I Smell A Fish

In regards to my nation's pending "little war" by way of involving ourselves in the Syrian Civil War of the 2010's I speak as someone too old to be at risk of being conscripted if things go poorly and likewise as a man sans any progeny I have nothing to loose in that regards either. Therefore my vehement opposition to it is not in any way motivated by any self-interest.

I oppose our involvement in that war because we don't have a dog in that fight and there are no good guys there. I oppose our involvement in that war because as I see it why not let the Shiites and Sunnis as best represented by Iran and Saudi Arabia, respectively, play their little proxy war there using monies derived from selling oil to the rest of the world? Why pay we essentially pay the Syrians twice? They're already getting monies from us derived from the sale of oil. I oppose our involvement in that war because we are still recovering from (and paying for) the Iraq War and Iraq Reconstruction as well as our invasion of Afghanistan and continued occupation thereof. Why add another expensive little war to our debt? Syria is not worth ONE single American life! I oppose our involvement in that war because we would be entering on the side also supported by Al Qaeda with whom we have been at war for the past twenty years and thus we would aid that greater enemy in order to oppose a lesser enemy/non-enemy. I oppose our involvement in that war because it would needlessly upset the Russians (for whom Syria is a client state) and although we need to be firm with them we also need to wisely pick our battles with them.

It seems to me President Obama is dragging his nation kicking and screaming into a war it wants no part of and I think I know why he's doing it.  The President is thinking about his legacy now that he is in his second term and on some level realizes that a clear-cut military victory somewhere in the world would strengthen his list of presidential achievements following all his failures of leadership over the course of a mediocre Presidency. The President is just as beholden to the military-industrial complex as his Bush and Clinton predecessors were and his masters need more war now that our involvement in Iraq is essentially over and we are on track to leave Afghanistan in similar manner in the not-too-distant future. The President and his advisers at least mildly and perhaps a bit subconsciously are stuck in a Cold War mentality which views a Russian client state as being a de facto enemy and thus anybody opposed to them must necessarily have common cause with us therefore we must assist them. The President is a dyed-in-the-wool "knee-jerk" Liberal and as such is a sentimentalist who possesses a big, clumsy bleeding heart with a weakness for underdogs "freedom fighters" such as is endemic in Liberal circles. This manifests itself as a irresistible urge to dabble in "humanitarian" interventions even in oil-rich nations like Syria which would be unpardonable to Liberals were a Republican President doing the very same thing. Lastly, the President has talked himself into a corner on this matter in trying to look tough over the course of the past year or two when talking down to the Syrian government about how to conduct their suppression of the revolt. Now he fears looking weak if he does not attack the Syrians in response to their latest alleged transgression, to wit, the use of WMD's on civilians in recent days. Some aspects of this alleged attack elicit skepticism as the whole thing makes no sense, sounds and looks suspiciously contrived and thus smells rotten. Sir Winston Churchill once famously said: "The first casualty in war is truth".

Below is the famous/infamous "The Fish Cheer/I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag" by Country Joe MacDonald & The Fish and to my amazement this hawk (me) actually agrees with the general sentiment of the song as applied in general concept to involving ourselves in the ongoing Syrian Civil War .