issued the red line threat a year ago.
Given the opposition by Americans to military action as measured by opinion polls, he certainly did not make his case to the American people.
He did not put diplomatic or economic pressure on Russia, a main Syrian ally, to get the use of chemical weapons made more emphatic to Assad.
He did not make his case to our allies, most of whom understand that military action of the type proposed and the timing are not the right thing to do.
Obama has already done a complete job of killing our credibility as a world leader already, Mr. McCain. Nothing Congress does will make that situation any better. Or have you been too busy playing online poker to notice?
3) No post on quotes would be complete without some factually wrong words out of Nancy Pelosi. Consider her response to a reporters question a few days ago:
Question: If Congress does reject this, can the president proceed if Congress rejects?
Pelosi: I don’t think Congress will reject. But I do want to remind you because the – I’ve been reading some of what some of you have written and say the president has never gone forward if Congress has not approved, when it has taken up the issue. I remind you that in 1999, President Clinton brought us all together, similar to this meeting here, but over a period of time to talk about going into the Balkans and the vote was 213-213, 187 Republicans voted ‘no,’ 180 Democrats voted ‘yes,’ about 30 on each side, something like that, went in a different way than the majority of their party. And that was when the planes were really ready to go into Bosnia [sic]. He went. And you know what happened there. So, I don’t – I don’t think that the congressional authorization is necessary. I do think it’s a good thing. And I hope that we can achieve it.
Pelosi is correct about the House vote, but it occurred five weeks after the military air campaign had already started. Missed the truth on that statement by five weeks, which is pretty good when it comes to the accuracy of her assertions in the past. I bring this up in that it is another case of how and why would we should not trust these people. The President blatantly denies saying something that the we know he said and Pelosi supports her position by just plain saying incorrect things.
4) John Kerry had an interesting time in front of Congress recently when he tried to explain that sending cruise missiles and other military ordinance into Syria is not “war” per se: “We don’t want to go to war in Syria either. It is not what we are here to ask. The President it is not asking you to go to war. He is not asking you to declare war. He is not asking you to send one American troop to war… He is simply saying we need to take an action that can degrade the capacity of a man who has been willing to kill his own people by breaking a nearly 100-year-old prohibition, and will we stand up and be counted to say we won’t do that.”
Sorry, I do not buy it. You cannot declare that blowing up people and things in Syria is not war. If the Syrian government launched a handful of cruise missiles into the United States, you can bet we would call it war. Abraham Lincoln once said:
Question: If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?
Answer: Four, just because you call a tail a leg does not make it a leg.
This is not an “action” that the President is proposing, cruise missiles are not used in an action, they are only used in war. Again, the credibility of these people to deny reality or lie about reality knows no bounds.
5) By far, the most elegant, most insightful, and most accurate description and advice for the Syrian situation has come from someone outside of political office. Whether liberals and Democrats want to admit it, Sarah Palin had the best advice for not militarily intervening in the Syrian civil war. Her advice: “Let Allah sort it out.”
These people, Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds, and other religious sects have been attacking and killing each other for centuries. Ms. Palin correctly points out that a few cruise missiles fired from a few U.S. warships is not going to change anything within this centuries old quagmire.
6) Finally, let’s close with the views and opinions of Charlie Daniels, long time musician and current Internet blogger. He quite accurately and simply points out why the United States should stay out of the Syrian situation, and does it much more eloquently than the way Obama, Kerry, and others illogically try to justify a military strike.
Best of all, he correctly points out that a slip of a tongue from the President of the United States is the reason we are in this situation and is also a reason not to go forward as Obama would like.
************************************
A Citizen's Take on Syria
Charlie Daniels | September 03, 2013 | 11:27
In my soon to be 77 years as a citizen of the United States of America, having lived through Japan's sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, the dark days of WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Watergate, 9/11 and all the other serious and profound events our beloved nation has been involved in over the last three quarters of a century, I have to say with all sincerity that I have never seen a president as confused, befuddled, impotent, insincere and as out of his depth as Barack Obama has become in dealing with the Syrian issue.
When you're the leader of the free world, you don't make statements you can't back up and you don't draw lines in the sand, watch your enemies cross them with impunity and go off and play a round of golf.
Obama painted himself and the nation into a corner with his “red line” statement and I truly believe he thought he would have unilateral international and domestic support only to find himself standing alone in the spotlight with egg on his face and a ticking political time bomb in his hand.
