The Era of the Neo-Peaceniks

So sorry. Out of the loop for a week or two. Much going on. Without further adieu...

I have observed the discussions over the last few weeks regarding a possible punitive attack against Syria. At first, I really thought Obama was going to act unilaterally, act upon his outrage against the Syrian regime for their deployment of chemical agents and then....the British Parliament voted to remove itself from a "coalition of the willing" and objected to PM Cameron's attempt to involve the UK in a military action against Syria.

Now, the media is filled with accounts of a "neo-isolation" wing of the Republican Party that is opposing Obama's attempt to bring the matter before Congress, so he can't find adequate cover for his "red line" comments of a year ago. Apart from Rand Paul, I really don't believe there is any "neo-isolationist" wing; there is such overall disgust with Obama's lack of respect for constitutional protocol and authority that it is laughable to believe that all of a sudden he has decided that the "people" need to weigh in on this matter.

It is equally ironic to hear the classic anti-war voices of John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, Rep (oops, I mean Sen) Ed Markey and Chuck Hagel trumpeting the need to take Assad to task. Of course, Lindsay Graham and John McCain are only too willing to lend their voices to support the hawkish views of these "neo-peaceniks" who are lining up to insure that their godhead is not embarassed by failing to enforce his red line.

Assad has consistently allied himself with bad actors. He has permitted his country to be used by Iran through which arms have been shipped to Hizballah; he has encouraged mujahadeen to use his country as a transport base to travel to Iraq to fight and kill American soldiers; he has sheltered members of the Saddam Hussein family after fleeing Iraq; he has encouraged Hizballah and Iranian Basijj fighters to come to Syria to battle opposition fighters; and, last but not least, he was in the process of constructing a nuclear reactor with the assistance of North Korean and Iranian technicians before the facility was destroyed by Israel. Let's be brutally honest: these actions are far more belligerent and deserving of some American military reaction than the deployment of chemical weapons. That is not to diminish the horror of actually employing gas against civilians, it's just in the grander scheme of things, Syria has been committing acts of war against the US for a number of years and threatening our national security.

As just a singular voice and voter, I would be ready to support whatever Obama was prepared to do if he just addressed the issue candidly. He is simply incapable or unwilling to do that, and has proven - to me at least - over his five years in office that for a "professor of constitutional law" he doesn't hold that document in high regard.