Getting Serious About Syria

Nothing and nobody involved in the ludicrously murderous civil war in Syria poses any real threat to any national interest of the United States.

So why should we get involved in the war there?  What would we accomplish or hope to accomplish?

Make no mistake about it -- bombing targets in Syria would be an act of war against that country irrespective of whether we  claim or view such an act to be a limited one.  Syria has not attacked the U.S. or any U.S. national interest,  Nor is it a threat to do so.  We don't have a dog in the fighting there, and none of those dogs are friendly to us.

The fact that one or another faction in Syria has or may have let loose chemical weapons with deadly effects there does not alter anything stated hereinabove.

While we may view attacking someone or something or someplace in Syria as limited in nature, cost, and scope, it should be kept in mind that a fight is not over unless and until the party that one has turned into an adversary decides that it is over.  History is replete with evidence that it is far easier to get into a war than it is to exit from a conflict once it has begun.  As certainly as night follows day and day follows night, once we unleash the dogs of war, American blood eventually will be spilled in ways that now may not be foreseeable . . . but, in any case, not in the protection of any vital national interest.

It is true that the credibility of America's current president is at stake -- he did (foolishly and needlessly) proclaim that the use of chemical weapons in Syria would be "a red line" that the U.S. would not permit to be crossed.  So -- the question must be asked -- are we supposed to engage in an act of war just because Mr. Obama gratuitously said something stupid about a matter that was none of his or America's business?

We've come a long way . . . way too long a way . . . since the days that the nation's founders -- who were far wiser than those who have followed in their footsteps -- determined that America would not not become engaged in foreign entanglements or venture abroad seeking monsters to destroy,  and would be a friend to liberty everywhere but fight only for our own.

There is virtue in minding one's own business.