I strongly agree with Secretary of State Kerry and the Obama administration on this “moral obscenity,” as Kerry calls the Syrian use of chemical weapons against its own people. The bottom line in my book is simple: this is not about Syria, per se, but rather about a principle: that the international community can not allow governments to use chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, let alone against civilians. Those governments that do so must pay a serious price, or else it’s a total “green light” for future governments to do the same. Unacceptable. The only question now is how to respond, exactly, not whether the international community needs to respond.
One more point: I’m well aware that both the Assad regime and much of the opposition – including Al Qaeda elements, Sunni extremists, etc. – is really bad news. To put it mildly, neither side is progressive, by any standard, in any way. And I’m also well aware that we do NOT want to – and should not – get into another ground war, or even an extended air campaign in the Middle East. But we (the U.S. and its allies – France, the UK, etc.) certainly have the capability to put some serious hurt on the war criminal Assad regime using cruise missiles, etc. I say “war criminal,” by the way, not just for the use of chemical weapons, but for its vast gulag of torture chambers, as well as for its responsibility in the death of more than 100,000 Syrians, the wounding of many more, and the destruction of much of their own country. The human race should be well beyond this kind of thing in the year 2013, but sadly we’re not…
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