Syria: Think How We Got To This Point

It appears that the United States is going to start dropping smart munitions and guided missiles on Syria. We will hear President Obama and General Dempsey or some other mouthpiece stand in a briefing room and talk on and on about our targeting procedures, our almost-positive practically no-doubt-about-it intelligence estimates on the targets we are trying to obliterate, and they will provide the camera images of laser points being engulfed in black smoke.  Then the talking suits will provide data, probably from NSA eavesdropping that will prove our little incursion was a huge success. It will be impressive. It will also be a bunch of tripe.

How did we get to this point? Did we find sarin residue on any spot of U.S. soil? Has Syria been spotted only a river’s width from our border? Is Bashar al Assad massing a large army poised for an invasion of our closest ally, Israel? The answer is a resounding NO to all three questions. We are now at a point of war, and that is exactly what it is, because our President is incompetent in foreign policy making. He made the mistake of drawing a red line in the sand instead of being vague enough to allow us to have some wiggle room. And when the President makes a blunder, he makes a blunder for all of us. President Obama now says the credibility of the United States is at risk if we do not punch off a few missiles. Please understand this, the credibility of the United States is at risk and there was no need for it.

Less than a week ago, the polls showed that Americans did not want any type of issue with Syria. Not a problem. Bring out the video footage of children twitching from the effects of sarin. Never mind the authenticity or the positive proof that the government actually used the gas.  Have the Secretary of State declare that Syria and their current government is the worst thing since the Mongol horde. Get Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham to agree that the attack must be made. I actually do not remember a war that these two were not in favor jumping in to. Finally, let everyone understand that there are other fruitcakes on the horizon who will want to test our resolve next, such as North Korea and Iran.

So here we are, getting ready to make war on an enemy that has not attacked us and is not a threat to us. It is not about oil because we are actually sending more overseas than we use domestically. There are no big-money bankers in this either. The only money to be made in Syria is through arms sales. We are solely at this point because President Obama is incompetent in setting foreign policy and now we have to pull his fat out of the fire. And finally, if this does tip the scales and al Assad is pushed out of power, let no one think the next person or group to rule in his stead will be the long-promised moderate. In the Middle East, that person doesn’t exist.