By
William L. Garvin
“Life’s but a walking shadow, a
poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no
more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying
nothing.” Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Act
5, Scene 5
Long
before the Syrian quagmire, Alexander Pope wrote that “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” His advice still stands
strikingly on point as there appear to be no good options in dealing with this
looming crisis. Obviously the situation
has been exacerbated by President Obama unilaterally delineating a “red line”
after “leading from behind” for five years.
This is in direct opposition to his statement in accepting the Nobel
Peace Prize in December, 2009: “In a world in which threats are more
diffuse and missions more complex, America cannot act alone. America alone cannot secure the peace.”
Long
before the Bush-Bash Brothers (Barack Obama and John Kerry) “evolved” from Democrat
Doves to war drum beating Chicken Hawks, he also said: “Iran and
Syria would start changing their behavior if they started seeing that they had
some incentives to do so, but right now the only incentive that exists is our
president suggesting that if you do what we tell you, we may not blow you
up. My belief about the regional powers
in the Middle East is that they don’t respond well to that kind of bluster. They haven’t in the past, there’s no reason
to think they will in the future.” What’s
next…Jane Fonda and Susan Sarandon performing on USO tours with Bill Maher?
Speaking
of Hollywood and the anti-war movement that was so omnipresent and stridently
vocal when George Bush was president, where are you? Of course, President Bush only had thirty
nations in his coalition, congressional approval, United Nations support and
seventy percent of the nation behind him.
Ed Asner made it perfectly clear when he said: “A lot
of people don’t want to feel anti-black by being opposed to Obama.” As usual in liberal lexicon, if you
oppose President Obama’s policies, you’re a racist. Yawn.
The
problem with President Obama’s red line manifesto for Syria is manifold. First of all, he doesn’t have a playbook. Second of all, he doesn’t have a team. Thirdly, his credibility is actually not on
the line because after Benghazi, NSA, Fast and Furious, and the IRS, he has
none! A year after Benghazi, the only
thing that this administration has accomplished is a “sealed indictment.” I’ll bet al Qaeda is shaking in its boots.
As
for Syria, if Assad actually used poison gas, he’s not only a war criminal,
he’s an irrational war criminal. Don’t
expect rational strategies to alter irrational behavior. On the other side, the Free Syrian Army rebel
force has been greatly diminished and al Qaeda forces gaining in strength. Who’s to say that al Qaeda affiliates didn’t
gas the Free Syrian Army? The
administration says it has “high confidence” that Assad used these WMD but that
is the same intelligence apparatus that repeatedly blamed Benghazi on a video!
As
for the Syrian opposition, we see rebel leaders summarily executing Assad’s
soldiers while the prisoners are face down on the ground with their hands
bound. Another commandant cuts open a
fallen soldier’s chest and pulls out and eats his heart and liver. The jihadists are also destroying Christian
churches and terrorizing Christians similar to what’s happening in Egypt. There is no telling what sort of rule these
barbarians might enact if they are successful in seizing power.
Anti-war
activist, now Secretary of State John Kerry, (who was undoubtedly against it
before he was for it) now wants “limited” and “proportional” strikes that are
not “war in the classical sense.” If the
military kicking Morsi out of power in Egypt is not a coup, then why not
redefine these terms of language as well?
If Canada or Mexico lobbed a few missiles across the border or bombed a
few of our airports, would the United States see that as “limited and
proportional” or an “act of war” even if they promised “no boots on the
ground”?
Who
is to say that a “limited and proportional” strike or series of strikes will be
the end game? One can surmise that there
will be many visuals of innocent women and children killed in the strikes. What if someone uses WMD several times, a la
Saddam Hussein? Given that Iran and
Russia are still supporting Assad, what if they decide to retaliate? What if Hezbollah decides to attack Israel? What if the world erupts, not with a whimper
but a bang? Forget the limited,
proportional sound and fury; it signifies nothing.
