Regarding Syria: The US Is at a Crossroads. . .

This photo provided on Tuesday April 4, 2017, by the Syrian anti-government activist group Edlib Media Center, that is consistent with independent AP reporting, shows a man carrying a child following a suspected chemical attack, at a makeshift hospital in the town of Khan Sheikhoun, northern Idlib province, Syria. The suspected chemical attack killed dozens of people on Tuesday, Syrian opposition activists said, describing the attack as among the worst in the country’s six-year civil war. (Edlib Media Center, via AP)

and we don’t have much time.

With hindsight, we screwed up in Rwanda. Nearly a million people were killed with machetes in what was a genocide that outsiders could have prevented.

On the other hand, we screwed up in Iraq, overturning a brutal dictator, but in the end making things worse (the karma due Dick Cheney falling instead on others who didn’t deserve it). Libya, where we “led from behind,” isn’t going so well.

The Assad regime in Syria is murdering its citizens. Should we stop it? Can we stop it? If we decide that we are able and willing to stop this slaughter, how will we do it? What will we do when things don’t go as planned, because we can be assured that they will not go as planned? We can’t count on our current Commander-in-Chief for moral leadership. Drumpf just received Egypt’s dictator, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, and praised him in spite of el-Sisi’s dismal human rights record. (Also, it’s worth noting that if Drumpf had been in the Armed Services he would have been court-martialed for his adultery–which he boasted about–if not more. It’s doubtful with his foreign ties to dubious regimes and characters that he would have even received the low-level security clearance required to be an officer.)

And who will pay for this? The Iraq war was paid for on the credit card, and Afghanistan continues to fester, although on the whole most Americans ignore it except when they piously say “I support the troops” or stand oh-so-reverentially at a sporting event. A war requires a tax. That’s worth repeating.

A War Requires a Tax. 

A large one, and it needs to be progressive, with war profiteers and the underrepresented (in the military) wealthy bearing a larger part of the cost.

More importantly: How many American lives are you willing to pay for this?

We’re not even having the discussion. Time is running out. I want to help Syrian civilians, but to do so means occupying Syria for, I imagine, at least a decade. Will this make things worse? Will our allies help us?

Put Gorsuch on the back burner (where he deserves to be). If we are who we say we are, we should be debating this in Congress all day, every day.