It’s ok to be of divided mind about the sudden escalation of US involvement in Syria; well I am at least, so I offer up my own stream of consciousness.
The videos of twitching- foaming at the mouth-humans in agony earlier this week set off a response. Syria was yet again in the news with the riotous breakdown in humanity as a tin-horn ruler warred against numerous factions. The part of me that observes ‘yet again’ favors such a strike as was made by Trump, even when I’m increasingly doubtful about many of our military actions in abroad.
For too long, we’ve sent missiles in to blow up what we later realized as empty buildings or civilian laced areas. War planes are not ambiguous targets. In the urban guerilla war that is Syria, their aircraft have only one use that is disproportionate to the rest of the warfare. While some claim some residual doubt about exactly who released the chemical weapons, taking out a significant number of planes acts as a slap up against the head of a regime that already owns a legacy of war crimes. If those planes did indeed drop the chemicals, it’s a direct and costly strategic hit to the regime and instant relief for certain victims. No symbolism here – and just let me say I’m sick of the use of the military for symbolism. As a minimum, it was a well conceived and executed military strike. That’s what you get when you have seasoned warriors making decisions, generals that are more concerned with a successful operation than sensitivity training. That’s might be an over- generalization, but I think I’m right.
In my Trump Scorecard just this week, I assigned military escalation as an effort I do not want to succeed. (My long-standing section titles need to be changed for instances like this. Suffice to say, military interventionism should decrease.) Then along comes a situation that I find it hard to disagree with. There’s a fine line between just getting into someone’s civil war and affecting your own long term self interest.
When a nation shows deadly behaviors that present a danger to be learned elsewhere and spread by uncontrollable political and social phenomena, it doesn’t have to just be you or your friends getting hurt before stepping in to send a message. My own libertarian isolationism is not sufficient in instances that fit this profile. This action has clear and far-reaching implications for other struggles that directly affect us: Russia, China, and North Korea to name a few.
Rand Paul, God bless him, insists that congress needs to authorize any war action. Yes, I hope that is the case if this involvement lengthens, but the timing of the response can make the difference between a well-delivered message and yet another symbolic gesture or worse, a failed mission. If North Korea sends a nuke our way, please don’t ask my congressman’s permission to retaliate. As much as I tend to agree with Rand, he’s wrong in this one instance. He may be right by Monday morning, but on Friday he was wrong. I mean that literally.
Last, I’d like to say to any mockers who have the stupidity to attempt correlations with campaign positions; get serious about your country. Events present urgent conditions that transcend static positions. Save your g-damn rhetoric for some issue that isn’t threatening to destabilize a whole set of nations to the point of a world war. I’m basically eating a few words of my own. Maybe that’s a dish you should try sometime.