JOHN BERNARD:Does the; “The World will be Better Without Him…” Argument Still Work as We Approach the Hour of Inevitable Intervention in Syria?
http://letthemfight.blogspot.com/
Incredible! Even as United States Marines, Sailors, Soldiers, Airmen and Coastguardsmen continue to be sacrificed in Afghanistan for a failed understanding of that culture, we are speeding toward the likelihood of doing the same in Syria.
Yes; the Administration has repeated the mantra; ‘no boots on the ground’ until I can hardly sleep without hearing it, but, that was also what was supposed to give us peace of mind as we intervened in Libya.
Remember Libya?
We were chided by the “save the world folks” that the Rebels in Libya simply wanted “peace” and “freedom” even though we knew they were littered with Al Qaida operatives.
Libya.
It is approaching one year ago that the CIA black house in Benghazi was hit – by Libyan rebel elements whom, we were told, would be grateful for our intervention or at least, that was the premise.
Four dead Americans later and not one single question answered, and this nation herds its way toward yet one more intervention in yet one more fundamentalist Islamic culture sans any evidence that we have learned a thing about the driving force in all of these cultures; the religion!
And make no mistake about it; the religion is key!
If you are a person who thinks religion doesn’t matter, then you are a person not given to a religion or who has lost understanding of your own. Our God(s) instruct us, direct us, compel us. We are given to their admonishments and exhortations, led by their Pastors, Teachers, Rabbis, Clerics, Imams, Leaders and we willingly conform to the image of the one God we claim to serve.
If the God of that religion teaches compassion, we will strive to be compassionate. If that God displays anger and violence or even instructs his followers to propagate by the sword, we are very likely to comply.
Choosing to ignore a person’s religion or his adherence to it is both insulting to him and foolish. A man given to his God is someone whose character and walk is disciplined by his teaching and compelled to act on his commands. It is both an act of faith and a sense of responsibility. It is internal, external, eternal and all encompassing. Even when that person seems not to exude the nature of his God or to be living the perceived teachings of his religion, he is never-the-less, personally hounded by the knowledge that he has fallen short and is content to change even the midst of “moral” failure.
So how is it that the ‘best and brightest’ in our government can’t seem to comprehend this? Why would military strategists intentionally ignore so vital a piece of information about the enemy they are about to face? When in history have men ever purposefully suppressed information about a man’s religious proclivities? And most important; why would the citizens of, arguably, the strongest nation in the world not demand that its elected leadership do a better job of assessing its enemies before embarking on an adventure that will surely lead to the shedding of the blood of its Sons and Daughters?
The answer is simple; the people have become lax and far too many no longer hold to any principles steeped in the teachings of the God of their Fathers. We are a people without a compass and sadly, without an historical perspective of our current enemies. Many in this nation carry with them a sense of compassion but compassion by itself can be a deadly and foolishly applied emotion if not followed up by “personal” action. If a person feels so compassionately about something, they should feel compelled to act accordingly – and personally! If you truly believe intervention on the part of the “innocents” in Syria is of paramount importance, then prove it; mount an aircraft bound for the Turkish/Syrian border and help, don’t demand that this government send in War Fighters whose religion is denied them and who have been denied the right of self-defense. If you feel morally bound to help those “innocents”; then go if you are so convinced.
My point; there has been a growing concern about Syria and the “innocents” there without a corresponding understanding of the government, the makeup and belief of the rebel forces or even the “innocent civilians” our actions are purported to help.
Do we actually “know” who the bad guy is in this fight? How is it we can be so certain that the “good guys”, are good; measured by their perception of us and their future plans, based on their religious convictions about interpersonal, interfaith and international relations? Even as the “innocents” who have been rushing toward the Turkish border were pleading for our help, they were also defiantly clear, ‘don’t send in your troops’. There were also embedded threats that inaction would likely turn the “good guys” into bad guys.
So how good is good, if it can so easily be turned into bad? Isn’t this beginning to sound, just a little, like Libya 2.0?
The only supportive evidence that Chemicals were used has been in the form of Administration commentary ending with “trust me”. Keep in mind that the UN, at least initially, was responding to accusations that the Rebels had used these weapons. One day later, without any definitive evidence and having not reached the site of the attack, the UN had predictably changed its tune and lodged accusations of their own against the Regime. As of this writing, there still isn’t any hard evidence of a chemical, or which chemical or the delivery method or even the culprit.
And yet, there remains a strong and steady voice to intervene, militarily; a voice that says; “send them – not me”. And even if the Administration’s tarot cards are correct, the truth is we cannot know what the unintended consequences will be once we unleash one or many Cruise Missiles into another sovereign and fundamentalist Islamic land; keeping in mind that the internal strife in Syria is not a clear and present danger to the US….And knowing we possess not the will to fight definitively!
For as we now know by gleaning our recent history, in Libya, our War Fighters can wind up paying a price for our willful blindness of the more egregious doctrines of a religion we have so vehemently scrubbed from our assessments of this enemy.
So, should we feel compassion when women and children and the aged suffer during combat? The answer is, yes. But that is not the question to be asked in this instance. Rather the question is whether our compassion should lead to unstudied, unshackled, historically voided aggressive action against someone – anyone, in our knee-jerk attempt to stop ravages against an element of society we have deemed, innocent. For as we have seen in Afghanistan, parsing the good from the bad, the innocent from the guilty, those deserving of our compassion from those deserving of our wrath, is no easy task and far too often we get it wrong.
Until the time comes that we are ready to again come to terms with what we have always declared to be our religious heritage and until we decide to make proper and complete assessments of our enemies, we will continue to make decisions based neither in morality or historical fact and we will continue to flounder as a legitimate military force in the world.
