The 2x4 Message

Once in a great while, we find that the time for talk is over, and the time for action arrives. As ineffective as it was from a military standpoint, the attack on the Syrian air base in retaliation for the use of chemical weapons, apparently by the Assad regime, was necessary.

Over the years, I have become tired of all the arguments why we couldn’t do anything about Syria. Here are just a few:

1.    It’s too complicated.

2.    It’s none of our business.

3.    It’s too expensive.

4.    It’s just Iraq all over again.

5.    It’s unconstitutional.

6.    We did nothing in Rwanda while hundreds of thousands died.

7.    It’s supposed to be about ISIS.

8.    Assad’s awful, but it would be worse without him.

9.    We’ll piss off Russia and Iran…and the latest,

10. Trump did it to appear decisive and un-Obama-ish.

But we have been living with the price of non-involvement for six years now, and the Assad regime has only become stronger, with a little help from its friends.  Meanwhile, we have the worst refugee crisis since World War II. I can’t tell you how many nights on CNN were consumed years ago with reports about Assad’s army shelling civilian populations, with the world saying, “Ain’t that a shame?”

Sometimes, the military “messages” we send accomplish little on the ground, but the fact that we send them shows that we’re paying attention. Maybe it’s the 2x4 blow on the noggin that the stakeholders in the region need and even expect from us. It’s often the only language they understand. Syria is a terrible, complicated, bloody mess, but the world will sort it out eventually, simply because we will realize there is no other choice.

Donald, Bar the Door?

 As expected, feared or cheered, President Trump has signed an executive order imposing a four-month moratorium on refugees coming into the United States, with Syrian refugees in particular banned indefinitely. General entry from seven Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East is banned for 90 days until an enhanced screening program is put in place. The goal is to keep radical Islamic terrorists from entering and gaining a foothold here to carry out attacks.

Let me be clear: I do not have a problem with the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism” or even enhancing the vetting process where needed. For Syrians in particular, however, the process was already daunting. Sadly, those in the final stages of this process now have the door slammed in their faces. And the discriminatory nature of the President’s order is right out there, as other Muslim nations in the Middle East, like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, are conveniently not on the “banned” list. Plus, an exception is to be made for Christian refugees.

I well understand that we can’t let in just everybody. But we never have. More often than not, we have discriminated. Many Jews fleeing the Nazis were not admitted during World War II, as an example. And it works in reverse: those with special skills considered necessary to our economy have always been welcomed. Adult male Irish immigrants who came during the Civil War were paid a nice bounty to join the Union Army almost as soon as they got off the boat. Lady Liberty may welcome the tired and poor, but is that what we really do?

As I have said many times, the U.S. and the West are almost complicit in the Syrian crisis. We shook our heads and said, “Ain’t that a shame?” when the Assad regime began murdering civilians using its own military. Even after President Obama’s infamous “red line” declaration when the regime was said to be using chemical weapons, we let Russia take charge – and take advantage of the situation to expand its influence. As wistful as many of us have been over the end of the Obama administration, our non-involvement in Syria remains a policy failure of cataclysmic proportions. The very existence of ISIS is a symptom.

Many of those who stand in crowds shouting “USA” and call for the building of walls conveniently forget that their American citizenship is a total accident of nature. Most of us just happened to be born here. We didn’t have to flee anything. Our ancestors were the ones who did the hard work. Not that living here is a picnic for everyone, but if we were born here, we all got free passes that we didn’t earn, and the oceans on either side of us have provided a convenient bubble for non-involvement in the rest of the world’s troubles.

What it boils down to, though, is that we each have to decide as Americans if President Trump is speaking for us with this executive order. He isn’t for me.

Compassion and Caution

ISIS must be pretty proud of itself. An attack perpetrated by only a few people with relatively low-tech weapons on a Friday night in Paris, and the rest of us are quaking in our boots. And now, what to do with Syrian refugees? Let them in, and there might be bad guys among them. Gasp!

First, let’s be realistic about a couple of things. We don’t let very much into this country without checking it first. Food items might have Old World pests in them. Toys may be toxic. Exotic pets may be cute, but they could multiply and kill off our native species. Imports carry a risk. What about human beings? Remember all the jumping up and down we did because somebody carrying Ebola landed in a couple of our cities?

Yes, all that give-me-your-tired-and-your-poor stuff sounds great, but we have always been a little picky about who we let in. Those arriving at Ellis Island, right under Liberty’s torch in the early 20^th century, were checked for disease, and that was just the beginning.

So what to do with the Syrians? A majority of governors don’t want them until they’re checked out – and a majority of Americans agree. President Obama chastised critics as being afraid of “widows and orphans,” while many of the Syrians showing up in Europe now are young, single males. Having a concern about terrorists being among them doesn’t automatically make us inhumane. But we do have to figure out a way to humanely process those who would come here.

