Can we talk about Syria? Even though this was a news story for about three seconds.
My long developed political-talk show, patriotic American reaction is: “Good! Kill the bad guys! Launch all the missiles!” My first gut reaction is that this is a good thing, and I agree with Sebastian Gorka here he was on Laura Ingraham’s show [10:40-11:44]:
I totally get that, and that’s my first thought.
But then I think about one of the new principles of the show, this year: Maybe the opposite is true.
We at least need to consider the opposite.
So Gorka’s argument, I think I’m fairly summarizing is: “If we do nothing, it will send a message of weakness.”
Okay, so what’s the opposite, let’s consider it. “If we do something, it will show a message of weakness.” We launched 105 missiles, Russia claims 71 were shot down. We say that didn’t happen, none of us know the truth of that, but let’s say the truth is somewhere in the middle, that half of our missiles were shot down and a few missed their targets: did that show our strength like Gorka said, or did it show our weakness?
Let’s purpose the opposite again, so the original statement, “If we do nothing, it will send a message of weakness.” How about, “If we do nothing, it will send a message of strength.”
I wouldn’t’ be surprised if Russia orchestrated all of this to drag us into a war, to keep us in a quagmire, to make us weaker. we announced we were leaving, Trump said we were leaving, now we’re very much reengaged. War always over-extends empires. Always has, always will.
So maybe doing nothing send a message of strength, it sends a message of, “We know who we are, what we’re doing, and what is and is not necessary to maintain American national security.”
In my many years of talk radio I’ve learned that, especially in foreign policy, we all know very little. We make up movies in our heads.
Quick example, of course you heard about the two black men who were escorted out of the Starbucks by police in handcuffs. There’s video of a bunch of police officers in Philly handcuffing the two black guys. People say they were doing nothing, but an employee called police on them. The police chief says the police acted perfectly, the CEO of Starbucks said it’s all reprehensible, there are BLM protests boycotting Starbucks, it’s a whole thing.
And you and I and everybody commenting on social media, protesting about it, tweeting about it, we have NO IDEA what happened. We don’t know what the two guys said or did, what the barista said at any point, we know nothing about it, but everyone is quick to form an opinion and storyline.
If that’s true for two guys in a Starbucks in Philadelphia, how much more don’t we know about what happened in a city in a country that 99% of Americans can’t point to on a map, that may or may not have any impact on America anyway.
Oddly enough, Nikki Haley said at the UN, Assad has used chemical weapons fifty times on his own people during their civil war, including twice in this one city this year. We already last year “sent a message” to Assad about using chemical weapons. He didn’t get the message then, why do we think he will now?
I don’t know what the right thing to do. I’ll be honest, and that’s not good radio, because I’m supposed to come here with great certainty about what to do, and my “talk radio” stance I think is to be in favor of the strikes because Trump did it or because I’m patriotic and it’s the pro-military thing to do. I’ll tell you one pro-military thing, I have a few friends who are special operations guys, getting ready for deployment. I’ll never forget talking to one of them during the election when I’m debating foreign policy theories, he’s praying that our world leaders have wisdom. Because it’s all very real for him. He might be the guy landing in Syria before we launch missiles. Is it pro-military to send him someplace he shouldn’t be, or is the pro-military thing to be wise without warriors, so he can see his wife and kids again?
My point here is to question everything, and always consider – just consider – if the opposite of what you’re being told is closer to the truth.