Christians have been genocided in Iraq. This is the fruit of Globalists in Iraq.
Please refrain from quoting deep state trolling points on Obama and Iraq.
Al Jezeera was caught faking gas attacks in Syria last time around:
Posted on 04/17/2018 8:35:13 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Donald Trump’s order last Friday to launch missile strikes against Syria’s chemical weapons infrastructure has exposed the divisions among Americans over foreign policy. Some Trump supporters think the President has walked back from his America-first nationalism. Globalists of both parties agree that Bashar al Assad needed to be punished for brutally violating international conventions against chemical weapons. And the rabid anti-Trump left views the attack as a “wag-the-dog” diversion from Trump’s legal troubles.
So is there a legitimate reason for bombing Syria and possibly provoking Russian retaliation that risks dragging us deeper into the Middle East quagmire?
Many Americans, sick of a decade-and-a-half of American military presence in the region believe that “we don’t have a dog in that fight,” as the first Bush’s Secretary of State James Baker said of the brutal conflicts in the disintegrating Yugoslavia of the early nineties. Some may remember George W. Bush’s willingness to be the “world’s policeman” ––after he campaigned against “foreign policy as social work” ––when he launched two wars in the region. They voted for Donald Trump in part because he was a critic of the endless war in Iraq and the still active war in Afghanistan and their delusional nation-building aims, and vowed to put “America first.”
The problem with this understandable “pox on both their houses” attitude to foreign conflicts is that American security and interests have long been intimately bound up in a world that for more than century has been growing closer and more interdependent. The terrorist attacks on 9/11 were the gruesome illustration of that reality. The attackers easily travelled by air thousands of miles from their homes, and lived freely in this country as they prepared the attacks. Armed only with box-cutters, they turned commercial airliners into the smartest of smart bombs simply by navigating them into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon, killing in a few hours about the same number of Americans who died in the British invasion between 1812 and 1815. At the cost of half a million dollars––less than half the cost of one cruise missile–– they struck devastating blows against history’s greatest military and economic power, onw they knew intimately from globally distributed news and entertainment, and had grown to hate because its very existence challenged orthodox premodern Islamic doctrine.
Given that our economy is inseparable from the global economy, we have no choice but to be concerned about the critical straits and canals through which global commerce travels, and the airports throughout the world through which people can reach our shores in less than a day. We also can’t ignore the numerous illiberal and autocratic regimes whose beliefs and values conflict with those of the West. The global market, as Robert Kagan put it, needs a global sheriff so that this astonishing increase in technological innovation and wealth and their global distribution is free to continue. We may not have chosen this role, we may not like or want the job, but history so far has left the U.S. as the only great power with the military capacity for keeping order, and the political beliefs and principles that ensure we will not abuse that power to oppress others.
Yet that truth does not justify the one-world idealism that believes everybody on the planet wants to live like Westerners, or to embrace Western principles and goods like political freedom, tolerance of minorities, free speech, sex equality, secularist government, an open society, and the preference for discussion, negotiation, and treaties as the way to solve conflict rather than brute force. The great diversity of ways of life and beliefs means that transnational institutions, agreements, covenants, and U.N. Security Council resolutions will always in the end be instruments of diverse and conflicting national interests. They are honored as long as they serve those interests, but abused or subverted when they don’t, especially by the more powerful nations. They are like Jonathon Swift’s laws: “cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.”
The West’s military dominance in the 20th century ensured that other nations would bandwagon with the West and sign such international agreements, with the tacit proviso that they would violate them whenever necessary, even as they paid them lip-service. The history of the last century, which is littered with violated treaties and covenants, proves this obvious truth. Nor is it hard to see why. As Robert Bork pointed out, such international agreements are weak because they do not necessarily reflect a global consensus that violent aggression or wanton oath-breaking is morally beyond the pale, or a violation of common customs, or a betrayal of sincere belief in the principles on which an agreement is founded. They exist by dint of treaties that sovereign nations have the de jure right to leave, or the de facto right to violate. Thus the President’s public reason for bombing Syria, that it violated the Chemical Weapons Convention, is dubious at best, and his plea to Russia not to be tainted by its support of an “animal” like Assad is remarkably naive.