And our War Fighters will continue to pay the price for our arrogance, our ignorance and the selfish demands of people who do not possess the courage or tenacity to send themselves.
Semper Fidelis;
John Bernard
Monday, June 24, 2013
Why are the President and Members of Congress Giving Aid and Comfort to Known Enemies of the United States?
This is a good question and one that no one in the media seems willing to ask. Even Fox news seems ambivalent, rather skirting the issue in favor of more…”compassionate” questions.
We have known for a long time that Al Qaida has been an integral influence within the Syrian Rebel forces in much the same way they were, in Libya. If you will recall, the very same DC voices played down the likely effect of Al Qaida’s particular virulent influence on the people of Libya and look how well that worked out.
Allegations of atrocities against non-combatants in Syria have been leveled against rebel forces and the sitting government alike and none any more horrifying than those committed against the Christian community in Homs and yet John McCain, Lindsey Graham, this President and a legion of followers remained silent about that. Only when it seemed plausible that Assad’s regime might be complicit in bloody acts against the mainstream Muslim community there, have any of these fine upstanding “servants” bothered to show concern.
When they drew the “red line” at the use of chemical weapons, it seems they began to work overtime to insure some evidence could be found. Even before trusted agents of the UN determined that some small amount of chemical (possibly Sarin), was used against the “innocents” in Syria, the administration was busy elevating the rhetoric and the effort to “educate” the American population about the horrors of the Assad regime and heartbreaking “fight for freedom” of the brave rebel forces.
What is really irksome, is that we have been hearing this same mantra for years now and in every single case, the Administration has been proven wrong in all of their estimates of who have been populating these rebellions and what their core desires were.
In Egypt, we were virtually guaranteed that the people simply wanted to rid themselves of a barbaric Mubarak regime which had oppressed its people for decades; that they simply wanted Democracy. We were also all but guaranteed that the Muslim Brotherhood was not a political entity and did not have political aspirations. When the MB fielded its candidate, we were then told the people would never get behind a fundamentalist candidate, much less an MB agent and that the society in Egypt was really much more secular.
All these months later and what has grown out of that particular misjudgment or Administration deception, is a Morsi Presidency, with the real face of the MB exposed and clearly a population which leans far more to the fundamentals of its insidious state religion, than we were told. The Copt community has suffered at least as much since, as before with almost no discernible concern from either the Administration or the likes of McCain, Graham and their like-minded counterparts in Congress.
We were also guaranteed that Al Qaida’s influence on the rebel factions in Libya was minimal and that those fine folks simply wanted Democracy. To date; that new “government” has proven to be impotent. Let’s recall that US Embassy security was supplied by the little known, Blue Mountain Group, a British firm who, essentially, subcontracted to a Libyan Security firm, manned largely by former Libyan Rebels who were, infiltrated by Al Qaida and who were carrying weapons without ammunition per US mandate!
Are you feeling better or worse about our prospects in Syria?
From Tunisia, to Algeria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Egypt, the one common denominator has been this Administration’s astounding ability to get it wrong, every single time. Why is anyone under the impression that they have it right this time?
Why is there anyone left, given the endless bloodletting by all sides in every one of these internal disasters, with any hope that the Obama administration or McCain, Graham, Congress or any element in any one of these poor excuses for elections can possibly get it right?
Why isn’t Congress asking the right questions about Benghazi? Why are they so easily distracted, almost hopefully so, from the single investigation that could bring it all crashing down?
The reason is because if they clarify the why, it will ultimately lead to questions about this Administration’s understanding of the enemy and his religion. This will then logically lead to questions about the true motivations for defending the indefensible, and so willingly casting the lives of America’s Forces so callously into harm’s way.
Benghazi is the lynch pin in this Administration’s perverted wagon train of deception and following ill-conceived battle strategy; take out Benghazi and every single related foreign policy venture becomes questionable.
Could it actually be that Smedley D. Butler was correct in his summation of the motivation for war? Could it really be that simplistic – and evil that it is far more profitable to stay at war, than to end it, with ferocity and determination?
Could it be that this President is so emotionally compromised, having been abandoned by both Fathers that he has been left to seek solace in the only vestige of paternal memory he has left; Islam? Could this be why he is so determined to convince us that our eyes and ears cannot be trusted; that the atrocities and endless ravages against Western society by Islamic forces are mere aberrations in the midst of an otherwise stable, loving, peaceful ideology?
Could it be the convergence of the very worst of two polluted motivations; the mentally ill and the morally corrupt?
What is certain is while there is very little evidence that Congress is going to get this right. I firmly believe they are as morally compromised as this President is mentally and emotionally challenged by his experiences growing up in a broken home.
There is zero justification for having abandoned Americans under siege in the wasteland known as Libya. There is not one single bright spot in this debacle that isn’t centered on the selfless and heroic acts of two Navy SEALs. Literally everyone else in this story is tainted in one fashion or another and because those who have so willingly compromised their names, their souls, and American security, they have left the door open for yet one more grave mistake, in Syria.
We know the Rebels in Syria are littered with Al Qaida agents. We have known this for months. We know Al Qaida and their affiliates, hate the United States and our Western Allies. Abandoning them to their fate – wherever that might be seems the most logical choice; supporting them with arms is both counterintuitive and even treasonous.
For those who have not grappled with this next question, let me help you; the United States of America is a unique culture. We are not the world’s fighting force we are not obligated to secure life and liberty for the blood-lusting cultures of the world. Whether Syria’s present government stands or falls, is of little security concern for the United States right now. What is certain is that Al Qaida and it’s agents are a clear and present danger to the United States and our holdings.
Supporting them has not proven to be a sound decision; supporting them in Syria makes even less sense.
Semper Fidelis;
John Bernard
Comments are closed.
