Wednesday of this week is our Patriot Day, instituted to remember those who were killed in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
That day changed the course of history, particularly in our nation, as any of us who were old enough to know what was going on can attest. Life has never been the same.
Thanks directly or indirectly to 9-11, we have less freedom now. We stand in long lines at the airport to have our luggage (and bodies) searched. Government agencies can legally snoop into our lives much more easily than they could before the passage of the Patriot Act, signed into law less than two months after the attack. We’ve spent trillions on messy military interventions in the Middle East, playing our cards in a tricky game in which winning is a phantom reality.
And now President Obama and others want us to jump in again.
I’ve never been to war.
Oh, I’ve seen plenty of it in movies and on TV, but that’s a lot different than being there – a fact that I can only state with the limited certainty of someone who hasn’t. Those who have don’t even want to talk about it.
Which brings us to the issue looming over all of us as we careen through another scene in the high drama of the Obama Administration.
Though I’m a journalist who’s expected to be cynical and looking for lies and loopholes in the public process, I’d like to trust our president. I certainly would like to respect his office. Like a lot of Americans, when our first non-white president took office, I hoped his administration would be a good one, a sign of positive changes in a nation with plenty of flaws.
But my confidence is definitely lacking as President Obama and war hawks in Congress and the Pentagon – along with various other do-gooders advocate U.S. military intervention in Syria, where where President Bashar al-Assad’s government troops have allegedly gassed innocent civilians with chemical weapons.
I’m finding myself short of trust in a man whose only “real” jobs have been as a community organizer and law school lecturer; who snowed us with rich rhetoric while repeatedly obfuscating or outright lying about his life and activities prior to becoming a public figure. He’s surrounded himself with elitist intellectual Leninists like himself, who apparently (privately, if not openly) disrespect much of what has made America the nation it is – self-reliance, innovation, industry, honesty, strong religious and personal beliefs and standards, etc. – as they stampede slumbering Americans into socialism.
Am I over-reacting here? Journalist Mychal Massie, an African-American of conservative bent, calls Obama “the most mendacious political figure I have ever witnessed. Even by the low standards of his presidential predecessors, his narcissistic, contumacious arrogance is unequalled.”
Obama’s administration has been less than forthcoming, if not corrupt, on scores of issues – the IRS scandal, Benghazi, the ATF “Fast and Furious” scheme, the Pigford scandal, the attack on Libya and other end runs around Congress, influence peddling, various missteps (to put it kindly) by Attorney General Eric Holder.
This is a guy who spends tens of millions of taxpayer dollars on his vacation trips, but apparently hasn’t done his homework on what’s really happening in the Middle East. Instead, he opens his mouth, utters some bellicose statements about how we’re drawing a line in the sand, and suddenly we’re stuck, looking like fools if we don’t follow through.
But is the most important thing for Americans, really, what everybody else thinks right now? We have a bigger problem: leaders who lack character and wisdom. We need smarts and backbone.
We’re told that this is going to be quick-and-dirty operation, in and out, but we know better. Iraq was going to be fast and furious. It was slow, painful and costly, in lives or money. The bill included the lives of more than 4,500 American troops and 100,000 serious injuries to others. And $6 trillion.
Could I be over-reacting – a small-town editor out in the hinterlands of the Northwest who tries to read the national news during free moments? Well, people in a lot better position than I to gauge the situation are almost unanimous in their opposition to military intervention – conservatives and liberals. Guest columnist Rich Lowry of The National Review, who’s also a conservative, but is well-informed on national affairs, suggests in the piece on the page above that our president has made us the laughingstock of the world. He didn’t start some of these things, but he didn’t do much to improve our situation.
Of course, though, this situation in Syria is different. This was a brutal attack (similar to the ones Saddam Hussein inflicted on his people (with American aid) until he became too much of a threat to us. This conflict we’re seeing in Syria, while certainly disturbing, isn’t new. It’s been going on for thousands of years, so of course now it’s time to end it with a quick intervention.
Let it go. Military intervention is not the answer, particularly in this situation (and the others we’ve fought in the Middle East) where nothing’s black and white. Our military has been weakened by cuts and all the conflicts and interventions we’ve just finished (or are trying to).
Yes, war with Syria might distract us from problems we face at home: joblessness, poverty, debt, Obamacare, illegal immigration, global warming – which might be a plus for our president and Congress.
I’m definitely no pacifist. Some wars are necessary and just. But we need to take care of things at home before we manage the rest of the world.
Yes, it’s a terrible situation in Syria. Innocent people – Muslims, Christians – are being unjustly treated, even killed. However, it is only one of many such around the globe. North Korea. Somalia and a host of other African nations. Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Other Middle-Eastern, Asian, even South American nations, where anyone not in power is subject to abuse.
Action may be necessary against Syria, but it shouldn’t be military action – at least, not from us.
Congress needs to draw its own line in the sand and stand by it.
We need to pick our fights, and this is not one of them. That’s the message President Obama should be telling the rest of the world.