Any U.S. strike against Syria is ‘likely to last hours not days’ and probably would not come before the British Parliament votes on military action Thursday, a senior U.S. defense official told Fox News.
Four U.S. Navy destroyers are in position, along with at least one nuclear-powered submarine. A British submarine is also available if Britain’s Parliament approves military action.
Good to know. Syria can now plan for the surprise attack. Of course, not before the British Parliament gives us permission. War is a life or death matter, after all. Everyone had better like us first!
According to U.S. military officials, there are no plans in the initial mission to strike or secure President Bashar Assad’s chemical weapons, which are spread among 50 different sites, some of which are underground.
Telling the media the plans of the attack ahead of time. Brilliant! They used to say that war is hell. In the new military, war is simply stressful.
Assad is estimated to have more than 1,000 tons of chemical weapons. Any plans to secure them would require Special Operations and boots on the ground — and neither is on the table right now, according to Pentagon officials.
So let me get this straight. The whole reason we’re going to war with Syria is to retaliate against and/or prevent their use of chemical weapons. We know those weapons exist, but we’re not going to take them away. We’re simply going to punish them for having them.
‘It seems to me that what we’re looking at here is sort of shock and awe light,’ said Retired Major General Bob Scales, a Fox News military analyst and former commandant of the Army War College.
‘Shock and Awe: The Original’ refers to George W. Bush’s attack on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, ten years ago. That war was supposed to be over in just days, as well, but ended up lasting many years. Given that Obama’s entire career, leading to his Presidency, was based on a famous speech he gave opposing the Iraqi war, it’s ironic to now read that he is staging his own version of the same thing.
What changed? Is it right when Obama does it, but wrong when someone else does it? Is war to uphold personal power, rather than principle? Sure looks that way.
And where are all the people who cheered Obama, back when he opposed the Iraqi war ‘on principle?’ Now that Obama decides he wants to play soldier, we’re supposed to uncritically accept his change of position on the use of military force.
Are we to believe that so long as the federal government is giving out trillions of dollars in freebies (rather than the paltry billions of his Republican predecessor), that we’re good to go when it comes to waging a war without any reference to American self-interest?
‘That is a simple cruise missile strike from mostly sea-delivered platforms launched outside the umbrella of Syrian air defense intended to strike high visibility targets like command and control or perhaps some missile and weapon placements.’
Wow, we’re really nice about the way we go to war, aren’t we? Tell the enemy our plans. Exactly why are we going to war, again?
According to one senior U.S. defense official, in response to reports that a window to strike could open as early as Thursday, “the window to strike is open now from a military perspective. The decision about timing is political.”
How can a life-or-death matter be left to politics? And if it’s not really so life-or-death, then what is the purpose of this military strike?
It sounds like this ‘war’ is more a war against a type of weapon, than for upholding any particular principle such as — oh, I don’t know — individual rights or freedom.
In a recent CNN interview Obama stated, ‘When you start seeing chemical weapons used on a large scale… that starts getting to some core national interests that the United States has, both in terms of us making sure that weapons of mass destruction are not proliferating, as well as needing to protect our allies, our bases in the region.’
Obama’s words sound a lot like the leftist-socialist obsession with gun control. Such people don’t wish to punish criminals. They wish to punish the weapons that commit the crime, almost as if those weapons had a will of their own.
Notice how Obama doesn’t talk in favor of freedom, individual rights, or free market capitalism; or against totalitarian control, socialist force or fascist Islam. It’s not ideologies he’s against. It’s simply weapons.
But weapons in the right hands lead to justice and safety. Weapons in the wrong hands lead to disaster and devastation. Hitler’s loss of World War II was a good thing; America’s win was a good thing. It’s a good thing that nuclear weapons were in the hands of the Allies, and not the Nazis or Japanese, at the end of World War II. Otherwise, you might not be reading this column right now.
Obama gets away with something his hapless Republican counterparts never could have done. It’s not only because of the trillion dollar socialist freebies.
It’s also because he refuses to name an enemy.
It’s for precisely this reason that all the ‘nonjudgmental’ and largely pacifist supporters of Obama—who would never, ever support a war against Islamic militants or any other genuine threat—give him a free pass.
There is no right or wrong, good or bad. It’s the guns, stupid.
Obama will give us a little bit of war—just a little. But war without principle or ideals (of any kind) to back it up is a truly unjust thing. And a very dangerous one, too.
[Sources of news items: FoxNews.com and CNN.com]
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