Three or four years ago, I remember watching CNN night after night and seeing how the Assad regime turned a mechanized army on its own people. I still remember the brave reporters – mostly women – who risked their lives covering it. What was our response? We shook our heads and said, isn’t that a shame.

The Middle East refugee crisis didn’t start in 2015. It’s been going on for years. The U.N. and other agencies have been talking about it a long time. The Western world didn’t wake up to it until people started getting on boats and heading for Europe. There could have been some kind of a system in place in the EU for vetting them. Too late now.

But what do we do here? As I’ve said, we have it easy; we have two oceans to protect us, so we have a little more time to figure out a response. I just can’t believe we can’t throw together some databases (seems like we have lots of those) to check these people against in a reasonable amount of time. Does it really have to take 18 months plus to admit one of these refugees? Ebola was by no means new, and was ignored by Big Pharma for a long time – but a few researchers got their acts together and came up with a vaccine in a hurry when it was needed.

Can we keep out everyone who would do us harm? No, but we can keep out some. The fact is, however, that those who would do us harm are likely already here – and some may not even be Muslim! (Gasp again). The New Normal isn’t pretty. But we can’t pretend we didn’t have a role in creating the Middle Eastern mess, through a mistaken war and simple neglect.

Blame is about history; responsibility is about the present. I don’t know what the solutions to the current problem are, but I do know we’re pretty good at finding them when we have to.

Taking It to Isis

I really hesitate to reveal myself as a hawk, but beaks and talons are kind of difficult to hide. There are just a few common arguments I’m having trouble with as we consider what to do about ISIS.

“We (the U.S.) can’t be the policemen of the world.” No, we can’t. It certainly isn’t our job to deal with every group of bad guys by ourselves. But often we have to take a leadership role and exercise moral authority. We have to demonstrate what effective policing is, bring “recruits” along, and teach them how to do it with us. Messages have to be sent about terrorism not being tolerated. And no, it isn’t fair! We may not be able to deal with every situation equally. But we have to start somewhere.

“They hate us because we’re over there.” No, they hate us because we EXIST. Those who embrace this twisted version of Islam won’t be satisfied with a caliphate confined to Iraq and Syria. They want an end to decadence, and that is what we are about in their book. We don’t have to allow this barbarous philosophy, religion, or whatever it is, to have its own country.

“If we attack them in Syria and Iraq, they will just go somewhere else.” The terrorists are all over the place, brainwashed by whom they’ve been listening to or what they read on the Internet. But this snake has a head in a particular place. And not cutting it off will just allow those establishing themselves in other locations to feel that much more secure.

“What about Russia and Iran?” What about them? Will battling ISIS mean we might shoot down a Russian plane accidentally, or vice-versa? Has any war not had “friendly fire” incidents? You may even question the use of the word “friendly” here.

“The real solution is education, assimilation, and negotiation.” ISIS isn’t interested in any of that, and right now, we don’t have the time for it. That’s for later.

“If we strike them, they will come after us.” Is this really a reason for inaction? They will come after us anyway. And BTW, they don’t need WMD to do it – they are scaring us just fine with low-level, conventional weapons.

“We will have to become a police state to protect ourselves.” Truth be told, we have been reasonably good at thwarting plots without paranoid security measures. But will sleeper cells and others succeed occasionally? Yes, that is the new reality. We have a false sense of safety given to us by two oceans. Israel is surrounded by several potentially hostile states, and yet has always managed to defend itself.

“If we get involved over there, it will never end.” That’s partly because of the WAY we get involved. We fight wars without declaring them and without well-defined missions, and don’t allocate the resources to get the job done. I said the other day that our Middle East policy has been like starting a fire, letting it grow to a thousand acres, and then throwing a couple glasses of water on it and wondering why it doesn’t go out. No, a fire has to be drowned or smothered. ISIS numbers only about 30,000 at the most. Doable, IMHO.

The second part is that we might have to be there for a while, even after we “win.” After World War II, the Allies occupied Germany and Japan, and basically stayed there until we could help those countries get back on their feet. That takes a lot longer than our short attention spans and impatience permit these days, and it’s a messy process.

“We can’t afford it; it’s not our problem, let all the factions there blow each other up!”  Can we really believe we didn’t have a role in creating the present situation? And what happens if they all do blow themselves up? Then what?

We are usually late to these “parties,” but at some point we have to knock on the door.

The Mule and tte 2x4

The world is now getting the message about the Syrian refugee crisis, but the mule needed a few blows to the head with that large piece of wood to hear it. Those blows have included story after story about the loss of “boat people,” and, of course, the heart-wrenching photo of the dead toddler in the red shirt washed up on a beach.

