The trumpets for war are once again becoming deafening, the cries of why isn't the President doing something; louder. Why isn't the President bombing ISIS in Syria?
Well for a start Syria is a sovereign nation, civil war notwithstanding.
I believe the same people who are calling for a war on ISIS were the same ones calling to arm the Syrian revolutionaries against Assad. As we all know when we arm revolutionaries we only arm the good revolutionaries. There is a joke in there somewhere, but it is a sick one.
Now apparently we live in a democracy and with the current political situation everything that President Obama does is overreach of executive power if the Republicans don't like it.
So where is congress on this?
On vacation.
This is not new. Congress has been on vacation for years with Republicans more interested in doing nothing or just blatantly obstructing.
Another thing forgotten is this is why there is even an ISIS?
Like most vicious blindly ideological groups their rise is dependent upon some basic conditions. Chaos and a political vacuum usually found following wars, civil or otherwise.
Now bearing this in mind, what is the strategy apart from more killing?
How do you come up with a sensible strategy when our own government cannot get its act together? You let the president deal with it, then criticize everything he does whilst on vacation. I suppose if you don't like what he does you can always complain as if you had no actual role in a democracy.
We complained and acted about communists in Vietnam, we fought a long and bloody war against them. Now during the chaos and slaughter there, the Khmer Rouge arose in Cambodia when the violence spilled over.
We were not happy with the Russians controlling Afghanistan, so we helped finance and arm the revolutionaries there, this resulted in the Taliban and the sheltering of Al Qaeda. We all know what followed, and we are still at war in Afghanistan.
There are many similar events from the cold war era in Africa, Central and South America. Some are still continuing. War on drugs anyone?
So when many run around with their hair on fire screaming we must do something, perhaps it is time to do something different? I suppose we could always do what we have been doing recently, invade and kill. Then support the perceived strongman/group, then expect a different outcome until something worse than ISIS arises. This is the same problem Israel has faced, first against the PLO, then Hezbollah, now Hamas, what next.
Some say when St Ronnie had a wall taken down that the cold war was over. Tell that to those in Ukraine, Georgia, Chechnya and those in Eastern Europe. We have never believed in supporting democracy, we have supported what was convenient to us at the time.
We know the root causes, perhaps we need to treat them first?
Just a thought. Before we decide to wage yet another war.