For US, Syria is a lose-lose situation

Let’s just be blunt: The United States getting involved in Syria is about as smart as a toddler playing with a cactus, and the outcome will be the same in both scenarios.

I’m not jumping on anyone’s bandwagon, but when people I know who are conservatives, liberals, veterans, retired military, older, younger, religious, nonbelievers and every other persuasion agree on the stupidity of the U.S. jumping into Syria —and they’re reflecting what seems to be a national consensus —then it’s time Washington listens to the people. For a change.

They’re tired of war. They’re tired of sending sons and daughters to places like Iraq and Afghanistan, and they sure don’t want to send them to Syria. We’ve been led down this path before, told it was our obligation, our duty, to punish evildoers for their crimes against humanity and stop their threat against mankind. And we have the grave markers to show for it.

In this case, we’re told Syria’s President Assad used chemical weapons against his own people to combat rebels in that briar patch’s civil war. There’s no disagreement that the use of such weapons, especially against a country’s own population, is wrong and unacceptable. But, dealing with this is the kind of job the United Nations was created to do, and it should be the UN’s responsibility to deal with Syria, not ours.

We’ve worn ourselves a bit thin since the “War on Terrorism” began in 2001. We sent troops into Afghanistan to find and destroy those responsible for 9/11. Then, we let them skitter away as we shifted focus and invaded Iraq to seize and destroy what were supposed to be weapons of mass destruction that never were found. Even though our troops slowly have been coming home, we’re still stuck there going on almost 12 years.

Now, President Obama wants us to punish Syria for using chemical weapons and is plotting the most publicized and exposed stealth attack ever. Yet, we seem to be the only country ready to do so. Britain’s Parliament, called back into session from summer break, turned down a request to participate. Other allies don’t seem particularly anxious to take part in a punitive action in Syria. Even the UN is hesitant, and it’s still trying to determine if the chemical weapons were used by the government, or the rebels.

We have no business getting involved in Syria. The government there is being supported by Iran and Russia, and none of them have any great love for the U.S. The rebels are made up of every terrorist, extremist, fundamentalist organization and sect in the Middle East, including al-Qaida, who brought us 9/11. So, which side that hates the U.S. should we support? It’s a lose-lose situation.

To be completely honest, we never really have had any reason to be involved in that part of the world. Oh, sure, there’s always that “protecting American interests” line, but, personally, I think the main reason those interests exist in the Middle East is because of greedy oil companies from the late ’40s on wanting to cash in on cheap oil and labor rather than tap our own domestic resources. All these years later their legacy is our continuing dependency on Middle Eastern petroleum, high prices and the enmity of most of those countries, although a couple grudgingly tolerate us.

And, yes, during the Cold War we wanted to make sure the Russians didn’t get any footholds there and sneak off with “our” oil. We wanted to bring them democracy and mold them into countries like us. We’re still trying to instill American-style democracy into the Islamic world, and they’re still not buying it no matter how hard we force it on them. Of course, they weren’t interested in communism, either, as Russia found out during its Afghan debacle.

Let’s face it: People in that part of the world have fought each other since before there were countries, before there were artificial borders created by Westerners. They fought one another when they had nothing but nomadic camps. They’ve fought among themselves since before biblical times, and when religion was thrown into the mix they just had another reason to keep fighting. It seems the only time they agree on anything is when they have a common enemy —such as the U.S., and Israel, and the Western world. And they’re going to continue fighting one another no matter what anyone else does.

Granted, it’s easier said than done, but we need to just get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, leave Syria alone, stay out of Israel’s way and mind our own business at home.