Small arms to Syrian rebels spells big new war for Uncle Sam

President Obama's decision to send small arms to the Syrian rebels fighting President Assad's regime is a huge mistake. Just like the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, the road to a massive, ruinous war begins with a single six shooter. The American Presidency is steeped in senseless, criminal war and military adventurism. The Mexican American War of 1846, the Spanish American War of 1898, World War I, Vietnam, Panama, Grenada, Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan are all examples of wars we needlessly fought because of either presidential stupidity or outright criminality.

The President, clearly not the bloodthirsty warmonger his predecessor George W Bush was, has largely kept the venomous war party at bay these past 5 years, with the sad exceptions of his murderous drone bombings and our stupid intervention in Libya which got many killed including 4 top diplomats in Libyan blowback.

 

War lovers like Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, who never met a senseless war of choice they didn't love, have been beating the intervention drums for Uncle Sam to jump into the Syrian civil war for many months.   Now it appears they've goaded Obama into Syrian intervention, with the baby steps of small arms to the insurgents. This move, once implemented, can not be easily reversed. The rebels are as murderous and ruthless as the Assad forces grasping to stay in power, resulting in nearly 100,000 deaths in the past two years.  Some, if not many of the rebel forces despise America and would gladly turn any weapons given them upon us if they could get the chance, just like the Mujahedeen forces of Osama bin Laden, whom we armed to oust the pesky Russkies in Afghanistan in the 1980's. A couple of decades later and voila, the 911 attacks were their thanks.

 

The only time President Obama appears bummed out and totally uninspiring is when he's talking about military adventurism. That's because he knows the McCains and the Grahams of the war party are pulling his strings. We need him to cut the strings held by cowards, chicken hawks, or in the case of war hardened Sen. McCain, one who is only alive when he's battling imagined enemies, and get America to spend its treasure on rebuilding our crumbling nation and helping the tens of millions Americans in real distress.