But this is not exactly a new problem, and it’s more than just about Syria. The UN has been reporting on the enormous scale of the Middle East refugee situation for years, perhaps one of the worst in our memories. Millions have been prompted to leave their homes. What’s different now is that local “coyotes” have been selling seats in substandard boats. Some have sunk. Others have made it to various European shores, with the refugees receiving varying degrees of welcome.

In Syria, it started in 2011, when the ultra-thin-skinned Bashir al-Assad decided he couldn’t put up with a relatively small number of demonstrators protesting conditions in his country. For the most part, they weren’t even interested in removing him from power. Years before that, in fact, there were news stories about what a progressive leader he was. But his response to the unrest was to turn the country’s army against his own people. I still remember the two brave CNN reporters, both women, who were on TV night after night reporting from the shelled cities, and the late Stanford fellow Fouad Ajami providing his comments about the dire situation to Anderson Cooper. The West did very little more than shake its head.

Then there were the reports that Assad’s army was using chemical weapons, and President Obama drew a “line in the sand,” which sounded very good – but did it sort of say that the use of conventional weapons before that to kill hundreds of thousands was OK? You be the judge. And then the Russians said, back off, we’ll handle this. BTW, I wonder how many refugees the Russians are taking in these days.

Some of the EU countries are less than happy about having to deal with this. By contrast, Germany welcomed tens of thousands just last weekend – more asylum-seekers than the country accepted during all of 2007. Germany may accept as many as 800,000 before all is said and done. So far, the U.S. has taken in about 1,500, but pressure is mounting for us to do more.

No, we aren’t to blame for this problem, but we do have some responsibility to help. We did virtually nothing in Syria, and maybe way too much in Iraq, and haven’t really followed through in Libya. But there are lots of people needing help, just as there are after a natural disaster like an earthquake. And it’s time we stepped up to do our share – not assume the entire burden, just our share.

While I’m not into animal abuse, the mule has to wake up sometime.

Thank You, Mr. Trump

Donald Trump is right. His comments about Mexican “rapists” and impregnable border fences, outrageous though they may be, have forced his fellow Republicans, and the rest of us, to talk about immigration. It’s truly the “elephant in the room” on many levels.

It’s very easy for us to have a theoretical discussion about immigration. True, we have problems: millions of people here illegally or semi-legally, who many of the rest of us think are draining our resources. But what would we do if our country were in Europe right now instead of being conveniently isolated by two oceans? What would we do if all these desperate people were washing up on our shores – if their boats even made it that far? Would they be a drain on our resources? Very likely – but some European countries, like Greece, don’t have any resources left to drain. We do have an easy life here!

Let’s roll back the tape a little bit. A few Arab Spring demonstrators several years ago in Syria inexplicably prompted their government to turn a mechanized army on its own people, killing hundreds of thousands. Nothing we can do about it, we said, not our problem, and the other Western powers largely agreed. Let them fight it out for themselves, we said. The country descended into total chaos, and now there is ISIS. Millions have been displaced, and not just from Syria. Did neglect come back to bite us? We haven’t really been bitten yet in this situation, just the Europeans. Some countries are still trying to say, not our problem. But the desperate thousands arrive anyway – their problem whether they like it or not.

There are no easy solutions to our own immigration issues, parochial as they may seem by comparison. Certainly, we have to come up with a fair system that allows for people living here and contributing to our economy as well as for those seeking asylum or those just seeking a better life. But as a friend of mine pointed out recently, most of our ancestors were immigrants – not always nice ones – who displaced the native population. We forced others to “migrate” here as personal property. You can keep rolling back the tape, and you’ll find that the hard distinctions between good guys and bad guys just get blurrier and blurrier.

But at some point we are going to have to set aside demagogic talk about anchor babies and fences and understand that we are all in this boat --- on this planet – together, and the hard distinctions between “our problems” and “their problems” are also a lot blurrier than they used to be.

Choose Your Virus

It’s very interesting where we choose to put boots on the ground. Without what seems to be much hesitation, President Obama has called for sending 3,000 troops to West Africa to build local treatment centers in the fight against the deadly Ebola virus. Even though it seems we are responding quickly, the experts are saying we are only leaping into the firefight when the house has almost burned down – and with the number of those infected doubling every few weeks, the urgency seems warranted. Will Ebola make it to the United States? Probably not, those same experts say, but if the population infected is allowed to explode, that likelihood increases. Without flinching, one expert said this disease had the potential to rival a Black Death that ravaged Italy in the 1300s.

I am probably by no means the first to draw a parallel to the situation in Iraq and Syria, with the spreading virus of ISIS. We have no prickly political issues at the moment keeping boots off of West African ground, it seems, but the weariness created by two less-than-popular wars kept us from involvement in Syria while its unrest morphed into civil war, and we couldn’t seem to get out of Iraq fast enough. Is there something the West could have done to prevent the loss of some 200,000 lives and the displacement of millions? We of course will never know – and what good would it do us at this moment if we did?