I don't believe he ever had any intention of going through Congress and only decided to do so when he was left without the support of traditional allies and the disdain of a war weary American public who have begun to feel that America cannot be the international police force who has to bear the brunt of every catastrophe.
I think Obama is taking the vote for military authorization to Congress to bail himself out, to buy some time, somebody to share the blame if all goes wrong. Obama had already positioned war ships. All that was left to do was give the order to fire the missiles and at the 11th hour, after being rejected by the British parliament and put off by the French, he started having second thoughts and reached for the life preserver.
I, for one, am glad that Obama - for whatever reason - political expediency notwithstanding, did not facilitate the missile attack as it would have been largely symbolic and cosmetic and as he had given Assad enough warning to move the weapons out of harms way would have done little if anything to rid the world of chemical weapons.
It's not that I think nothing should be done about weapons of mass destruction no matter where they're used in the world, but I believe it's not just the responsibility of the United States to enforce international law. If the civilized nations of the world shirk this duty, why should they think America should take on the job by itself?
America has done enough "sending signals", symbolic gestures, getting involved in situations that don't threaten our national interests or that of our allies.
America's leaders should guard their tongues well and not issue spur of the moment reactions and empty threats. Our bite should be a lot worse than our bark and a presidential warning should be a dire and solemn caution, issued only once and followed up with swift and decisive action, not some half-baked puff of bravado that nobody really takes seriously.
What little bit of credibility America had in the Middle East just went out the window Friday afternoon, as a president who let his ego overload his common sense backed down from a tin horned dictator of a third world country, or at least that's how it's viewed in that part of the world.
The mettle of a president and the people he surrounds himself with is not proven until push comes to shove. This nation has entered a new phase in the war on terror and our relativity in the rest of the world and the road is going to be long, rocky and dangerous.
It remains to be seen how this embarrassing situation will play out. Will the president seek the council of the more experienced advice available to him in Congress? Or, will he remain defiant and continue to go it alone.
You've cost America a great deal this past week, Mr. President.
How much more can we take?
*********************************
Very well said. This has been a very expensive President when it comes to spending and wasting our nation’s credibility on the world stage. All for very little n return.
Although things might change, this will do it for the current review and analysis of the Syrian situation. If you agree with the points we have made over the past four days, please call your Congressional representatives to vote against any authorization to use military force to intervene in a far away civil war that has no national security impacts on our country, despite what many in the Washington political class will try to sell you.
Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:
www.loathemygovernment.com
It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
Please visit the following sites for freedom:
Term Limits Now:http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w
This is our third post in a series that is looking at the poltical class insanity idea of using U.S. military force against the government of Syria for allegedly using poison gas on its own citizens. Our first two posts that show how idiotic and dangerous such an intervention would be can be accessed at:
http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/09/political-class-insanity-special.html
http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/09/political-class-insanity-special_8.html
Let us continue our discussion today, looking at more public opinion findings on such a military excursion and other sources of news and reality that continue to show how useless and potentially dangerous such a limited military attack would be.
1) Consider some research findings of Americans that would tend to be political aligned with President Obama:
- The Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) recently released some survey results of its members.
- Their findings find that more than 57,000 of its activists weighed in, and 73% of them opposed the U.S. taking military action in Syria.
- Just 18% supported strikes, and just 14% said the U.S. should go ahead unilaterally if it can’t find any allies.
- A majority of the PCCC activists don’t even believe President Obama and Secretary of State John F. Kerry are being honest when they lay out their justifications for taking military action.
- Four out of five said they believe U.S. action will lead to deeper involvement in the civil war.
- “In the last 72 hours, we surveyed PCCC members across the nation – in every state and congressional district. We’ve received over 57,000 responses so far, and a clear result: Your progressive base stands firmly against bombing Syria,” said Adam Green and Stephanie Taylor, co-founders of PCCC.
Another group of American check in with their views and it does not support bombing Syria.
2) It is not just bombing Syria that Americans are overwhelming against, seems the country is also overwhelmingly against supplying arms to one side of the Syrian civil war, as identified by PEW research from this past June:
- Overall, 70% of those surveyed oppose the U.S. and its allies sending arms and military supplies to anti-government rebel groups in Syria.
