This is a video of Secretary of State John Kerry addressing the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on September 3rd.
He was hoping to convince Congress to agree with President Obama's request to conduct strikes against Syria. I am a Marine, so I do not let myself get emotionally involved in the political leadership's decision-making process. Even if I did, I certainly wouldn't comment on it here. But I did hear a few people saying some things that were disturbing. The most glaring example came from Mr. Kerry as he scolded Senator Rand Paul:
The phrase he used that raised my eyebrows was, "The president is not asking you to go to war. He's not asking you to declare war. He's not asking you to send one American troop to war." I heard that and I nearly dropped my glass. How can this highly educated and experienced man, a former senator, a presidential candidate, himself a veteran of Vietnam, think for one second that what he said is true? Of course that is what the president is asking! He is proposing launching cruise missiles and air strikes against another sovereign nation because that nation's government has done something the government of the United States finds intolerable. That sounds like a war to me. Maybe not a big one, but a freaking war nonetheless.
I'm not saying if it's right or wrong; as a Marine, it's not my place to do so. I do believe there is such a thing as a Just War. I guess I better believe that, given my vocation.
War is just an extension of politics, after all. Thank you, Uncle Carl.
We have to look at this objectively, though. How would the United States view a similar attack, if we were on the receiving end of it? You don't have to merely imagine it. It has already happened in history. On December 7, 1941, the Japanese conducted a precision naval air strike at Pearl Harbor to degrade the United States naval forces in the Pacific. We seemed to take that pretty seriously then. From what I've read and seen on the History Channel, America got more than a little upset and wound up inventing a whole new type of super-bomb to get revenge on Japan with.
Would the Syrians be less angry?
How about just 12 years ago, when guided missiles in the form of hijacked airliners struck at financial and command and control targets on September 11, 2001? Did that seem like an act of war? Damn right it did. We were justifiably pissed, and the perpetrators got way more back than they bargained for. They wanted the United States out of traditional Muslim lands, and instead wound up with thousands of Americans running about the entire Middle East, blowing things up and playing country music. I was one of them, and I was glad to be there, if for no other reason than that my very presence was a thumb in the eye of those who dreamed up the 9/11 attacks.
I'm the really good-looking one.
What am I saying? I'm saying that war is war. Calling it something else doesn't change its nature. It's terrible and it's unpredictable. It is messy. Innocent people will be hurt and killed. Things will happen we didn't intend. Chaos is the only thing we can count on. War is sometimes necessary, but we should never be so naive as to think we can completely control it. We should at least be honest enough with ourselves to call it what it is. It is our pride that gets us into trouble, our hubris. It is the most intelligent and accomplished among us who are the most susceptible. We start to feel so superior that we believe that we can strike other nations with impunity. We can't. People are very, very inventive when it comes to hurting each other. We should all know better by now.