Now the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, says we may indeed have to put boots on the desert sand again in the form of advisors embedded with local forces taking on ISIS. This road should seem very familiar, as we’ve been on and off it for the past 50 years. In 2003, the reasons for entering Iraq may have been manufactured. But are they this time? It’s unlikely that ISIS would strike the United States in our homeland – perhaps equally as unlikely as Ebola spreading here, for the moment at least. But will that remain the case if we do nothing?

The troops we are sending to West Africa are no less in harm’s way than those who will be heading to Iraq and possibly, Syria. But there simply may be no alternative to getting our boots dirty.

Ignorance Isn't Bliss

When most of us hear the word “ignorance,” we might think of someone living in a remote cabin in the woods with no electricity, no smart-phone, no Internet (gasp!), maybe an outhouse with a half moon on the door in the backyard.

But ignorance is a lot more than being uninformed. The root of the word is “ignore,” the definition of which is “REFUSE to take notice of,” according to Webster. Heck, you could even be somewhat informed, and still refuse to take notice of something. So it’s not about being stupid, it’s a deliberate choice.

Officially, we have tried to ignore the human tragedy in the Middle East for years. It’s none of our business, we can’t afford it, Bush screwed everything up, let’s get out of there. Fine. But in Syria, almost 200,000 people have been killed and several million displaced. The civil war there isn’t news anymore. It’s a failed state, a vacuum. And it is being filled by ISIS.

Who’s that? The dog on Downton Abbey?  Where were they six months ago? Well,  they are the latest scourge of the Earth. The heads of Messrs. Foley and Sotloff were by no means the first to roll at the hands of ISIS, but all of a sudden, we are paying attention, thanks to some nasty videos. They were OUR heads.

I have heard analysts say, “It’s not about religion, it’s about power.” Really? Power is like money: worthless until used. And what do the goals of ISIS appear to be? The establishment of a great Islamic caliphate, with everyone in it subject to Sharia law. Not the first time in history this has happened, of course. These human impulses aren’t always religiously driven, but when they are, it’s real trouble.

Now it looks like we’re going to have to do something about this, though we have no taste for involvement in it. The symbolism of the President telling us what he plans to do on the eve of the 9/11 anniversary cannot be ignored. The case is going to be made that ISIS really is our business.

But I hope the President will minimize discussion of what we’re NOT going to do. I say, leave everything on the table. That doesn’t mean we have to serve everything on every plate, but we should leave the table set.

We have already learned the hard way that massive military invasions in these cases don’t work very well, but yes, we may have to put small numbers of well-trained boots on the ground (in whatever form those may be) with very specific, targeted missions, along with the usual droning and bombing. It’s all going to cost us something – but now we are seeing what the price of doing nothing – our refusal to take notice – has been.

A Tale of Three Heroes

Journalism, as we are often told, can be dangerous work. The latest reminder has come in the beheading of Jim Foley, held by ISIS in Syria. While it’s sad that some military personnel have to die in combat, we expect that consequence in war. But when it happens to a reporter, especially in the form portrayed in an awful video designed to send a message, we are shocked, because it’s not supposed to happen to journalists, whose only weapons are newsgathering equipment. It’s safe to say, though, that Foley was no stranger to the risk he was taking, a risk that hundreds of journalists around the world take on a daily basis.

The U.S. rejected a huge ransom demand and put “boots on the ground” to rescue Foley and other hostages held by ISIS in Syria -- another great risk, not only physically, but politically. The mission failed, because the hostages had been moved. I’m reminded of the failed attempt to rescue hostages in Iran back in the 1970s. I’ve always believed that Jimmy Carter would have been re-elected President had that attempt succeeded.

Whether we like it or not, we are now at war with ISIS. The only sensible response is for us to “behead” the organization. We know who many of the leaders are, and we may have to send elite military teams in to get them. Simple bombing, droning, and even a massive invasion won’t work, but a targeted effort just might.

On a considerably happier note, there are two other heroes to celebrate: the American doctors who are said to have recovered from a disease that has heretofore been almost exclusively fatal: Ebola. Like Foley, Drs. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol knew the risk they would be taking on the ground in Africa to help deal with an epidemic. They had to take a second risk: submitting to the use of a largely experimental drug. The favorable outcome holds promise for its future use.

When bad things happen to such people, maybe we shouldn’t be too shocked. The perils they face come with their respective territories. They are no less heroes of war than those who carry guns. We do need reminding, though, that wars of many kinds go on all the time, and the warriors involved aren’t always wearing the uniforms and carrying the weapons we expect.