- Only 20% favor supplying weapons to one of the sides in this civil war.
- These findings are little changed from December of last year (24% favor) and support is down slightly from March, 2012 (29% favor).
- About two-thirds (68%) say the U.S. is too overcommitted to get involved in another conflict, and just 27% disagree.
- The public also has questions about the opposition groups in Syria: 60% say that they may be no better than the current government.
- Majorities of independents (74%), Republicans (71%) and Democrats (66%) oppose the U.S. and its allies sending arms and military supplies to anti-government groups in Syria.
- Nearly identical majorities of Democrats (69%), independents (69%) and Republicans (68%) also believe that U.S. military forces are too overcommitted to get involved in another conflict.
- Independents (66%) and Republicans (64%) are most concerned that the opposition groups in Syria may be no better than the current government, but 52% of Democrats also agree with this statement.
No bombing and no getting involved by supporting the rebel side with military equipment. The findings and feelings prove that this is not a partisan argument, Republicans, Democrats, and Independent Americans are together in opposition to both military actions, supplying arms and sending in cruise missiles.
3) On August 24, 2013, the Heritage Foundation laid out five logical and fact based reasons why militarily attacking Syria is a very bad idea, both long term and short term (the following words are lifted directly from their post, I hope they do not mind since their reasoning was so succinct and to the point, much better than any summary I could have written):
1. The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine is not adequate justification for direct military intervention. This dangerous doctrine, promoted at the United Nations, undermines U.S. sovereignty by arguing for an obligation of nations to intervene. As Heritage’s legal expert on sovereignty matters, Steve Groves, explains:
“A doctrine that compels the United States to act to prevent atrocities occurring in other countries would be risky and imprudent. U.S. independence—hard won by the Founders and successive generations of Americans—would be compromised if the United States consented to be legally bound by the R2P doctrine. The United States needs to preserve its national sovereignty by maintaining a monopoly on the decision to deploy diplomatic pressure, economic sanctions, political coercion, and especially its military forces.”
2. A vital U.S. interest is not at stake. The U.S. does have an interest in the resolution of the conflict, but military force should be reserved for areas where the U.S. has a compelling need to act in defense of its own interests. There are other and more prudent options for advancing U.S. interests to help resolve the conflict.
3. It would not be a wise use of military force. Military force should be used only if there is a clear, achievable, realistic purpose. Missile strikes are unlikely to deter the Assad regime and prevent further abuses. Rather, the U.S. risks escalating its involvement in the crisis.
4. Missile attacks would only make President Obama look weaker. Much like President Clinton’s ineffective cruise missile strikes on Osama bin Laden’s terrorist camps, strikes would only be seen as a sign that the U.S. is lacking a clear, decisive course of action. The Middle East would see this as another effort from the Obama Administration to look for an “easy button” and lead from behind rather than exercise real, constructive leadership.
5. It would distract from what the U.S. should be doing. Rather than attempting to intervene directly in the conflict, the U.S. should be working in a concerted manner with other countries in the region to hasten the end of the Assad regime and deal with the refugee crisis, the resurgence of al-Qaeda, and the destabilizing efforts of Iran and Hezbollah
Well said, virtually no upside and plenty of downsides.
4) Back on May 5, 2013, Reuters ran a report that cited United Nations experts concluding that rebel forces, not Syrian government forces, had used sarin gas in civil war action. U.N. human rights investigators had gathered testimony from casualties of Syria's civil war and medical staff indicating that rebel forces have used the nerve agent sarin.
The United Nations independent commission of inquiry on Syria has not yet seen evidence of government forces having used chemical weapons, which are banned under international law, said commission member Carla Del Ponte: "Our investigators have been in neighboring countries interviewing victims, doctors and field hospitals and, according to their report of last week which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated," Del Ponte said in an interview with Swiss-Italian television.
"This was use on the part of the opposition, the rebels, not by the government authorities," she added, speaking in Italian.
This is not to say that the government did not use poison gas in the latest incident of civilian dying from exposure to poison gas. However, at least according to the United Nations’ experts, it is not out of the question by any means that the latest poison gas deaths were caused, either intentionally or accidentally by the rebel forces.
As we asserted in an earlier post, the Syrian government, with help from Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah is winning the civil war. Why would they want to get outside forces, like the U.S. military involved by using poison gas on its citizens when their side is winning? Makes no logical sense.
