NOTICE: The following
article is written by the author itself and not by me, I am not trying to
violate their copyright. I will give some information on them. One of my
favourite quotes, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” was used on this date,
January 26, 1900 by Teddy Roosevelt in a letter to Henry L. Sprague. That was
why I chose this as the soldier article of the day.
PAGE TITLE: http://townhall.com/
ARTICLE TITLE: 5 Reasons Not To
Bomb Syria
DATE: Tuesday, September
3, 2013
AUTHOR: John Hawkins
AUTHOR
INFORMATION: John
Hawkins runs Right Wing
News and Linkiest.
He's also the co-owner of the The Looking Spoon. Additionally, he does weekly
appearances on the #1 in it's market Jaz
McKay show, writes two weekly columns for Townhall
and a column for PJ Media. Additionally, his work has also been
published at the Washington Examiner, The Hill, TPNN, Hot
Air, The Huffington Post and at Human Events.
Furthermore, he's also the premier
interviewer on the Right and has interviewed conservatives like Andrew Breitbart,
Thomas Sowell, Mark Levin, Victor Davis Hanson, Robert Novak, Mark Steyn, Ron
Paul, Herman Cain, Jonah Goldberg, Ann Coulter, Newt Gingrich, Michelle Malkin,
Jim DeMint, Walter Williams, Donald Rumsfeld, Karl Rove and Milton Friedman
among others.
Moreover, John Hawkins' work has been linked
and discussed in numerous publications and on TV and radio shows including ABC
News, BusinessWeek, C-Span, The Chicago Tribune, CNN,
Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Editor & Publisher, Fox
News, Hannity and Colmes, The Laura Ingraham Show, Minneapolis
Star Tribune, MSNBC, National Journal, National Post, Newsmax,
Newsweek, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Rush Limbaugh Show,
The Tammy Bruce Show, Time Magazine, The Wall Street Journal,
The Hugh Hewitt Show, The Washington Post, Salt Lake Tribune,
Scarborough Country, U.S. News & World Report, WorldNetDaily
and Human Events, where he had a weekly column. Right Wing News
has been studied by college classes and even inspired an urban legend that was
covered at Snopes.
Last but not least, John Hawkins also founded
and led the Rightroots group, a grassroots effort that collected almost
$300,000 for Republican candidates in the last 3 months of the 2006 election
cycle. In 2008, he consulted for Duncan Hunter's presidential campaign and was
on the board of Slatecard, which raised more than $600,000 for
Republican candidates in the 2008 election cycle. In 2011, he helped found Raising
Red, although he left the organization the same year and went on to become
one of the co-founders of Not Mitt Romney.com.
URL: http://townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/2013/09/03/5-reasons-not-to-bomb-syria-n1689715/page/full
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5 Reasons Not To Bomb
Syria
John Hawkins
9/3/2013 12:01:00 AM -
John Hawkins
Speak softly and carry a big stick, and you will go far. -- Teddy
Roosevelt
Barack
Obama knows that America's military is a big stick, but unfortunately
Roosevelt's advice about speaking softly doesn't seem to have stuck. Because
Barack Obama recklessly shot off his mouth about a "red line" in
Syria, he's demanding that our nation insert itself into a civil war between
terrorist groups, both of
which have chemical weapons, to protect his ego. Happily,
the American people recognize what a foolish move this would be. A Reuters/Ipsos
poll shows that only 9% of
Americans currently support bombing Syria. This is why
Barack Obama has punted his Syrian War to Congress. He's hoping that it'll be
foolish enough to vote in favor of war to give him the political cover he needs
to bomb. Not only should Congress vote against the war in Syria, if Obama bombs
that country anyway, Congress should immediately cut off funds for the war and
move to impeach him. Why?
1) We don't have a son-of-a-b*tch in Syria. During the Cold War, America used to
semi-regularly ally itself with some rather unsavory leaders and groups. The
oft repeated rationale for supporting a dictator in those days was, "He
may be a son-of-a-b*tch, but he's our son-of-a-bitch." In other words,
both sides are bad guys, but this bad guy would work with us instead of the
Soviets. In this case, we don't have a dog in the fight. It's a civil war
between two groups that both despise us and will continue to hate us. Why risk
American blood and treasure for people who will hate our guts no matter what we
do?
2) Why act as Al-Qaeda's Air Force? Barack Obama is not the sharpest
knife in the drawer, but even he should know that Al-Qaeda attacked America on
9/11. Well now, Bin Laden’s boys are teamed up with the rebels that are fighting
Bashar al-Assad. We just spent a decade killing as many members of Al-Qaeda as
humanly possible in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan; so how much sense does it
make for Barack Obama to help Al-Qaeda take over Syria by bombing Bashar
al-Assad? Bashar al-Assad may be our enemy, but we should be thrilled he's
killing Al-Qaeda and getting more of his terrorist pals in Hezbollah offed in
the process.
3) What makes anyone think Obama can pull this off with
no repercussions?
What is there in Barack Obama's tenure in the White House that makes anyone
think he's likely to handle this well? The fact that he didn't kill a drone
program George W. Bush set up? Because he was too distracted playing cards with
Reggie Love to screw up killing Osama Bin Laden? Bush essentially won Iraq and
Obama screwed up pulling out of that country and has put a hard-earned victory
at risk. He's also on track to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in
Afghanistan. His incompetence got Americans killed in Benghazi, Libya. In Egypt,
Obama helped get rid of a relatively friendly dictator in favor of
anti-American, pro-terrorist theocrats who lasted just over a year before they
were thrown out of power by an Egyptian public that seems to hate Obama almost
as much as the Muslim Brotherhood. Yet, we now think Obama is going to insert
himself into a terrorist-heavy civil war in the Middle East without creating as
many problems as he solves? That's like emptying a box of live spiders in a
teenage girl's slumber party and not expecting any screaming.
4) It invites retaliation from Iran and Hezbollah. Many conservatives believe that if we
have a choice between bombing Iran or letting it acquire nuclear weapons, we'd
be better off to bomb Iran. However, that is supposed to be a last resort after
every other measure has failed. Given that Iran and Hezbollah are actively
supporting Bashar al-Assad, bombing him means actively opposing both of them in
a war. Could they retaliate against us with terrorist attacks? That's certainly
possible. Will they go after Israel to get at us? That's highly likely. Will
Israel respond to those attacks? Yes, Israel will. Could this set off a larger
regional war? Again, that's certainly possible. While Iran and Hezbollah have
much more to fear from us than we do from them, you don't walk up and kick a
bee hive just because President Prissy Pants has worked himself into a huff.
5) It's not in our national interest to bomb Syria. Costly though it may have been, it
was in our national interest to overthrow the Taliban in Afghanistan over 9/11
and to target an aggressive enemy of America like Saddam Hussein in Iraq. That
being said, had we known in advance how long our troops would be stuck in Iraq,
it's highly doubtful that we would have ever invaded. On the other hand, what's
the rationale for bombing the side that's fighting Al-Qaeda in Syria? Both
sides hate America. Both sides cooperate with terrorists. If anything, since
Al-Qaeda is determined to kill Americans and Assad is not, the current dictator
in charge is probably the lesser of two evils. Moreover, encouraging other
nations to join us in imposing harsh sanctions on Syria would be just as
effective as bombing when it comes to discouraging the use of WMDs without
being as provocative. So, what argument is left? Are we supposed to bomb Syria
to avoid looking "weak?" Well, if people have that impression, they
can ask Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, and Anwar al-Awlaki what they think
about that if they're willing to search through the bowels of hell long enough
to find them.
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