Lines in the Sand

Iraq AGAIN? Didn’t we just FIX that place?

One of the reasons we in America have trouble caring about the Middle East is that we have something quite a few other places in the world don’t: stable borders. When’s the last time a map of this hemisphere actually changed? When was our last real border dispute? “54-40 or fight?” The Confederacy tried to create a new country, but that failed. We still can’t rule out Texas seceding from the Union, I suppose, but it’s unlikely. Our best security feature is the oceans on either side of us.

The irony is that while we’re called the New World and the Middle East is considered the cradle of civilization, most of the countries we see on the map there today haven’t been there all that long. The most stable of them, Israel, has only been a country since 1948. Syria, Iraq and Lebanon were places, but they weren’t really countries until occupying Western powers created borders for them in the early 20^th century. Is Iraq behaving like it’s really a country right now? I think it was Joseph Biden who said some time ago that Iraq could actually be three countries – and some thought he was nuts.

It wasn’t all that long ago that the Turks controlled everything in that area. It was called the Ottoman Empire. A friend of mine jokes that these days, the Ottoman Empire is just a furniture store in New Jersey.

Now we have an extremist Islamic faction that wants to create a new state encompassing Syria and Iraq (not a new idea, BTW), at which they could very easily succeed. Then there are the Kurds, who control portions of Iraq, Syria, and even Turkey. I’d be willing to bet that they’re going to end up, when all is said and done, with their own country.

The human cost of all this instability is beyond belief. Aside from the deaths and injuries, millions have been displaced from their homes in Syria. Now, Iraqis who are on the wrong side of the religious factional fence are fleeing theirs in large numbers. These folks may not even be sure what country “home” is now. This is literally a very foreign concept to us on this side of the pond.

It is my belief that whether we like it our not, the West is going to have to get involved in this mess in some way (As an aside, it’s very interesting that we’re jumping up and down because the ISIS group is beheading people, while we didn’t say boo when the Syrian government turned a mechanized army on civilians). I don’t know what form that involvement will take, but we’re going to find we can’t just stand by and let the region shatter.

Yet it seems clear that the map is going to be changing pretty radically again in a short period of time, and the cartographers at the National Geographic better keep their digital paintbrushes wet.

The Media Spotlight's Narrow Beam

I know this is going to sound a little perverse, but while the story of the kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls is a tragedy, why has it captured the imagination at the expense of everything else?

That’s an easy one. There’s the word “schoolgirls,” meaning children. And we have an evil Islamic militant group, Boko Haram. And a powerless government that can’t or won’t do anything about it. And, of course, celebrity re-tweets, can’t forget that. And then, throw in the charges that we’ve never paid attention to Nigeria in the past because it’s a black African country. Now we have guilt in the mix. This reminds me of the story of the crazy African gang leader of a couple of years ago – what was his name again? Similar worldwide fury.

Question 2: What are we, the U.S., going to do about the Nigerian situation, exactly? Well, we’ve sent in a tem of specialists to help the Nigerians. Good move. But no “boots on the ground.” Because we’ve been a little injudicious in the past decade or so with where we have put our boots, there’s no stomach for any large-scale military help, schoolgirls or not.

But while we’re all agonizing about the schoolgirls, where has the world been for the past three-plus years, watching Syria degenerate? A lot more than 250 children are dead, and millions of people have been displaced. The century, as I may have said before, is relatively young, but this could rank as one of its great tragedies, and it’s far from over. I’m afraid that we will end up having to pay much closer attention to this one than we’d like. And lately, there have been warnings about a major famine involving millions in South Sudan, the world’s newest country.

OK, too many fires to put out, and maybe at this moment we can’t deal with any of them. All I’m saying is, just because the beam of the media spotlight is shining on a situation that needs it, let’s not forget how narrow that beam is – and how much else stays in the dark.

Sea Changes

Let me see…we were about to launch an attack on Syria, but now we’re talking to the Russians about their plan to secure and destroy Syria’s stockpile of chemical weapons. And now the new president of Iran, Hassan Rouhani, has ended the denial of the Holocaust and wants to negotiate over that country’s plans to become a nuclear power. What’s going on here? What triggered this? It’s not spring. But could it be an equinoctial thing?

Probably nothing so semi-metaphysical. I think it’s more about enlightened self-interest. The Russians have substantial military and economic interest in what happens in Syria. Putin & Co. would probably like to see the Assad regime stay in power for as long as possible. In Iran, maybe reality is setting in. CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, who interviewed Rouhani, says he wouldn’t be making nice unless he had authorization to do so from the religious leaders of his country, and why would they provide it? Could it be that economic sanctions are actually hurting, and the old men who run that country realize that the general population, which is much younger and less hateful of America, might be upset with them if they don’t change their attitudes? Is it a case of  “the devil knowing his time is short”?