Thus, what have we learned today? The vast majority of Americans, across all political and geographic divides, think arming either side in the Syrian civil war and bombing either side in the Syrian civil war is a very bad idea. The Heritage Foundation laid out a coherent and logical argument why U.S. military action is the wrong strategy for Syria at this time. And rebel forces have in their possession and have used poison gas before/. Who is to say that the latest use was not theirs, given that the Syrian government had nothing to gain by deploying poisons gas attacks.
Tomorrow we will talk about Syria but use the words and quotes of Americans, both inside and outside of politics, to show that helping Obama save face for his ill advised and ill prepared threat of a “red line” dare to Syria is a dangerous and stupid waste of time and resources.
Until then, if you want to avoid getting the U.S. involved in yet another doomed Middle East military adventure, please call your Congressional representatives and tell them to not support giving Obama permission to drag this country into another unsinkable Middle East conflict.
Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:
www.loathemygovernment.com
It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
Please visit the following sites for freedom:
Term Limits Now:http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w
Today is the second in a special series of posts we are doing on the political class insanity about Syria. Most informed Americans know that President Obama is itching to send U.S. military resources into action to teach the Syrian government a lesson for allegedly using poison gas on some of its citizens. As we discussed yesterday in detail, the reason for his desire is that he issued an idle threat to the government of Syria about a year ago, his now infamous “red line” ultimatum, i.e. if Syria poison gassed its own people that would be bad and incur Obama’s wrath.
The problem with issuing this ultimatum, as we discussed yesterday, is that the President never took the time or effort to establish a plan to operationalize his threat. Now, he is standing in front of the world with egg on his face with no plan and no strategy, trying to convince the world that our military should be drawn into a vicious civil war in a Middle East country.
Yesterday’s post with more details on how he got us into this pretty untenable position can be accessed at:
http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2013/09/political-class-insanity-special.html
Today and over the next few days we will continue to review why this is such a stupid idea, sending us into war in Syria, how idiotic some of our politicians have acted with regard to this crisis, how Obama’s desire to shoot missiles makes no sense, and what others in the world are saying about this problem and why military action is NOT the answer.
1) This issue is probably one of the biggest foreign relations problems that this nation has had to face in many years. Military personnel are being put at risk. Taxpayer dollars are being diverted to go to war. Congressional members are in heated debate with each other and members of the administration on the issues.
And Senator John McCain, one of the Senate’s biggest proponents of going to war in Syria, was recently caught on film by Washington Post reporter Melina Mara….playing online poker on his smartphone the middle of the Senate hearings on whether or not to attack Syria. One of the biggest issues of our time and he thinks it is fine to play a video game while lives are at stake.
And to add insult to injury, once the Post pictures were made public, McCain actually made light of the incident by Tweeting, "Scandal! Caught playing iPhone game at 3+ hour Senate hearing - worst of all I lost!" Talk about disgraceful, talk about condescending, this is pathetic.
Lives hang in the balance he gets sarcastic after getting caught being distracted by such an important Senate debate and eventual decisions. These are the types of people that are leading the country today, the types of people that do not even have enough attention span to engage in a life and death matter.
2) The Heritage Foundation did a nice job with a recent posting where it laid out five questions that the administration needs to answer or clarify because the current status of information does not make sense:
- On August 31, 2013 and September 1, 2013, the President repeatedly stated that any U.S. military operation against Syria would be “narrow and limited” and would not involve troops on the ground. But when the administration put together a draft Congressional resolution that outlined how we would attack Syria, the resolution stated that the purpose of the U.S. military action is to “prevent or deter the use or proliferation” of weapons of mass destruction or to “protect the United States and its allies and partners against the threat posed by such weapons.” This is a very broad objective, it is not narrow and limited.
Narrow and limited military strikes are very unlikely to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons stocks or delivery capacity since the Syrian government has now had more than a week, or a year, to move and protect those chemical weapons and other military hardware. So what is it, narrow and limited or wipe out the Syrian chemical weapons capability. You cannot have both, and given the warning we have given the Syrian government of our attack intentions, Obama will likely get neither.
- But U.S. military strikes are not the only entanglement that Obama wants to create for us in Syria. The administration reportedly intends to do “more for the Syrian rebels,” including providing arms.
