No justification for entering this war

It has been 18 months since the civil war in Syria began against Bashar al-Assad. During that time over 100,000 men, women and children have been killed. Most of them were innocent bystanders caught up in this disaster. Only within the last few months has any attention been given, other the President Obama’s lip service, and only then because he said, that using chemical weapons would create a red line.”

So now we are led to believe by our intelligence agencies, and foreign intelligence agencies that for sure Assad used chemical weapons on his own people. If this sounds reminiscent of Iraq, well, it should — these are the same people who said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Oops. And now the president is looking for Congress to bail him out, after the United Nations and our European allies have said they aren’t interested. Ironically, it is the U.N. resolution, passed in 1912, against the use of chemical weapons that started this merry-go-round.

So now the ball is in the president’s court, not because he wanted it, but because he thought the Syrian government would shudder at his words. That ain’t happening. Let me remind the president, several long wars have been started the very same way. In fact the simple act of firing a missile into an abandoned building is an act of war. Mr. President, are you ready to take on the consequences of an escalation of this civil war, if it turns regional and includes Israel?

When Iraq used chemical weapons on Iran, the U.N. and America did nothing. When Iraq used chemical weapons on its own people, in its own civil war, the U.N. and America did nothing. In both cases hundreds of thousands of people died. What is the justification and America’s strategic interest that is different in this case?

Richard Francke

Bartlett