Hi Tom!

I just turned 68 last month. I have nothing left to prove. I’m retired.

The Conservatives were all in an uproar when Obama didn’t go in all guns blazing, and then again when he chickened out with his “line in the sand”. But when he asked for congressional support, for a war powers vote that would cover his back, one way or the other, they all left DC and went back to their districts to raise money, leaving him holding the bag. The chicken hawks are great on war talk and slammin’ the Muslim, Kenyan Socialist, but they won’t risk any of their political capital when it comes time to back up the President. After all, he might fail. Or worse, he might succeed. We can’t have that, can we? All that crowd of chicken shit Rotarians and small-town carpet salesmen really cares about is cutting taxes for their Daddy Warbucks campaign contributors.

We didn’t even consider intervening until Assad started using poison gas, and that threat seems to have been nipped in the bud, at least as far as major weaponized chemical agents were concerned. Not getting involved in a Syrian war was Obama’s triumph, not his failure. And the airstrikes, when they finally came, were in North Syria and Iraq, against ISIS targets. We weren’t taking sides in Syria’s civil war because ITS NONE OF OUR BUSINESS. Maybe its Israel’s priority, but its not ours. The jets had to fly to defend Iraq from ISIS because the, ahem, previous administration committed American prestige to it. Obama’s doing everything he can to keep us out of an Arab family feud that’s been going on since the prophet quarreled with his inlaws.

Meanwhile, the puppet state that Cheney and the Bush Baby set up unraveled and ran away at the first smell of gunpowder, in spite of all the blood, money, arms and training we poured into that rathole.
Then they went running to the Ayatollahs across the border for help, knowing perfectly well it was a slap in the face to us.

The Euros figure we will do their dirty work for them, we always have, they don’t want to piss off Putin and the Chinese for economic reasons. The Saudis and the Turks, our so-called friends, keep on expecting us to go in and take care of their religious civil war with Iran for them. And our buddies, the Israelis, know that they have nothing to worry about as long as American soldiers are dying in the Middle East and the carrier battle groups are nearby offshore.

Cheney doesn’t want to be remembered by history as the man who finally broke the back of American power in the 21st century with absolutely nothing to show for it in return. The Neocons got us into this mess by upsetting the Shia-Sunni/Iran-Iraq/Persian-Arab balance in the mideast and all they can think of now is how to save face and salvage the surviving tatters of their discredited, self-serving, cynical and murderous philosophy. They want us to go back in with 10,000 men even though the Iraqis already threw our ass out. Remember? They just didn’t want us there, unless, of course, we signed a paper that would make our troops vulnerable to their Sharia Law and kangaroo courts. Bush wouldn’t do it. Why should Obama?

I know what I’d do. I’d tell the Arabs, this is your fight, not mine. You come up with the troops and the money. We’ll help out with air support and training, economic aid and diplomacy, but when it comes to dying and paying, you’re on your own; you’ve got plenty of guns, cash, oil and more than enough religious fanatics. Fight your own war. Allah be with you, because the Great Satan is going home.

And you know what? That is exactly what Obama seems to be doing. Mission Afuckingcomplished.

Instead of taking sides in a civil war, let the country bring order in it’s own way. Syria is not about to take over the row.

No I’m not saying we should always sit back and do nothing. Sometimes you have to act. But its like starting a fight with a stranger in a seedy bar on the wrong side of town. Sure, sometimes you have to fight if you have any hope of getting out alive at all. But until you’re convinced that’s your only choice, you’re better off just walking out.

What I mean by that is….what would I do if my neighbor was say, beating his wife, or dealing drugs, or stealing cars, or abusing their children, or *name a heinous crime here*….would I intervene?

I am ashamed to say I would probably mind my own business until they came to me for help. Then, I would be like..” Oh fuck…now I gotta do something.”

Yay me.

“Nature abhors a vacuum”.