Syria: "It's Simply Not Our Problem"

Outspoken Congressman (D.-Fla.) Alan Grayson came out strongly against a Syrian strike on the PBS NewsHour today:




From the Washington Post, here's the latest count, as of 6 p.m. today, of Senators and Representatives - click to enlarge:

It's very curious, isn't it fellas, that many more Republicans than Democrats are opposed to this military strike, even though perennial-hawk Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham ("who never saw a country they weren't tempted to bomb"), as well as House Speaker John Boehner and others in the Republican leadership, are all in favor of it. Can it really be that the party of "Shock and Awe" is opposed to this act of war just because Obama thought of it first?

Your Head Trucker is still unsure, by the way, of the best course of action; but he is certain there is no good one.

And before all you boys rush over to sign the petition at dontattacksyria.com, please be sure to read this short piece by Steve Coll in this week's New Yorker, "Crossing the Line" - excerpt:

Saddam first used gas bombs [in 1987] to thwart Iran’s zealous swarms of “human wave” infantry. Chemical terror broke the will of young Iranian volunteers, a lesson that informed Majid’s subsequent Kurdish campaign. The Reagan Administration’s decision to tolerate Saddam’s depravities proved to be a colossal moral failure and strategic mistake; it encouraged Saddam’s aggression and internal repression, and it allowed Iraq to demonstrate to future dictators the tactical value of chemical warfare.

The consequences of similar passivity in Syria now are unknowable. After more than two years and a hundred thousand deaths, the war has descended into a miasma of kidnappings, executions, and indiscriminate attacks. It would not be surprising if Assad or his henchmen seized upon selective gassings as a way to break the opposition’s will, or to flush rebels from strategic neighborhoods. Obama has said that his aim in Syria is to prevent more gassings, not to overthrow Assad. Since the costs of even a limited Western military intervention in Syria might be very high, in diplomatic standing and in lives, it is reasonable to ask whether the cause of punishing and deterring the use of chemical weapons is worth the risks. . . .

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reports that the number of Syrians who have fled their war-torn country has now topped 2 million. That's a tenth of the Syrian population, says the Pew Research Center, and half of them are children.



For more videos and interviews with refugees, see The Guardian's coverage here.