But given that the Syrian rebels are fighting beside Islamist extremists, some of whom have ties to al-Qaeda, how does the administration plan to arm the “good” rebels but not the “bad” rebels. So far, that little snafu has not been ironed out. If it does not get done properly, we could be providing military hardware to the very people that blew up the World Trade Center and hit the Pentagon on 9-11.
- The Administration assesses “with high confidence that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale against the opposition multiple times in the last year, including in the Damascus suburbs.” However, these earlier attacks did not result in a military response from the U.S. Thus, why now and why because of just the latest alleged gas attack? Arbitrary enforcement of a “red line” or any ultimatum is not a convincing argument.
- The President stated in late August that the Syrians’ behavior regarding the potential gassing of its own citizens was national security threat to the U.S. But he never said what that threat was except in the broadest and vaguest terms possible, as if we should just take his word for it.
He also stated that we need to militarily attack to discourage other fiends around the world from getting into the chemical warfare game. But it is highly doubtful that a “narrow and limited” attack over a period of a couple of days is 1) going to make us more secure and 2) is going to discourage any madman from getting into chemical weapons if the only world answers to such a move is a few cruise missiles.
- The final Heritage point is one we covered yesterday. With the exception of France, Obama has not built any kind of allied, United Nations, or international coalition partnership to help us out in this self created crisis. He is trying to lead the charge up the hill while those he would like to have allies are staying back in their fox holes, not seeing this charade as worthwhile or likely to do any good.
Heritage tied these serious shortcomings of the administration’s thought processes very nicely and accurately: “The Obama Administration’s Syria policy has been disturbingly ad hoc and reactive. The Administration has not clearly explained why it must act at this time when earlier incidents did not require action, how its proposed actions will achieve its stated objectives, and what its plans are if the military strikes do not succeed in achieving those objectives. Answers to these and other questions are vital if Congress is to take its responsibilities seriously.”
Given that a high ranking Senator like John McCain would rather play video games than take this potential war situation seriously, I am not sure that Congress is ready, willing, and able to take the situation seriously. Also, based on these five issues, it is quite apparent the administration has not been ready, willing, and able to do their homework to properly address and resolve the issues of military intervention.
3) Ron Paul, former U.S. Congressman and Presidential candidate, recently had three insightful observations/warnings about this crisis that Obama’s careless red line threat has caused:
- “We are not really positive who set off the gas. The group that is most likely to benefit from that is Al-Qaida. They ignite some gas; some people die and blame it on Assad.”
- “Assad, I don’t think, is an idiot. I don’t think he would do this on purpose in order for the whole world to come down on him.”
- “What if there is an accident and 100 Russians get killed by our bombs? Who knows? Some type of unintended consequences. Wars always expand because of unintended consequences. They always provide short-term war. Just think of all the promises over in Iraq: short term; not much money; it’s over; we’ll get that oil. And don’t believe it.”
Another view from a politician that has always been leery, and correct, about getting involved in other people’s business. What if we do kill some Russian citizens that are working for the Russian government in Syria? What if we end up with a stray missile that lands in the center of a residential area and which would likely kill far more Syrians than died in the alleged gas attack? What if Assad is actually a rationale tyrant who knew he was winning the civil war and would be crazy to get involved in such an attack?
So many questions and so few answers on such an important issue.
4) Speaking of killing civilians, this issue has always bothered me. Best estimates say that over 100,000 Syrians have died as a result of the civil war. This war has been going on for years. These people died from gun shots, mortar rounds, artillery rounds, torture, etc. Why is it so important to inject ourselves into this civil war now? If the 400 or 1,400 people (various estimates) had not been killed by poison gas but by artillery shells, would we not be having this discussion and issue?
Are Obama, Kerry, McCain and others saying it is okay to kill someone with a mortar round but we need to get involved when it is allegedly poison gas? Unnecessary death is unnecessary death. If the administration and others had been this concerned about any civilian deaths than maybe they should have addressed the issue years ago before 100,000 people died.
Okay, heavy duty stuff and we are still not done reviewing all of the issues and opinions and ramifications of going to war, again, in the Middle East, a foreign policy strategy that has NEVER worked out well. More to follow tomorrow. In the meantime, if you agree that this insanity must stop, I urge you to call your Congressional representatives now before they decide military action, limited and useless as it is, has any merit at all.
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