Indeed, Syria offers a perfect example of this dynamic of a superficial adherence to international covenants that facilitates violations of them. After Barack Obama issued his empty “red line” threat about Assad’s use of chemical weapons, Secretary of State John Kerry negotiated an empty “solution” to the problem by making Russia the authority overseeing the elimination of Assad’s stockpiles, even though it was and still is not in Russia’s geostrategic interests to disarm Assad. So we got a theatrical compliance that left Assad his weapons, and even worse, gave Russia a sanctioned entrée into the Syrian civil war. The pretense of adhering to international law gave cover to Russia’s strategic aims in the region, one of which was the continuation of Assad’s murderous regime.
Equally troubling, there is a strange incoherence in seeing an imperative to respond to the deaths of a few score civilians during a conflict that has killed several hundred thousand by means of “conventional” weapons like bombs and bullets. If we have an “obligation to protect” those brutalized by aggression, as the moralizing internationalists believe, then it’s hard to see why one kind of death is more outrageous than other kinds. This selectivity has been the fundamental weakness of international laws or obligations to prevent aggression: since we can’t intervene in every brutal conflict, the only coherent rationale for interventions is that the conflict harms or threatens our national interests and security.
If virtual isolationism is not a practical policy, and moralizing internationalism a chimera, what could justify the raids against Syria? Deterrence is frequently invoked, but it obviously didn’t work last year after the President destroyed some of Assad’s jets. Over the past year, Assad has continued to use chemical weapons on civilians. Indeed, within hours of our latest attack Assad was using high explosives and barrel-bombs to slaughter people who are just as dead or mangled as the victims of his chemical attack. Further consequences may follow. Russia and Iran for now may be blustering to save face, but there still may be some retaliation that we will then have to answer. For once a nation goes down the road of deterring a bad actor by force, it has to continue indefinitely in order to maintain its prestige. It can’t announce publicly that it is a “one-off.”
Americans traditionally do not like constant war or military interventions, particularly “humanitarian” ones. We prefer to intervene when necessary, kill the bad guys, then come back home, what Walter Russell Meade calls a “Jacksonian” foreign policy. Unfortunately, in today’s interconnected world, such conflicts are not as rare as we’d like. But we must make it clear that we will not intervene when necessary just to rush home as though the work is done, nor will we engage in conflicts and occupation of the defeated enemy in order to create liberal democracy.
Rather, we need a foreign policy similar to the “butcher and bolt” policy of the British Empire, or what Israel calls “mowing the grass.” This means when an adversary or enemy challenges our power and interests, or those of our close allies, we should use force to send a message, usually by destroying some of its military assets. We should not rationalize this action by appealing to international law, the U.N., or some fantastical common vales or principles of the mythic “international community.” We should make it clear that there is no time-certain for when we stop, rather that we will return whenever we judge it necessary. And we should do it on the principle that a sovereign nation has a right to defend itself as it sees fit, and owes accountability only to its citizens.
In the near future, bombing Syria will likely still be necessary, not just to deter Assad or change the regime into a liberal democracy, but to let all the players in the region know that the greatest military power in history is watching events in a region we deem vital to our interests, and that we will use force to remind them of our unprecedented ability to project devastating power across the globe. Such a policy will strengthen our prestige, and concentrate wonderfully the minds of our adversaries.
The only remaining question is, Will we the people of the United States be willing to pay the costs and accept the risks of such a policy?
agreed - Trump the candidate was correct in saying we squandered trillions and only made things worse.
Christians have been genocided in Iraq. This is the fruit of Globalists in Iraq.
Please refrain from quoting deep state trolling points on Obama and Iraq.
Al Jezeera was caught faking gas attacks in Syria last time around:
It could be worse with Iran being a sponsor of terrorism and an emerging nuclear power. However, I do remember writing about the celebrated “Arab Spring” that the alternative to these secular dictatorships would most likely be radical religious terrorist factions. Russia without Iran if it behaved like the old Soviet Union could be manageable.