Some Americans may have trouble trusting either the Russians or the Iranians, after our past history with their respective governments. But there are few more solid foundations for trust than an opposing party doing something that’s good, simply because circumstances are leaving no other choice.

So the next question is, if our worst enemies are finally doing something we want them to do because they have to do it, can the same principles work with forcing Congress to work through differences on Obamacare and the debt ceiling?

I think locking members of Congress in the Capitol and locking all the bathrooms there until they get this done would work just fine. There are few more powerful incentives than having to go because you have to go.

Bark or Bite

The good news is, American missiles won’t be flying toward Syria today. The bad news is, we just kissed most of the credibility we had in the bank goodbye with President Obama’s decision to seek approval from Congress for a strike on Syria -- after all the run-up that has already taken place. If Congress says no to an attack, President Obama will have little choice but to follow British Prime Minister David Cameron’s lead and stand the military down.

Does that mean we will have given Mr. Assad the green light to continue to use chemical weapons? We have green-lighted innumerable atrocities up to this point, so we might well wonder what’s different now.

Personally, I feel the time for messaging has long since passed. If Mr. Assad personally gave the orders to use chemical weapons, as we have charged, he is already a war criminal of the first order, right up there with Hitler and Pol Pot. If he sees a green light here and resumes the use of such weapons, that should be a green light for us to send a lot more than a message. We will have no reasonable choice – if we want our credibility back -- but to take out Assad – or arrest him and put him on trial. Will that be Iraq II? Can we remove Assad from power, face down Iran and Russia, and let the remaining Syrian factions determine their own fate (which means fighting it out)?

We cannot effect real change, unfortunately, without getting our hands dirty – and if we’re not prepared to do that, we should indeed stay out of Syria and take our credibility lumps. The last war we can take credit for winning (and not solo credit) ended almost 70 years ago. We’ve been tinkering around with war since then, at a great cost to the lives of our young men, and these days, women.

A Syrian woman interviewed on the radio this morning quoted a proverb to the effect that the louder and longer a dog barks, the less it’s apt to bite. We need to stop barking and bite something, or else put the muzzle on and go back to bed.

Hearing the Dinner Bell

For the better part of two years, the Obama administration has told us that all options are on the table to deal with the crisis in Syria. The table is set, and dinner is about to be served.

On Monday, Secretary of State John Kerry’s words of warning were clear: there was no question that chemical weapons had been used on civilians – a moral obscenity, and the clear crossing of the so called red line had occurred.  It wasn’t all that long ago that another Secretary of State, Colin Powell, displayed graphic evidence, or so we were given to believe, of the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Ah, but this is different, right? Syria really does have chemical weapons. And apparently, the regime no longer has compunctions about using them. But as for moral outrage about this, do you think it might be possible that at least one of the 100-thousand-plus civilians who died by what we might call conventional means may have suffered equally horrible or even more agonizing deaths than the current nerve gas victims? The red line was drawn in a strange place.

What we have been learning the hard way about the Middle East is that dictatorships have served as artificial lids on boiling pots. Military action on our part won’t turn down the heat in Syria.

Is the red line really about U.S. credibility? In the case of Syria, we lost it two years ago. So is firing off a few missiles really going to send the message to Iran and/or Russia that we’re not to be trifled with? They’ve been trifling with us a long time. What is different about this moment?

To my mind, there is only one justification for military action: obtaining control of the chemical weapons or destroying them so that the Assad regime can’t use them on civilians anymore and so that they don’t fall into the wrong hands. Unless military force attains those goals, it’s a waste of time and resources. Our attention might better be paid to the plight of the hundreds of thousands of Syrians displaced by this conflict, many living in desperate situations in countries that can’t handle them.

If we really have to sit down to dinner, it might be a good time for someone to say grace – and pray hard before we pick up the knife and fork.

Way Too Little, Way Too Late

Now that the infamous “red line” has been crossed – the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons on civilians, President Obama has decided that the United States should supply arms to the Syrian rebels. As I noted to friends yesterday, we seem to have a talent for finding the deepest part of the quicksand and stepping in it – or to be more accurate, sticking our toe in it to see if we can avoid getting sucked in.

All this is still officially pretty vague. According to reports, though, the arms we will supply to the Syrian rebels aren’t necessarily the ones they want: heavy weapons or those to shoot down aircraft.  Senator John McCain, long a hawk on this issue, believes we have to do more, including enforcing a no-fly zone.

The Assad regime has used chemical weapons on four separate occasions, according to our intelligence, killing up to 150 people. That’s awful. But it begs the question of why we didn’t care about the 100,000 or so others who have already died by more conventional means. As if the earlier atrocities committed by the regime were somehow acceptable.

