This issue has become so silly that I had to comment. Sorry if its boring!
Obama's Syria Chronology:
• 2 years ago: "The time has come for Assad to step aside". No action taken.
• 1 year ago: "Any Syrian use of chemical weapons would cross a Red Line, leading to enormous consequences". No action taken.
• 8 months or so ago: Congress authorizes the president to arm the Syrian rebels. To date, no arms have been supplied to the rebels.
• Early in 2013, Assad was believed to have crossed Obama's Red Line. No Obama speaches about it, and no action taken.
• Late August 2013: Assad uses bio-terror gasses, with an estimated 1,400 Syrians killed. Obama says that his proof is absolute. No action taken - yet.
• Last week: The president has the authority to bomb Syria with or without congressional approval.
• Yesterday (9/4/2013): I didn't set that Red Line. The world set that line. I am seeking congressional approval to bomb Syria. However, if Congress does not approve, it is still my decision whether to bomb them or not (my paraphrase).
• Russia misses all the deadlines on the disarming and disposing of the Syria chemical weapons stockpile (Putin's plan all along), and the federal government shut-down puts the Syria issue on the back-burner forever! Smooth moves, Prez.!
If I was in Congress, my vote on permission to engage Syria directly on the Syrian chemical weapons would be: Present. I would tell Obama that I learned that technique from him, when in his single full term in the Senate, he voted present on all contentious issues so as not to have a voting record that could be used against him in his run for the Presidency.
Obama has told Congress that their vote does not matter. He has, in one swift sentence, disrespected both houses of Congress. Why should they vote, when regardless of how they vote (yay or nay), he will do what he wants? If it is an opinion poll of Congress that he seeks, and if I were a Congressman, I would tell the president where I stand on the issue, thus giving him his opinion poll. But I would not give him the satisfaction of a vote that he has told me to my face would not count for anything.
Alternate ending number 1: If Obama's looking for a strong statement to make in the middle east, he should bomb Iran's nuclear bomb building facility before they produce a viable nuke.
Alternate ending number 2: Let the Arab League and their neighbors take action. Syria is next door to them, and they have much to lose from getting sucked into the Syrian civil war. These countries (many of them oil-rich ) have the cash, and we have sold them the weaponry. Let Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Libya, Turkey, Yemen, etc. patrol their own backyard, and clean up their own house. If the world wants to blame anyone for doing nothing, they should blame the rest of the middle east sitting on their hands and doing nothing.
Alternate ending number 3: Whether we act or passively sit by, all middle eastern countries will hate us. If we save muslim lives, they hate us. If we do nothing, they hate us. Why? Because we are foreigners that have invaded their lands. Until somebody proves to me otherwise, the Syrian civil war appears to be pitting one group of our enemies against another. Let them kill each other. Our own American civil war killed a very large percentage of our population, allowing us to duke it out, decide a winner, and make our country a much better one. Maybe Syria should go through the same process? If a peaceful, democratic country emerges, then its a win for us. If Syria comes out with another despotic dictator at the helm, then we're no worse off than before.
• Putin and Russia, the closest allies and supporters of Syria gets involved. Putin writes an Op-Ed in the New York Times "A Please For Caution from Russia" on 9/11/2013 (of all dates). Putin now controls the situation and the dialog - oh yeah!
• Putin and Russia have taken on the responsibility of working with Syria and Assad to remove all of their bio weapons and dispose of them. Yeah, that's gonna happen - NOT! This however, gets Obama off the hook, as he feigns complete trust in those Russian fellers to do what they say they will. Now, it is out of Obama's hands for good, and he can go back to the task at hand of hammering the Republicans and non-negotiating with them.
• Putin pull a North Korea and say all the right things, pretend to be doing something, while actually never doing anything to take a single ounce of actual chemical weapons out of the hands of Syria. Putin will either pretend to try but fail (its too difficult, with the civil war going on and all), or say that Syria does not have any chemical weapons after all (perhaps they've fallen into the hands of those awful rebels), or (my favorite option) haul away something that looks alot like chemical weapons (but actually isn't) and destroy them in Russia once and for all (until Assad somehow uses chemical weapons again - maybe Russia missed a few? they'll say). How naive we are.
