Are You Syriaus?

I celebrate the coming fall, football, perhaps a cool front soon, perhaps a little more rain.  I no longer am thrilled by the real cold fronts of winter as the barometer and thermostat of my bones has grown so much more sensitive, but I love the first little cool nip in the air.  Kids are back in school and everyone is now mindful of the large yellow limousines that chug and beep and flash transporting precious cargo to and from brick and mortar learning centers. 

And, Voyager has left the solar system and is in interstellar space!  Oh Wow!  First human artifact to ever escape our solar system.  Fellow Trekkers will know how many Star Trek’s were devoted to “V-ger”, the notion that alien life picked up Voyager, modified it, and sent it out to do harm.  Gives me goose bumps that science fiction in the 1960′s becomes science fact in 2013, not that Voyager has been picked up by aliens.  Yet.

While all these wonderful events transpire a petty dictator in a mid-eastern state uses chemical warfare against the citizens of his own country, such citizens being foolish enough to rise up against him.  So sad, so tragic, so selfish, such pointless pain and loss of life.  I deeply grieve for those humans who live in circumstances where their greatest fear is from their own government.  I am appalled by the actions of this government.  I am fearful of the myriad forces at work within the rebellion to overthrow this government.  We all know that what is happening is obscene, immoral and wrong. 

But attack this nation?  Seek out the storage areas and manufacturing sites of chemical weapons and send US forces via air to strike them?  Inside a sovereign nation currently ripped by civil war?  How could we ever consider such a thing?  Do we as a nation absolutely refuse to learn from past mistakes?  Are we so committed to notions of self that we will repeat over and over and over again the mistakes of the past that have all led to disaster in the belief that we must intervene in nations where events are not to our liking or aligned with our business interests or moral code?  How many Koreas, Viet Nams, Iraqs, and Afganistans must we endure to learn this painful lesson?  Evidently a few more.

Attacking Syria should absolutely, totally be off the table.  Attacking Syria is more than foolhardy; it is a demonstration of our own sense of self-righteousness that the rest of the world despises.  If we are to police the world then we must enforce laws the world accepts, not our own.  Such an attack cannot end well and even if totally successful will win the animosity of many more nations and people. 

I am so disappointed in our President.  I have supported him.  I yearned for the hope he brought to the office.  I applauded his health care reform.  I have been frustrated by the intransigence of the opposition who have blocked all his economic reform efforts while blaming him for lack of economic recovery.  And yet I have been appalled by his stance on educational reform.  He has sipped the Kool Aide of the reformers and left those of us who truly support public schools with nowhere to turn when both Democrats and Republicans advocate the same drivel. 

Perhaps the Russian solution will work and the risk of chemical weapons used on a civilian population by their own government will end.  We know more civilians have died there by conventional bullets than chemical weapons so why are we now so upset?  Shall we demand that the governmental forces loyal to the dictator disarm as well?  I think not.  The NRA would move in force to stop on the grounds that we have the right to bear arms, so should the government of Syria.  I am sure they celebrate providing arms to the rebels.

We have watched the death of millions in outright genocidal efforts elsewhere and have done nothing.  We know many nations seriously violate our sense of human rights and liberties and have done nothing.  Why now, why there, why this issue?  If I did not know better I would think Bush were back in office.

 
So I say to President Obama, find another way to enforce our will on the world.  Do not use violence or military might which by its very use decries our claim to noble cause.  We should have proposed what the Russians now offer.  Duh.  Military might?  Are you Syriaus?