So what is our goal here? Do we want to help the Syrian rebels win, or not? Will these measures really level the playing field? Continuing that analogy, leveling the playing field, at this stage, doesn’t stop the game, and if there is a winner, there’s little likelihood it’s going to be our friend.

I think our real objective should be – or should have been – knocking out or securing the chemical weapons to prevent their use – though perhaps they’ve been scattered to the point where we can’t get to them now.

Woulda, coulda, shoulda. If we’re going to change the balance in Syria, there has to be a commitment to do it. I still contend there was a point at which we could have intervened in this conflict early on and accomplished something without having to really go to war. But at this moment, Americans don’t have the stomach for the measures that seem necessary. It’s just too late to play catch-up.

The Really Thin Red Line

I haven’t had anything to say about Syria in a long time, mainly because it’s been too upsetting, and like many in the West, I just wanted to think about other things. But that is a luxury we may no longer be able to afford.

President Obama said a while ago that the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons would represent a “red line” that if crossed, would trigger a U.S. response, though it’s never been made quite clear what that is. It would seem, however, that there is much more evidence of the use of chemical weapons in Syria than there was for the presence of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein, which triggered our launch of the Iraq war.

It’s almost impossible to count the number of horses that have left the barn here. Red lines are fine as far as they go – but what has already happened south of that line? The use of bombs and heavy artillery on civilian populations, Hundreds of thousands killed, atrocities too numerous and horrible to detail, and more than 1.5 million refugees fleeing to surrounding countries – a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions.

So the options that remain are bad ones. The Pentagon has a set of responses ready to be implemented, primarily for the securing of the chemical weapons – steps which may soon be necessary. And the talk of arming the rebels against the Assad regime continues. The European Union has the go-ahead to do so, but it’s a faint green light indeed: it’s simply a failure of European nations to agree on anything, so the current ban on such supplying of weapons will simply expire.

The West worries about the supplied weapons falling into the wrong hands. But it may be a challenge to find the right ones. Those who eventually come to power in Syria will probably not be our friends. The population will never forgive us for failing to come to their aid in their time of need – especially after watching what we did in Libya.

The bottom line is that we are going to be involved in Syria, whether we like it or not – sucked or dragged in kicking and screaming, choose your metaphor. Let us hope and pray that peace talks will eventually succeed and that somebody figures out what to do with the Assad family. But Syria is going to be our problem for a long time to come.

And I’m waiting for someone to talk me out of the idea that it didn’t have to be this way.

Chemical Bashar

There it is: NBC reported today that Syria is loading chemical agents into bombs, presumably for use in a last stand if the regime of Bashar al-Assad is up against the ropes. Well, the ropes are in sight.

What exactly are we talking about here? One analyst reported on CNN tonight that one shell or one bomb dropped in a populated area could kill 18,000 people easily.

President Assad has pledged not to use this stuff on his own people. But if he thinks foreign-inspired terrorist invaders are involved – and his own survival is threatened – it’s believed he won’t hesitate. Some say even if he escapes from Syria, there’s little to stop his commanders from pulling triggers.

Of the “red line” drawn by President Obama against the use of these weapons, Senator John McCain said the administration was giving a “green light” to all atrocities short of their use. That green light wasn’t turned on this week. It’s been on for well over a year – and that’s why we have this situation now.

Some critics say the U.S. has been hyping this threat to provide a pretext for going in, just as was done with the WMD stories about Iraq 10 years ago that proved to be false. But there’s a big difference. President Bush was looking for any excuse he could find to invade Iraq. President Obama has been looking for any excuse he can find NOT to go into Syria. Except now, it seems he’s about run out of them.

Then there is the concern that if used, clouds of gas might waft into neighboring non-combatant countries, or that supplies of this stuff might fall into the hands of real terrorist organizations.

To be as potent as they are, these weapons had to be experimentally tested. I don’t think I want to know on what – or on whom.

It’s clear that we all have to keep our eyes fixed on this region, because the next few days could be dicey. I would say it’s not an exaggeration to suggest that those of us who are good at praying better get started.

A Missed Opportunity in Syria

In opening the “stats” for this blog today and looking at the “all-time” list covering four years, I was surprised to find that No. 3 of the most-read posts – and the only one listed for 2012 – concerned Syria, It was “Send a Message to Assad,” posted in March, and to spare you reading it, the blog suggested that if the West took out just one Syrian tank or one piece of heavy artillery, perhaps with a drone strike, the Syrian president would get the message that the free world disapproved of what he was doing -- that we didn’t want to go to war with him, only that he should stop using a mechanized army to slaughter civilians.


