Chasing Evil . . .

. . . around the globe is not America’s job.

This Administration’s ballooning involvement in prewar preparations against Syria was about to become a tipping point which – if it already hasn’t been reached – could have embroiled the U.S. in another international conflict lasting well beyond the second term of President Barack Obama, the man who has become irrevocably tied to the phrase “crossing the red line.”

But who is it, exactly, that was about to cross that red line into the abyss of unintended consequences?

Warfare is a hazardous undertaking.  There are times which require it.  And there are times when it is wiser to seek a more practical solution.

Ready! Fire! Aim . . . .

 . . . is what seems to be the U.S. Administration’s foreign policy stance towards Syria’s President, Bashar al-Assad.



 President Barack Obama responds to journalists
 at the White House. Says no decision has yet been
made concerning a possible strike on Syrian targets
 as of Friday afternoon, August 30, 2013.
 (TV Screen Shot/CNN)

No visible end game has been presented to the American people, as the Commander-in-Chief prepares to give the order to launch cruise missiles over Syrian skies:  There has yet to be a clearly articulated rationale for what President Obama plans to do after the “shock and awe” of the missile barrage have subsided.

What his advisors have told the world up to now is what the Administration won’t do; namely, that the United States is not seeking to depose Assad.  No regime change is anticipated as a direct result of this imminent air strike.

PTSD and the Wars that Won't go Away

Book Jacket.   (Dick Bergeron Image)

Potomac, MD.  The testimonials on the back of the book jacket for “In the Name of Honor” don’t do it justice.  I wonder if any one of those whose names appear on it ever read the book front-to-back, if at all.

The author, Richard North Patterson, is a master storyteller with a disciplined grip on the English language. 

Throughout this highly readable 400-pager, he skillfully employs words and phrases to buttress his main thesis – that the deadening  impact of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) on American families and their loved ones returning home from Iraq has not been counted into the price of that war.

The forcefulness and validity of that message is wrapped within the story of two military families.  The first can boast of an intergenerational West Point succession of high-ranking Army officers whose current patriarch is a general and the Army Chief of Staff.  He is slated to become head of the Joint Chiefs. 

A Long Grey Line Always Turns into a Long Grey Wall

At West Point, the name used for the endless stream of brave young men and women who enter the military academy is referred to as “The Long Grey Line.”

I thought deeply about the meaning of that phrase as I watched President Obama deliver his rationale for sending thousands more of our youth to Afghanistan.

Media commentators like to refer to U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan as “boots on the ground.” It’s become a catch phrase for talking heads on TV and others who claim that more “boots on the ground” will fix the problem. I strongly dislike and disapprove the use of that term, because it dehumanizes and trivializes our men and women who are sent to face the terror of warfare. In reality, I despise that misnomer.

Soldiers, marines and special ops people serving in Afghanistan and Iraq (and clandestinely in Pakistan) are flesh and blood American warriors with human emotions. They have parents at home; wives, husbands and children; girlfriends and boyfriends; classmates from high school and college which they left behind. They are not inanimate “boots on the ground.” They are not faceless people.

And when they die in combat they leave behind the endless grieving of survivors at home. If you don’t believe me, please go to Don't Be Afraid to Say His Name. You’ll understand.

I hope that I haven’t dampened the joy of your Christmas shopping weekend, but there are too many Americans who are for more “boots on the ground.” Just so long as they or their loved ones don’t have to fill those boots.

Photo by Bergeron: It features a portion of the Vietnam Wall War Memorial with its names stretching in a long grey line, as it points to the Washington Monument.

Congress Continues to Sidestep Major War Decisions

The recent exchange of words between House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Leon Panetta, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, concerning detainee interrogation techniques reminds me of just how spineless some members of Congress can be when it comes to taking a stand on what they do and why they do it.

Today, tucked inside the pages of a regional newspaper was a short article about a Rutgers University professor who just lost his case in Federal Court. The professor had sued to have the 2003 invasion of Iraq declared unconstitutional. He claimed that only Congress has the right to declare war. He is, of course, correct.

Pelosi’s squirming about what she knew concerning alleged torture techniques and this lawsuit vividly underscores that most members of Congress will do whatever it takes not to commit one way or the other about do-or-die decisions – the most notable of which is war.

Ever since 1950, the U.S. has fought three major conflicts and is now fighting two– and not a single one of them with a declaration of war from the Congress: Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq I, and Iraq II. For political reasons that emit a malodorous smell, Washington’s U.S. legislators of those wartime periods sidestepped their responsibility on the question of declaring war. They went along with mere “authorizations” or “resolutions.”

One might think that declarations of war are only for the warlike. You know – those right-wing nuts. But the real warlike action of Congress in those circumstances was to throw the baton from Capitol Hill to the White House, thereby abdicating its Constitutional responsibility on this most extreme of issues.

Since the Korean War began in 1950, any President with enough moxie can apparently arm-twist Congress to his obeisance. Any wonder that President Barack Obama is now able to increase war-zone troop levels seemingly at will?