Since last Saturday when The
Insufferable Airhorn spoke in the Rose Garden about the “crisis” in Syria, we
have seen the political role reversals of hawks and doves.
Bill Kristol, whom I abandoned
some time ago, suggested in his op-ed at The Weekly Standard that “using this
resolution to cast a vote of no confidence against Obama would empower those
abroad making the case against placing confidence in the United States. That
would be damaging. And in the real world, a vote against Obama will be seen as
a vote for Bashar al-Assad, and for Vladimir Putin, and for the regime in Iran.”
Kristol insists “the right vote”
by Republicans, a party that for at least two generations has held the banner
of American leadership and strength, should not cast a vote that obviously
risks a damaging erosion of this country’s stature and credibility abroad.”
Kristol continues, “A Yes vote is
in fact the easy vote. It’s actually close to risk-free. After all, it’s
President Obama who is seeking the authorization to use force and who will
order and preside over the use of force. It’s fundamentally his policy. Lots of
Democrats voted in 2002 to authorize the Iraq war. When that war ran into
trouble, it was President Bush and Republicans who paid the price. If the Syria
effort goes badly, the public will blame President Obama, who dithered for two
years, and who seems inclined to a halfhearted execution of any military
campaign. If it goes well, Republicans can take credit for pushing him to act
decisively, and for casting a tough vote supporting him when he asked for
authorization to act.”
Kristol, to my way of thinking,
is correct on one point: President Bush
and the Republicans did pay the price when the Iraq war effort went badly and
if Syria goes badly the current Oval Office occupant will be evisorated. Kristol’s only concern is about Republican
senators and congressmen re-establishing their “anti-Obama credentials.” Good grief, man. Sending our men and women to another pesthole
is all kinds of wrong.
Caught between Iraq and a hard
place are two of our betters—Hollywood actors Ed Asner and Mike Farrell. In a stunning
revelation about the silence of Tinseltown and their disappointment in
their idol’s penchant for military action Farrell said, "I'm frankly
deeply disappointed in the president's foreign policy, war-making, his reliance
on military rather than diplomatic responses, his use of drones, continued
allowance of the Guantanamo prison. He's a disappointment to me and other
people I know."
"I voted for him, but I'm
not proud. He hasn't thrown himself on the funeral pyre. I wanted him to
sacrifice himself. Instead, he has proved himself to be a corporatist, and as
long as he's a corporatist, he's not my president," Asner said. "A
lot of people have lost hope—with the betrayals, the NSA spying…People aren't
getting active because 'Who gives a shit?' is essentially the bottom
line."
Another reason some Hollywood
progressives have been reticent to speak out against war in Syria, according to
Asner, is fear of being called racist. "A
lot of people don't want to feel anti-black by being opposed to Obama," he
said.
What a magnificent example of
cowardice.
Then there’s this. District of Columbia delegate Eleanor Holmes
Norton (D) who has been a member of Congress since January 1991 confessed
recently that if President McBombypants actually gets the votes he needs for
the resolution “it’ll be because of loyalty of Democrats. They just don’t want
to see him shamed and humiliated on the national stage."
On Thursday, September 5th,
Chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus issued what is, in effect, a gag
order asking members to “limit public comment”. The request was designed to quiet dissent
while “shoring up support for President Obama’s Syria strategy.”
That “red line” The Insufferable
Airhorn has now disowned has gotten all over him, Hollywood and progressive
activists. It’s one big clusterfuck..
It reminds me of Don Quixote de
la Mancha. Quixote, as we all remember
from our high school or college lit classes, was a victim of his
delusions. In
Miguel de Cervantes’ novel, knight-errant Quixote tilts at windmills that
he imagines to be giants:
“Just then they came in sight of
thirty or forty windmills that rise from that plain. And no sooner did Don
Quixote see them that he said to his squire, ‘Fortune is guiding our affairs
better than we ourselves could have wished. Do you see over yonder, friend
Sancho, thirty or forty hulking giants? I intend to do battle with them and
slay them. With their spoils we shall begin to be rich for this is a righteous
war and the removal of so foul a brood from off the face of the earth is a
service God will bless.’"
"What giants?" asked
Sancho Panza.
"Those you see over
there," replied his master, "with their long arms. Some of them have
arms well nigh two leagues in length."
"Take care, sir," cried
Sancho. "Those over there are not giants but windmills. Those things that
seem to be their arms are sails which, when they are whirled around by the wind,
turn the millstone."
It is obvious to this observer that
we have Don Quixote in the White House begging for lawmakers to unleash the
dogs of war in a vicious snake pit of cannibalistic rebels and savage Islamic
extremists.
I believe that America should
stay out of Syria. Let neighboring
nations deal with the barbarians at their gate.
I am quite certain that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has
the spine of steel needed to protect his people.
"Once we take action, we
should be prepared for what comes next," wrote General Martin Dempsey, the
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, only one month ago. "Deeper
involvement is hard to avoid."
We have learned in this decade
via the Iranian Green Revolution in 2009 that barbarian elements in social
revolutions cannot be harnessed. Neda
Agha-Soltan died of a single gunshot wound to the chest. Her last moments—captured
on a cell phone camera and shown around the world—catapulted her into the
symbol of the postelection reform movement in Iran.
No one will say how many have
died in Egypt’s coup against the Muslim Brotherhood.
Two years after the Arab Spring
revolution that toppled longtime dictator Moammar Gaddafi, and one year after
the assault on the U.S. compound in Benghazi that killed U.S. Ambassador J.
Christopher Stevens and three others, Libya’s fragile government has little
control over the nation’s security.
The whole of the Middle East is a
powder keg and the blast wave that we invite by interfering in Syria may well
involve America in a conflagration of tectonic proportions.
One final thought, the errand boy
sent by grocery clerks is slated to speak to the nation this Tuesday on taking
military action against Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. For the whole of his second term, this
president and his apparatchiks have deflected and distracted through
sleight-of-hand and carefully coordinated propaganda, not the least of which
has been on the issue of Benghazi. The
lies are damnable.
I think it’s important to note
that Obama will use the eve of 9/11 (the World Trade Center attack and the Benghazi
murders) to create an imagery and recount emotions meant to sway Congress.
As he feigns outrage, his
argument for intervention is weak and this nation does not need to be thrown
into the crucible he created.
While battling for reelection in
August of 2012, he drew a “red line”.
Saying now, “I didn’t set a red line. The world set a red line,” is his desperate
attempt to rescue his personal credibility from his hubristic foolishness.