But the talking heads were already on the air, listing all the reasons why the U.S., or any group outside of the U.N. framework, shouldn’t get involved militarily in Syria. We provided the Syrian rebels with communications equipment, etc., but were reluctant to supply them with heavy weapons, because they might fall into the wrong hands, meaning Al Qaida.

Well, that was 20,000 lives ago, and this week we hear that the Syrian forces are now using old Russian cluster bombs against the population. Cluster bombs are typically dropped from the air and open up to release “bomblets” that spread out and are effective at killing large numbers of people on the ground. They are banned by international agreement, which the U.S. has not signed. (One of the reasons given, I read today, is that modern cluster bomblets are smarter and can be individually programmed to hit the right targets. Great...!) I wonder what the regime will use next, when it's really cornered.

The general in charge of the Free Syrian Army was on “60 Minutes” Sunday and said that when the Assad regime is removed, the Syrians who come to power will never forgive the West for standing by while people were being slaughtered. As for Al Qaida, well, he said, they’d accept help from anyone willing to give it to them. So whose hands do we think Syria is going to fall into, exactly, thanks to our having done virtually nothing?

Former Secretary of State Zbigniew Brzezinski said on NPR that we’d be nuts to get involved militarily in this situation, that the region was like a huge pool of gasoline, into which we’d be tossing a match. Well, the pool is still there, and unless something changes, there’s going to be a bigger fire, whether or not it’s our match that sets it off.

It's way too late for us to get involved now. But history, I guess, is going to have to tell us whether we were wise to stay out of Syria, or whether we blew a significant opportunity. As for President Assad, it’s ironic that someone trained as an ophthalmologist could be so blind.

Back in the USSR

Today, one of my Facebook friends, who has not pulled the plug on me – yet – reminded me that I should count my blessings and not the number of FB friends. Another, hearing the news about the sentencing of three members of the Russian female band Pussy Riot for “hooliganism,” reminded me that with all the fussing that’s going on in this country righr now, at least it isn’t Russia. There’s one for the blessings list!

This band staged an anti-Putin protest in a Russian Orthodox cathedral. Inappropriate, perhaps – but getting locked up for two years? By those standards, we’d have to build a huge new prison here for the folks at Fox News and another for those at MSNBC. Poor CNN, their problem is these days that they can’t get arrested – but that’s another story.

This Pussy Riot thing will be one to watch. The Putin regime has a repressive track record, most recently supporting the regime in Syria and blocking action there by the rest of the world -- but this time, in a social media age, entertainment celebs – young women – are being messed with, band members who have the support of Paul McCartney and Madonna. Keep an eye on this one, folks – this story will definitely have legs. Those who have lived for decades under repression of various types tend to be a little passive, but will this incident wake up the Russian people?

The only saving grace here is that Mr. Putin tends to care what people think of him. He has expressed support recently for leniency toward these young women. What do you want to bet that he steps in and commutes their sentence (I assume he can do that), so the rest of the world will think he’s a nice guy after all?

Cleaning Up the Syrian Mess: Whose Job Is It?

This week, the U.N. officially declared the situation in Syria a civil war. Which I guess means the Syrian opposition is doing a better job of fighting back against the government that has been murdering civilians with a mechanized army and using militias to slaughter children.

Except maybe it constitutes another excuse for the free world to stand back and let the slaughter continue. Some countries have contented themselves with supplying weapons to the Free Syrian Army and other opposition factions. The United States has limited its support to night-vision and communications equipment.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on Russia to stop supplying the Syrian government with attack helicopters. What color is the pot calling the kettle? Like the United States has never supplied weapons to its allies in the past, right?

In this space a few months and about 4,000 fatalities ago, I suggested the U.S. could send a message to the Assad regime by knocking out one tank or one piece of heavy artillery used by the Syrian army to shell civilian populations – something that says, “We don’t want a war with you, but it’s time to knock it off.” Of course, for every such suggestion, there are 20 analysts who explain why it’s not a good idea.

One expert I heard the other day said that the Obama administration has resisted getting involved militarily because the President doesn’t want to risk a possible foreign policy stumble, which would blemish what many consider his stellar record in this area before November.

There are many who want the Assad regime to remain, only out of fear about what may replace it. But now we have an official civil war. Unlike the one we had here in the 1860s, this will have multiple sides before it's over. Almost everyone agrees there is no scenario under which the Assad family can remain in power – perhaps even remain alive, unless they get out of Dodge. Those standing on the sidelines have resisted involvement for fear of making a mess, but the mess is being made anyway. How has non-involvement helped?

The bottom line is that the rest of the world is going to have to be involved at some level. Unlike Iraq, Syria is said to have real biological and chemical weapon stockpiles. Who’s going to be in charge of those when the current structure collapses?

The U.S. and other Western powers may not have made the Syrian mess, but at some point it will be time to clean it up, and we’re all going to have to get our hands dirty.