I will always have a hard time understanding the Russian/Iranian connection. How a country with a multi-millennial paranoia about the intention of neighbors would tolerate Putin helping Iran become a nuclear power is beyond me?
Syria has been an Iranian dominated country under Assad for years. What’s the big rush to change it out for Syrian rebels?
“Given that our economy is inseparable from the global economy, we have no choice but to be concerned about the critical straits and canals through which global commerce travels, and the airports throughout the world through which people can reach our shores in less than a day. “
That is the full, and complete logic by which the author asserts the US has an interest in Syria, any interest.
A laughable reach.
“Islamic terrorism is a absolutely a national security threat and ignoring it won’t make it go away. “
It’s mostly insignificant.
“Combating the Iranian-Russian-Syria alliance is also in the national interest but it ignores that fact that the alternatives to Assad are the greater evil. “
How is that in our national interest?
I contend US interests are best served by Assad achieving complete control over the entirety of Syrian territory.
It’s the only real interest we have there.
I would do exactly that (of course, that was NOT Obama's policy), with the proviso that any attacks originating from a terrorist hosting state would be replied to with massive force, nuclear weapons not excluded, at a time and place of our choosing.
+1
It's much worse than that.
It's an argument for an American military government over all the unruly areas of the planet, in perpetuity. Not, I presume, with Mr. Seekandfind in uniform.
One of the underlying factors in the Middle East that has driven U.S. policy for decades has been the protection of the Suez Canal as a shipping lane. Our interests in that strategic asset prompted us to do several things that would seem outlandish by any measure:
1. The U.S. actually sided with Egypt and the Soviet Union in the Suez Canal Crisis of 1956 -- against Israel, Great Britain and France.
2. The U.S. also orchestrated the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the 1979 peace accords between Egypt and Israel to ensure that the Sinai Peninsula would be returned to Egypt.
The overriding concern in all of this was our interest in keeping the Suez Canal open for trade (1956) and out of a militarized zone between two countries (1979).
Wrong. Syria is not our fight. That doesn’t matter to the globalists, because they haven’t found a war they couldn’t profit from.
You're not aware of the threat Iran poses to the nation?
I don't think an Iranian ally has our best interest at heart. Or the Russians. It's pretty ridiculous to claim that even if Assad might be the lesser evil.
After 9/11 the nation didn't think so. After ISIS committed multiple terrorist against Americans, the nation didn't think so.
Did you miss the part of the campaign where Trump promised to wipe ISIS off the face of earth? Obviously, he knew that was one of the things his base wanted to see happen.
It's insane not to be vigilant against Islamic terrorism.
No, he didn't. All intelligence reports said Saddam had WMD. All prominent Democrats agree.
Just because going to Iraq was a mistake and Bush was a failed President, doesn't make him evil and part of some conspiracy.
Put up or shut up and give us a post where you said that at the time.
Ninety percent of the nation and all prominent conservatives except Pat Buchanan supported the Iraq.
I guarantee you did, too. Get off your damn high horse.
President Jacques Chirac disagrees with you regarding Bush’s motives for war.
(Which matched some of Condi’s odd religious statements about fulfilling ancient prophecies at that time)
Chirac wrote that he was so perplexed by Bush’s words that they needed to go to war in Iraq because it was all about “Gog and Magog” - Chirac had to hire a Bible expert to explain it all to him.
So argue with Chirac, not me.
These are crazed RINO Globalists, who think they can game the Bible, while God sits on His throne and “laughs with derision”.
Yes, Christians and conservatives supported the war in Iraq, because the internet was nothing as it is today and information where we could easily fact check was simply not available. Not that they would have made the information available. So your argument is bogus.
Personally, the fact that BushRove funded Planned Parenthood for the full eight years while lying about it is most disgusting, but there is no way for us to have known that at the time, and we cannot be held morally accountable for voting for him.
You do understand the issue of Damascus in the Bible and therefore, why Damascus is an issue for these crazed RINO Globalists?
And the Iraq war was not just a “mistake”. Three trillion dollars of our blood and national treasure was spent on it, while it enabled the Christian genocide of 600,000 in Iraq today.
So stop with the warmongering for the Uniparty.
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