a Someone should care, maybe not you....: Syria .comment-link {margin-left:.6em;}

Someone should care, maybe not you....

My thoughts on many things including the army, war, politics, the military corrections system, chaos, life, books, movies, and why there is no blue food. Feel free to comment on what I say. Feedback is nice.

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40+ year old former teacher, linguist, interrogator, soldier, and lastly convict. We all do stupid things every once and awhile. I am an economic conservative and a firm believer in civil rights. Starting a new life now and frankly not sure what I am going to be doing.

12 September 2013

Syria

Ok, first things first. I do not see any real reason at all that we (the USA)should involve ourselves in a a civil war in Syria. There is NO upside for us at all. That being said, if our President is going to go out and tell the world that there is a RED LINE. There is this thing that if you do it, we will come and gobsmack you. In this case that line being the use of Chemical Weapons. Once it is proven that the Syrian government used the weapons, (and that proof can be problematic, even more so with the clear evidence that our intelligence services will bald faced lie to us when ever they feel like it.) But at that point,our President has an obligation step up and gob smack somebody. That is what Leaders do. What men of principle do. Sadly, President Obama isn't really a Leader. He is very smart, he is good and working behind the scenes, he can influence, and nudge with the best of them But at no point in his Presidency has he stepped up in front and LED. He didn't do for Health Care reform, he didn't do it for immigration, he didn't do it for gay rights, he certainly isn't dong it for the economy. And he is not doing it for his own RED LINE in Syria. In fact, he has now declared that he didn't set a RED LINE, the world set it. (the world is undoubtedly surprised to learn this since they, like me, hear Pres. Obama set it himself.) He gave a pretty good talk this week about why we should bomb Syria, although he then added at the end that we weren't going to bomb them now because there might be a diplomatic solution. (that sort of ends this call to arms on a low note) What he should have done was give a slightly different version of that speech the morning after the missiles flew. Which should have been as soon as possible after PROVING to his satisfaction that the Syrian government had launch the chemical attack in question. There should not have been debate, there should not have been waffling, there would have been no wishy washy asking for permission from Congress. Congress declares wars, Presidents, dare I say Leaders, launch punitive strikes. If he really feels that this is something that needs to be done, then he should have done and faced the political consequences afterwards.

3 Comments:

Blogger opit said...

"He should have done and faced the political consequences afterwards. " This would have been different from GW Bush, for instance, how exactly ? Not that I found Hopey-Changey inspiring from the get-go when he announced - pre election - his priorities were to seek fresh meat for the grinder.
Regardless, I find the concept of bombing the shit out of foreigners because they are doing destruction to themselves already only a warning not to infringe on the prerogatives of the Empire...and an obvious lie to facilitate pushing men into battle on prepared ground.
To digress. As a teacher, I wonder what you make of these articles by Jim Horn :
http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2013/12/tfakipp-teacher-talks-of-shame.html
http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2013/12/to-common-core-enablers-friend-of-my.html

9:16 PM  
Blogger exMI said...

It actually is a pretty good description of G.W. Bush. He had a lot of flaws. Dithering wasn't one of them.

As fro your links, well the first sound like any eager idealist who has been bitten on the butt by reality. I will say I went into my first teaching situation with ZERO teacher training. It wasn't hugely successful but I certainly never felt shame or abandoned. Most of it is common sense.
The second link addresses common core, a project that will have masses of unintended consequences. Personally, any plan that requires the teacher in a 9th grade class to read a story aloud to the class is a fail. Then following with such simple non thinking questions is an even larger fail

2:59 PM  
Blogger opit said...

It is that. Here is testimony that takes it to the next level. Charlotte Iserbyt The Miseducation of America Part 1 Full
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EArKjuIlumw

1:47 AM  

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