Revisiting Intervention

Notes of Concern…

                   …Jackson Blair

Revisiting Intervention

I rarely do a follow up to a column.  Today I am doing so.

By sending what has historically been a presidential decision on to the Congress, the decision on whether to intervene in the Syrian civil war, the president has placed in jeopardy presidential prerogative to act quickly and then inform Congress, which has been the way we have operated for all of my lifetime, and he has placed congressmen in the cross hairs of public opinion.

Both of these are very serious indeed.

By the time this column is in print, the decision on whether to intervene in Syria may well be made. Here are the possibilities:

The president receives support from both houses of Congress and chooses to act, or not.

The president receives support from one house of Congress and chooses to act, or not.

The president receives no support from Congress and chooses to act, or not.

None of the three could be described as a “win” for the president or the nation.

In taking this course, the president has provided to the Syrian regime weeks of opportunity to move gasses around and hide them in highly populated civilian areas, to rearrange his military to counter a strike the details of which have been played out in advance in the press. And while the president and Congress dance awkwardly together, the president has provided both the Russians and the Chinese the opportunity to send warships to the area, greatly increasing the possibility of a wider conflict.

I want to cut to the chase here.

I have seen the videos of men, women and children writhing on the floor as a result of the Syrian government’s chemical attack on them. My heart aches for these people.

I have also seen the front page New York Times picture of Syrian rebels standing over kneeling prisoners of war that they then systematically murdered.

My friends, this is a civil war in which one of these two groups of thugs, the current Syrian government or the rebel forces, will ultimately prevail.

This is a civil war like many that have been fought across the world over the last many decades.

We do not have a “horse” in this race and I would hate to have to pick either one of them. I would not spend one dime of our treasure, human or economic, to help either of these groups. They are completely opposed to any sort of human rights and we have no business getting involved with either.

We did not like Hosni Mubarak. We helped Egypt overthrow him. In return we got the Muslim Brotherhood, a much worse group of thugs. Our national interest was in no way served.

We did not like Khadafy. We helped Libya overthrow him. In return we got murderers, torturers, and a government that hates the U.S. Our national interest was in no way served.

The list goes on and it is not my goal to engage in a history lesson here. It is my goal to say that we cannot be led by emotion in these important national decisions. We need to be smart. We need to be strategic. And most of all, we need to look beyond each decision to the multiple decisions that will come down the road. We need to be certain we know what those possibilities are and that we are ready to stay the course.

Americans in huge numbers oppose Syrian intervention if we are to believe the polls.

Military commanders and strategists cannot believe the manner in which we have approached the planning, advising the enemy well in advance of our plans and permitting the enemy to be better prepared to both repel American efforts and plan for terrorist responses.

Make no mistake, if we bomb Syria there will be reprisals against American embassies, American tourists, American interests, and we will lose American treasure.

The president may well honor his commitment to “no boots on the ground” but that will not translate into “no loss of American life.”

I do not want the Syrian government to prevail.

I do not want the Syrian rebels to prevail.

I do not see a happy outcome in any way in Syria.

What is really going on here today is that our president made some missteps and some misstatements and is trying to find a way to come out of this situation a winner.

My advice to the president: take your licks and move on. Focus your final three years on domestic programs that can relieve the burdens faced by American citizens.

We must not compound this problem by taking unilateral action in a part of the world that has delivered defeat to us in so many ways over such a long period of time.

The War on Drugs is Lost

Notes of Concern…

          …Jackson Blair

Raise The White Flag

The War on Drugs is over.

We lost.

Considering the billions of dollars spent over the years and the constant promises from politicians that they will end the drug trade the facts are that drugs are readily available in our country to almost anyone who wishes to buy them.

Remember that we actually had “Drug Czars” under some presidents. I think some even had “cabinet rank.” We proclaimed that we would stop the smuggling of drugs across the Mexican border with the United States. A president’s wife campaigned for eight years with the slogan “Just Say No.”

Well “Drug Czars” didn’t work.

Drugs coming across the border are as plentiful as the illegal immigrants that also continue to cross into our country.

And with due respect to Mrs. Reagan, I think more people are saying “yes” than are saying “no.”

Recently the president said he would let illegal people stay in the United States. There are nuances to his proposal but this is the bottom line: you broke the law but you are here and we will find a way for you to stay.

Recently governments have said that imprisoning folks for marijuana use was a waste of time and money. Mandatory minimum sentences for some drug possession will soon be a thing of the past.

Recently the government said illegals could work at polling sites, would not be deported and would find a path to citizenship. Some of these illegals probably brought drugs with them.

As I write my column more and more states are pushing for the elimination of prison terms for certain illegal drug possession, especially laws that demand a period of imprisonment.

While I am not opposed to a more enlightened approach to determining penalties for the use of minor drugs, I think we are actually simply trying to rationalize the fact that what we wanted to do we were unable to do.

We wanted to stop drug traffic.

We failed.

We wanted people who wished to become Americans to follow a simple, legal procedure.

We failed.

So now we may well lessen the penalties and actually make some drug use socially acceptable but at the end of the day it is clear to me: we just failed.

In my life I never experimented with drugs. I simply had no interest. So I am certainly not an authority on the risks involved nor the pleasure that might pertain.

I was a fan of the Myrin Institute and other organizations that made efforts to educate young people on the possible damage marijuana use could have for future pregnancies and births. This information seemed statistically significant. But it is clear the youth of America were unwilling to forgo the pleasure of marijuana use because of any fear of eventual genetic problems. And since they are still smoking it their children will have no concern for themselves in that regard.

I am certainly not against the medical use of marijuana. When pain cannot be controlled by more conventional methods, it seems more than compassionate to make whatever drugs can control pain available to patients. We have been, in my opinion, pretty silly about this.

In some ways I see comparisons to the era of prohibition.

The government did not want people to use alcoholic beverages.

They put in place lots of programs to make sure alcohol was not available.

The people wanted alcohol.

They were willing to defy the government and to buy and use alcoholic beverages.

The war on booze failed.

And now the war on drugs has failed.

I am not a pacifist but maybe we should stop declaring wars of any kind.

Maybe the hippies had it right: make love not war.

Simple?

Pragmatic?

Realistic?