ObamaWar to visit Syria

An American President is seeking a coalition of the willing to take down a Ba'athist dictator over WMDs.  Hmmm...I've got a strange sense of Deja Vu...But wait, in the first case the American President was the Bushitler.  In this case, the American President is a Nobel Peace Prize winning LightWorker, so therefore the casus belli must be..............Totally Unrelated to US Interests.

So, what do we see in Syria at the moment?  It's almost a reversal of Iraq, with the only common denominator the Ba'athist political affiliation of the dictator. 

• In Iraq, the Ba'athist leader was a Sunni in a majority Shiite nation.  In Syria, the leader is an Alawite (sub-sect of Shia) in a majority Sunni nation. 
• In Iraq, the Iranians supported the majority, in Syria, they support the minority. 
• In Iraq, oil was a big issue, in Syria, not. 
• In both cases, there is documented evidence of the dictator using poison gas against his opponents.
• In Iraq, the dictator had already brutally suppressed armed opposition to his regime, in Syria, there is an ongoing civil war, and the dictator's chance of victory is not as certain.
• In Iraq, the dictator had a long history of provocations against the United States, some minor, some major, and the United States was already militarily involved in Iraq, having maintained a no-fly zone there for over a decade before the invasion and having already fought one war against Iraq to expel Iraq from Kuwait; in Syria, I can think of no provocation aimed at the United States ever in its history, and we have had no military involvement there previously.  Syria has supported the Shiite terrorist group Hizballah, but that is aimed at their arch-enemy Israel, not the United States.

And who is the United States aiming to help by punishing the Assad regime?  The opposition at this point is largely made up of Sunni Islamic extremists.  Punishing the Assad regime will help Islamic extremists.  Winning?  But, as with the Clinton Administration's meddling in Bosnia in the '90's, Democrat/Liberals' favorite wars are wars in which there is no US interest.  In Bosnia, an ethnic cleansing being carried out by the Serbs turned, with our heavy assistance, into an ethnic cleansing carried out by the Kosovo Muslims.  Neither group had ever done anything to the United States.  This pissed off the Serbs' traditional Slav ally Russia, and didn't help us a whit with international Islam.  A conclusion that anyone with a brain foresaw.  There are many Democrats/Liberals who do have brains, so the only conclusion one can come to regarding justification for this action is that it made Clinton look good somehow.  This brings us to some more back-history which helps explains the looming Obamawar, and that is that the Clinton administration took heavy criticism in the early 90's from liberals (one Samantha Power being foremost in the criticism) for not intervening in the tragic genocide that was taking place in Rwanda.  It was a great tragedy, but this happened in the middle of Africa, no where near any of our bases or interests.  In fact, in France and Belgium's realm of colonial rule, so really something we ought to have stayed out of unless we were to play the role of universal global policeman.  Now, guess who is pressing the case hard for our intervention in Syria?  None other than our new UN Representative, Samantha Power.  Hence, the desire for the Obama administration to at least look like it is making some effort in this crisis.

But, let's not get too worked up about this, because what is Obamawar?  Nothing more than lobbing a few cruise missiles at Assad, that won't do anything except piss everyone off:  the Assad regime, because now we really have made ourselves their enemies, and the Sunni rebels that will rightly say that we didn't do anything that amounted to anything.  This technique is copied from the Clinton (after the African embassy bombings killed hundreds), and depressingly, Reagan (after Khaddafi's agents committed the Lockerbie airline bombing, killing at least 100 Americans),  method of responding to Muslim terrorism:  lob some cruise missiles, or drop some bombs and call it good.

There are no good guys or good answers for Syria.  To me, the best option is to stay out of something that is none of our business.  Islamic fundamentalists will never be on our side, and at least Assad is not working actively against us, murderous tyrant though he is.  Maybe Obama will deign to ask Congress their opinion, but doubtful.  He doesn't need to.  The imperial president, with the press in his pocket, can do whatever he wants and not worry about being called on it.

Slightly off topic, but it's interesting that even the Egyptians believe Obama is a Muslim Brotherhood supporter .  And are not happy about it!

Law And Morality

The left and libertarians are mostly in agreement when it comes to the government's role in social issues. They both take the stance that “I don't care what you do and that it would be wrong for me to impose my values on people” or that “you should be able to do what you want as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else” or that “the government should not get involved in social issues”. This view is illustrated in the same-sex marriage,SSM, debate. A common argument against people that don't want the government to reconginze SSM and who want to uphold the definition of marriage that has been in place for thousands of years --or any other issue that involves “morality”-- is that they want to legislate “morality” and impose their views on society. The left and libertarians believe that it is not the the proper role of government to impose morality on society. But this view fails to reconginze the nature of the law which prevents them from being able to see that they are guilty of “imposing morality” because any law—even the ones they support-- by its very nature is “imposing morality”. The issue is not whether morality should be imposed on society but what morality should be imposed on society and to what extent. The left and libertarians also fail to realize that civilization is itself a system that imposes morality or societal norms and practices on people. 

 Selwyn Duke points the problem with the libertarian view on the law and morality:

In a piece I recently wrote about the dangers inherent in libertarianism, I pointed out that libertarians, by applying their live-and-let-live philosophy to the moral sphere as well as the governmental, do nothing to maintain the societal moral framework that enables people to govern themselves from within and that ensures Big Brother won’t have to do so from without (I recommend you read the piece).[...] 

A law is by definition the imposition of a value (and a valid law is the imposition of a moral principle). This is because a law states that there is something you must or must not do, ostensibly because the action is a moral imperative, is morally wrong, or is a corollary thereof. If this is not the case, with what credibility do you legislate in the given area? After all, why prohibit something if it doesn't prevent some wrong? Why force citizens to do something if it doesn't effect some good? [...]

So here is how you fall into the philosophical trap that has ensnared virtually all libertarians (and many others):
Step 1 — Believe in a mythical separation of morality and state.
Step 2 — Accept the laws you agree with and believe necessary, not realizing they’re an imposition of morality.
Step 3 — Turn around and oppose laws you disagree with, not on the basis that the values they reflect are wrong or are not the government’s domain, but simply because they’re an “imposition of morality.”
In truth, something doesn’t have to be proclaimed by a thunderous voice from the heavens, a bishop or Charlton Heston in a Cecil B. DeMille film to be christened “morality,” nor does something cease being so (or at least a conception thereof) because it has become the stuff of academia or wins a popular vote.  A moral does not cease to be a moral because it becomes a meme.[...]

The story of man is one of spiritual, cultural, political and physical warfare, and each chapter has victory and vanquishment.  Zoroastrianism was extinguished by Islam, the Ainus have largely been subsumed by the Japanese, and the Maldives’ native Giraavaru culture is now only a memory.  Just like animals, countless languages, cultures, beliefs and peoples have become extinct, often the victims of invasive entities that, through superior morality or might, won that inevitable battle. 
And that is the battle for civilization.  It may sound very noble to say, “. . . believe what you want to believe — I'm ok with that.  After all, I am a Libertarian,” but when enough people believe the wrong things, you will not be OK with it.  You will be living under a regime that enshrines those things in law — you’ll be living in tyranny.
Like it or not, imposing values is what arranging civilization is all about.  And like it or not, you’re part of this process.  The only difference among any of us is in what and how much we impose — and in that some of us actually understand this is precisely what we’re doing.
So we can avoid talk about morality if we want, but it will do nothing to ensure that morality won’t be imposed on us.  It only guarantees a descent into error that, ultimately, ensures that immorality will be.

In the same-sex marriage debate, people that want to uphold marriage as defined for thousands of years are attacked on the grounds that they are imposing their morality on society as if those that are pushing for the government to recognize SSM are not imposing their morality on society. Any law by its very nature is imposing morality on society. So whether you are for or against SSM you are imposing values on society. The question is whether you are imposing values that lead to the destruction of that society or whether you are imposing values that have built and sustained that society. The argument that it is wrong to support “traditional” marriage because it would be imposing values is a cleaver way to get those that support “traditional” marriage to become defensive and to become blind to the fact that supporters of SSM are imposing their values on society: it is a way on the part of SSM supporters to disarm and distract their opponents. SSM proponents are not only imposing their morality on society they are attacking and forcing those that disagree with them to accept their morality: here , here, here, here , here, here, here, here , here and other places. “Evil preaches tolerance until it is in power. Then it tries to silence good.” This is no where more evident than in the issues of homosexuality and SSM: they preach tolerance and that society must accept their “lifestyle” and then they attack and silence those that oppose them as evident from the links given above. Saying that the government should not support traditional values is to surrender our civilization to the forces that will destroy it.

The libertarian view on morality and social issues is one of surrender:

Ultimately, the tragic consequence of the libertarian mentality is that it guarantees the left’s victory in the battle for civilization.  This is because, in libertarians’ failure to fight for hearts and minds in the cultural realm, they cede it to leftists, who aren’t shy about advancing their “values.”  And proof of this is in the social pudding.  You see, if talk of establishing social codes and traditions sounds stifling, know that we haven’t dispensed with such things — that is impossible.  Rather, the left has succeeded in replacing our traditional variety with something called “political correctness,” which describes a set of codes powerful enough to control the jokes we make and words we use, get people hired or fired, and catapult a man to the presidency based partially on the color of his skin.
As for elections, political battles need to be fought, but they are the small picture.  For if the culture is lost, of what good is politics?  People will vote in accordance with their world view no matter what you do.  Thus, he who shapes hearts and minds today wins political power tomorrow.  
The libertarian chant, “I don’t care what you do, just lemme alone” sounds very reasonable, indeed.  But as hate-speech laws, forcing people to buy health insurance and a thousand other nanny-state intrusions prove, when people become morally corrupt enough, they don’t leave you alone.  They tyrannize you.  A prerequisite for anything resembling libertarian government is cast-iron morality in the people.  And we should remember that, to echo Thomas Paine, “Virtue is not hereditary.”
For this reason, neither is liberty.  Scream “Live and let live!” loudly enough in the moral sphere, and in the hearts of men the Devil will live — and the republic will die.

James Madison stated:"Religion is the basis and Foundation of government." Whether this religion is Christianity or the new secular religion of the state, government and laws can not refrain from imposing religion or morality on people. This does not mean that the government should become a theocracy but it does mean that the state has an important role to play in defending the norms and practices of an ordered and free society as F. A. Hayek states in “Law, Legislation and Liberty” as opposed to defending norms and practices that will destroy that society. At the very heart of the decline of our nation are “moral” issues. If you want to make a stand for freedom and to perserve our way of life you have to support and defend the norms, practice, and institutions that has enabled our society to become the most prosperous society in history : you don't have the option of retreating to the realm of moral relativism where everything and anything is okay and staying netural in this battle over the future of our civilization. If you do stay netural, the other side will make their stand by imposing their secular values on society and they will force and corece you to support their morality and persecute you if you don't all while making you belive that to impose your morality is wrong and to accept theirs is just.