As of this writing, the United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved, in a contentious 10-7 vote, presidential authorization for missile strikes on key Syrian military locations with the intent of degrading President Bashar Al-Assad’s ability to use chemical weapons against rebel factions. While the authorization must now move through the general Senate body and through the House of Representatives before the vote has been totally approved, many Americans are scratching their heads and wondering why these attacks are being considered at all.
While party leadership on both the left and the right are pushing for focused, limited strikes, the general public’s opinion is nearly united in opposition to intervention. The representatives in the House are split on the subject, and our Nobel Peace Prize-winning president is looking rather flustered as he frantically rushes around trying to get the votes he needs to authorize this strike. Although he insisted he doesn’t even need approval from the people’s representatives when he stated “I believe I have the authority to carry out this military action without specific congressional authorization,” here are three reasons congressional representatives should vote no to Syrian intervention:
1. No one wants this war. The American public is tired of war in the Middle East. Citizens quickly grew frustrated with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan under the Bush administration, grew distrustful of the federal government’s goals and the extent of America’s interest in the region. The public became disdainful of the anti-liberty legislation that came packaged with these wars. A recent Gallup Poll conducted Sept. 3 and 4 indicated that only 36 percent of the public supports Syrian intervention. Our friends across the pond see the issue in largely the same light; the United Kingdom’s House of Commons voted against military action, a once stalwart President François Hollande of France is now not so sure about intervention and no other countries in the international community seem to be stepping up to the plate. Robert Scales, a retired Army major general and a former commandant of the U.S. Army War College, wrote that, “After personal exchanges with dozens of active and retired soldiers in recent days, I feel confident that what follows represents the overwhelming opinion of serving professionals,” and then stated, about these military professionals, “They are embarrassed to be associated with the amateurism of the Obama administration’s attempts to craft a plan that makes strategic sense.” He noted that the overwhelming sense among our armed forces is one of resignation and a sense of outrage.
2. The enemy of our enemy is our enemy. In Syria, the various rebel factions whom we are claiming to be assisting do not have a single coherent ideology and often are vehemently opposed to the United States. Al Qaeda-linked rebels have been persecuting Syria’s Christian populations. While the largest rebel faction, the Free Syrian Army, has declared itself to be non-sectarian. Two other groups, the Syrian Liberation Front and the Syrian Islamic Front, both espouse Islamist ideology. In addition, a number of members of the Free Syrian Army fighters have joined Jabhat al-Nusra whose “fighters came from Iraq’s post-war insurgency and have pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda in Iraq,” according to Alex Bennett in World magazine. Various human rights abuses have also been named on the rebel’s side. Commander Khalid al-Hamed ate a dead man’s heart on a shocking camera-phone video posted online. A recent video posted by rebel leadership seems to be implying the rebels would also seek their own chemical weapons to use. A German newspaper recently reported President Bashar al-Assad did not personally order any chemical weapons attacks, a claim which he himself supported in a recent PBS interview. The confidential evidence John Kerry kept mentioning in Senate hearings seems to indicate that Assad’s government was indeed responsible for the chemical attacks in his country, but if the evidence is that definitive, why should the US not release it to help clear up this muddled situation?
3. It’s none of our business. The estimated death toll in Syria is around 100,000 people, so why is the United States just now deciding to intervene? Why are we the only country that seems to want to intervene? Why are chemical weapons a “red line” on the international level when their use has had so little effect on the actual outcome of the war? At the end of the day, while the death toll in Syria is terrible, the United States has no national interest in the country. In fact, there has been talk that Israel is nervous about our intervention because of Syrian, Iranian and Hezbollah retaliation on Israel, our ally. A lack of national interest in the conflict arguably makes intervention illegal without congressional approval.
The United States constitution gives congress the power to declare war, and while congress has frequently avoided an outright declaration, it justified itself by legislating away its authority through the War Powers Act, which gives the president unilateral power to authorize limited military engagements only after a declaration of war, or with specific statutory authorization, or when a national emergency is created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces. The Syrian intervention proposed by Obama does not meet the third requirement, and depending on the vote outcome, may not meet the first two. Using this line of argument, unless Congress approves military action, despite what Obama seems to think, his actions would be illegal.
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