Syria

The discussion about whether the United States should intervene in Syria has been raging for a week or so, and it's time I weighed in.  I doubt very much that the White House is going to consider my opinion, but under the First Amendment I can say what I want without it infringing on that right.

Jorge Santayana was a Spanish-American philosopher who is famous for having uttered the line Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.  It's an easy enough phrase to remember, but for some reason this country has selective amnesia when it comes to military intervention.

After World War II, we assumed the role as the world's policeman.  Back then, Communism was the culprit we confronted.  Korea, called a police action and not a war, brought us to war to stem the tide of communism.  To be sure, the North Koreans were the aggressors, but when the conflict is examined closely, it was a civil war.  Many will try to suggest that the North Koreans were merely proxies for the Soviets, but now that the Soviet Union has disbanded, the North Koreans are still ready to invade and conquer the South, were it not for the DMZ and the United States' presence there.

Vietnam was another civil war masquerading as an action to stem the rising tide of Communism.  Avoiding the euphemism of a police action, the United States came up with the Domino Theory that justified its role in Vietnam, even though the goal was ostensibly the same:  Stop communism.

Thousands of Americans forfeited their lives in foreign lands that presented no threat to our country.  There may have been strategic reasons for our involvement in both wars, but realistically, there was no viable threat to our country in either of those wars.

We turned the table on the Soviets in Afghanistan, propping up the mujaheddin to defeat them in the 1980's.  But in so doing, we enabled the Islamofascists to strike back at us on September 11, 2001.  Wisely, we never had direct involvement in that conflict, but the ancillary results were harmful to our country.

Isolationism has been called naïve and narrow-minded.  For centuries, the Euros have stormed into countries, either to colonize them or because some vital national interest was arguably in play.  After World War II, as the only military power with both a pulse and a conscience, it fell to us to play the role of international policeman.  As both Korea and Vietnam demonstrated, we didn't carry out the role well.

Syria is a civil war.  The arguments can be made that some national interest is served by injecting ourselves into the fracas, but they're illusory.  The fact of the matter is that the POTUS wants to go in to make a statement that he kept his word when he made his boastful promise a year ago that the use of chemical weapons would cross a red line justifying our involvement.

The potential results of our involvement are all negative.  At best we take out some chemical weapons -- if the Assad regime hasn't hidden them already.  Even if we do, the Iranians or the Russians will merely resupply them or give the government forces more conventional weapons with which to defeat the rebels.

In the unlikely event our involvement turns the tide and allows the rebels to win, what does that mean for us?  Who are the rebels?  Are they friendly to us?  There are already reports that the rebels have significant Al Qaeda units fighting on their side.  Do we expect these fighters to counsel the winning rebels to engage in diplomatic relations with us?

Egypt recently went through a civil war.  Egypt is infinitely more important to us -- the Israeli-Egyptian peace, the Suez Canal, being Libya's neighbor -- but we stayed out of that civil war.  Libya was a civil war.  It has large natural gas reserves.  We stayed out of that one.  The Sudan went through a civil war in which far more people died than have in Syria.  We stayed out of that one.

The only logical conclusion that I can reach is that this push to bomb the Syrian government's chemical weapons is to prop up the POTUS so that he can be seen to be a man of his word.  He should never have made that promise.  He has made us look hypocritical and arbitrary when compared to Egypt, Libya and the Sudan.  There is no countervailing reason to involve ourselves in another country's civil war.  This isn't to suggest that the Assad regime should stand; I hope Bashir Assad burns in hell.  But we don't know who the rebels are and we have no vital interest in getting involved.

There is one interesting note about the use of chemical weapons that the MSM is sidestepping:  Just where did Syria get its chemical weapons?  It's long been assumed that on the eve of the second Gulf War, the Sunni Saddam Hussein shipped his WMD's to Sunni Syria.  Not one MSM (other than Fox) has even brought the subject up.

(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles