I found the president's most recent executive order
regarding Syria very interesting in how it is worded:
While the Syrian regime has reduced the number of foreign fighters bound for Iraq, the regime's brutal war on the Syrian people, who have been calling for freedom and a representative government, endangers not only the Syrian people themselves, but could yield greater instability throughout the region. The Syrian regime's actions and policies, including pursuing chemical and biological weapons, supporting terrorist organizations, and obstructing the Lebanese government's ability to function effectively, continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States. As a result, the national emergency declared on May 11, 2004, and the measures to deal with that emergency adopted on that date in Executive Order 13338; on April 25, 2006, in Executive Order 13399; on February 13, 2008, in Executive Order 13460; on April 29, 2011, in Executive Order 13572; on May 18, 2011, in Executive Order 13573; on August 17, 2011, in Executive Order 13582; on April 22, 2012, in Executive Order 13606; and on May 1, 2012, in Executive Order 13608; must continue in effect beyond May 11, 2013. Therefore, in accordance with section 202(d) of the National Emergencies Act, 50 U.S.C. 1622(d), I am continuing for 1 year the national emergency declared with respect to the actions of the Government of Syria.
Now keep in mind, this order was a necessity in order to block certain accounts in the United States of the Syrian regime and to prevent exports. But allow me a few observations:
You'll notice that we are actually in a state of national emergency. Yes, put down that bagel and pick your jaw up off the floor. No, not with the hand holding the remote, the other hand. Your life, the lives of your family, your community, your town, and this entire nation are on the precipice of complete annihilation. Ok...actually it really isn't that serious. But something else is.
The idea that the national security apparatus must be in a constant state of emergency has become routine in the United States. Even for rather routine things like what we used to call "trade embargo." So routine, that even though this particular national emergency was put in place before the Syrian Civil War, it is being used nevertheless to deal with said war. You'll also notice the national emergency is being determined as a necessity because the Syrian Civil War is "an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States." Unusual. Extraordinary. One has to wonder what the government would call an actual land-based invasion of say, Delaware for instance.
The paranoid state of constant emergency has become the norm in the America's new national security state. Always hyper-ready...always in a state of emergency...no matter where and what happens no matter how many thousands of miles from our shores. If Syria meddles in Lebanese politics, that is a national security emergency for the United States. A threat to all we hold dear, including civilization itself. If Iran farts in our general direction, that too could be considered a threat to the American Way of Life.
The tamping down of the Bush era "vigilance" of constant paranoia has toned down some. (Remember Bush's orange terror alerts?) The Bush Administration and previous administrations since the Cold War have enshrined into the national security apparatus a sense of constant threat, connecting dominoes that never fall and finding potential dangers that are as insignificant to our security as they appear. Sometimes the dangers aren't even real, as in the case of Iraq. Nevertheless, it is very difficult to gin up the warmaking machine with ho-hum.
Syria is having a civil war. It has nothing to do with us and we are not a target of either of the warring factions. The threat to our security is zero. Whatever we can do with Syria must be kept to the realm of diplomacy until there is an actual direct threat to America. That is how normal relations are supposed to work among nation-states. But such things wont ever be a part of America's foreign policy so long as the national security apparatus is at the center of it.