Things have changed rapidly in the last few days regarding the situation in Syria and our goals there. Obama, seeking an escape from his own incomprehensible foreign policy, has ceded international leadership to Russia who he is willing to use to rid Syria of its chemical weapons. It seems unlikely that military action will be considered by Congress or taken by the President. But should a vote occur, we should consider the implications.
Recently I returned home from Germany. I stood in surgery there and watched a blown up soldier being worked on by doctors as I have done for the last nine and a half years. It was not pretty. Over the course of my time there, I have seen professional, seasoned nurses run out of operating rooms crying over the charred, limbless bodies of men they were trying to save. One time, I had to turn away, crying, when a soldier woke up at the end of a surgery, clasped the surgeon’s hand, and asked tenderly, “Doc is my leg going to be ok?” The surgeon had to tell the soldier, “You are going to be ok,” without telling the soldier in his state of half awareness that he had just amputated his foot. I have seen far worse than these examples, but some things just grab you. Although I was not in the military, I served the military intimately. This informs my position.
The constitution gives Mr. Obama two roles: President and Commander in Chief. As President he can ask Congress for a declaration of war. The Constitution does not speak to half declarations of war. For this reason I would have voted against Iraq and Afghanistan, and now I would vote against Syria. If we want to go to war then we should declare war, as provided for in the Constitution, and that should be a total, complete, and violent thing in our society. If war is declared, a president should dismiss his cabinet and form a war cabinet. He should immediately order a full mobilization of our country and instate a draft. Nothing else should matter but Victory through complete domination of our enemy demonstrated by their unconditional surrender. History tells us that we are good at doing this when necessary.
None of these things have been proposed regarding Syria. We are bumbling our way into an involved conflict without a clear goal or a strategy to achieve it. In international policy, as in life, when we shoot for undefined and unclear we usually get what we were shooting for. This is not what our military was meant for.