The Price of War

The United States, with Obama wavering at the helm, is poised to enter another conflict not of our own making, the civil war in Syria.   It seems that once again, our president can not make up his mind, which for the first time, I am glad about.  According to the president, we were supposed to begin a bombing campaign this past Saturday in retaliation for the Syrian government using chemical weapons against its own people.  Yet, at the last minute, for whatever reason, he decided to consult Congress about his decision.  As we all know, anything moving through Congress usually moves at a snail's pace, and lets hope that this decision is no different.  The last thing we need at this point is to get involved in another conflict, war, whatever term you wish to label it with.  With our economy slowly on the uptick, we don't need any distractions.  Despite the fact that some people will say that now is not the time to revert back to our isolationist ways, I would say that now is exactly the time we need to focus our efforts and time back on ourselves.  There is some talk that the chemical weapons being used are somehow a threat to our national security.  I would ask for explicit examples of how it is a threat.  The only one's that the chemical weapons are threatening our Syria's own people.  Now, don't get me wrong, I abhor the fact that chemical weapons were used against Syria's own people, if in fact they really were, but that is not our issue.  We are half a world away, and while we used to be the watchdog of the world, it is time for someone else to step up to the plate.   Our country has been involved in some sort of foreign conflict almost continuously for over a hundred years.  Let us now enter ourselves into an era of peace where war is not the answer.  If a country decides to go to war with itself, let it.  As much as I hate the tactics that dickhead Assad is using, and for that matter the rebels fighting against him, that is their problem.  You will find people saying that if we stand by and do nothing that we are in part complicit in the conflict and have share some of the blame.  Yet how are we to help if all they want to do is kill each other.  There is no way unless we start bombing people, and that will only perpetuate the conflict and draw other countries into it, perhaps leading to another global war in which thousands of soldiers from all walks of life are putting their lives on the line, again. 

 

While this is not a topic that I enjoy talking about on a regular basis, I feel that since we are on the verge of entering into this conflict, it needs to be discussed.  The only way we can truly prevent our government from entering into this conflict is by speaking out against it and showing our outrage that we would even consider this.  So what if we are being painted as weak and indecisive, we know ourselves damn well that if we decided to annihilate Syria, wipe it off the face of the earth, that we could do so quite easily.  Would it be humane and justified?  No, but we have the capability of dropping enough bombs that there wouldn't be a corner of Syria left untouched.  The fact that we know we have the capability should be enough.  And while I still don't advocate seeking to end violence by adding violence into the mix, perhaps we should just send up a drone with a few missiles and kill Assad.  Not that that would accomplish anything, but at least he wouldn't be around anymore.  In any case, I have no more to say on this topic.  In large part and regardless of what the citizens of the United States feel our government should do, they will do what they want anyway.  They may claim to listen to us, but we all know in the end that they have other interests that they are attending to and as such, will shove us out of the conversation if need be.  So till tomorrow when I revert back to talking about much happier topics, let us hope for peace, let us hope that don't get involved in yet another conflict, and let us hope that wavering Obama decides to let Syria figure out its own issues, whatever the results may be.