In A Nutshell
"There's a lot of work to do to explain the necessity of this action to the American people.Only 26 lawmakers pledged support for their president's proposed action against Syria when the House Foreign Affairs Committee met yesterday for hearings. Not very useful to President Obama's plan to obtain assent for his somewhat-less-than-bold, but forced-through-circumstances plan to deliver a rebuke to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for his use of chemical weapons against a Sunni-majority enclave in a Damascus suburb killing over a thousand people, quite horribly.
"The American people intuitively understand that there are high risks to this action."
Rep. Luke Messer, Indiana Republican
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J. Scott Applewhite
September 4, 2013
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In practical terms: there is just so much and no more that any well-meaning factions of the world community can undertake to do to intercede in an attempt to persuade people afflicted with cultural, tribal, sectarian bloodlust to cease and desist. To stop, breathe, consider life rather than death. To consider their neighbours wanting no more nor less than they do out of life. But when those asked to consider, value death more than life, equating it with noble service to a demanding Almighty, the effort is wasted.
Not simply wasted but the actions of an unreconstructed idiot. In that anyone or any group that insists on repeating actions that have previously borne no fruit -- but instead have caused heartache and ongoing sacrifice from those not involved yet paying a dear price of their own -- must represent not a humanitarian, but an utter idiotic fool. Military intervention by the United States into the affairs of a totalitarian regime intent on slaughtering its own is simply a non-starter for the majority of Americans.
In a Pew Research Center poll, 29% of Democrats and 35% of Republicans support their president's call to arms. That same poll revealed that 48% and 40% respectively failed to support President Obama's plan to militarily rebuke the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for his presumption that using universally banned (but not by Syria, a rare holdout as a signatory to the convention against the use of such weapons of mass destruction) would be overlooked by the international community.
President Barack Obama is not prepared to look the other way. Again. This time the Syrian regime ventured a step too far' a fairly bad judgement call. The event too murderously gruesome to allow for anyone to look away. And although the international community has not looked away, it is looking askance at the very idea of yet another intervention in yet another catastrophic Middle East war, even a civil war, even a civil war where the tyrant involved has crossed all red lines.
As for American lawmakers; they are listening to their constituents. While 26 lawmakers will give their support to President Obama's plan, 69 plan to vote 'no', while 263 have not yet decided how they will react. In the Senate, 20 members expressed support, and 70 remain undecided, while ten insist they will oppose the President's decision to enter Syria's tribulations, however relatively slightly, with the promise of "no boots" on the ground.
New York Democrat Rep. Gregory Meeks has "huge concerns" about unilateral action. "The world is watching what we are doing, but I have yet to see what the world is doing", he said, summing up the hugely unfortunate situation in a nutshell.
Labels: Chemical Weapons, Conflict, Intervention, Syria, United States
posted by Pieface @ Friday, September 06, 2013
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