Ditherer In Chief

Great howls of outrage because we know for absolute certain that the monster of Syria, Assad, has slaughtered his own people with a heinous attack using weapons of mass destruction. There is no question whatever that he crossed Obama’s “red line,” and we are by God going to do something about it. What we are going to do is going to really teach him a lesson and assure that he will never, ever do that again. The military is poised and ready, ships are on station, we have signed up a “coalition of the willing.”

Obama, on multiple occasions, has told us that “our national security is at stake” because these chemical weapons affect the “stability of the region” and that they one day “may be directed at us.” The “smoking gun that might be a mushroom cloud” has appeared.

But, five days later, our esteemed president has not yet decided what to do.

Obama has made it very clear that his delay is not because of any doubt about Assad’s guilt. He himself has made it very clear that there is no such doubt, and multiple spokesman have said that doubts expressed by the United Nations or by allies are not going to affect our decision to punish Assad with military strikes. It is merely that he is “considering his options” and is consulting with his advisors.

On one level I am pleased, because the longer we delay making idiotic and illegal attacks on other sovereign nations the better chance there is that we might be talked out of making them. There are not real high odds of that happening, but there is a better chance of silence if a bell is not rung than there is when trying to “unring” it.

At the same time, one wants to say to the dithering idiot in the White House, “Oh for God’s sake, just make up your feeble mind and do something.” He’s waiting for a “consensus” to emerge; waiting for a fucking parade to form so that he can get in front of it; waiting for someone to tell him what to do. This is not “leading from behind,” this is just being behind.

But one small light appear at the end of the tunnel, and it may not be the headlight of an oncoming train. Clapper and company have leaked information saying that our evidence of Assad’s guilt on this issue is full of holes, pardon me “includes a few key caveats.” Same thing.

It’s interesting that Clapper and company are expressing concern that our attack on Assad to punish him for chemical weapons use might be complicated by a possibility that “the attack could be tied to al-Qaida-backed rebels later,” while Obama has made statements which make it plain that he does not share any such concern. He has said repeatedly that there is simply no doubt possible, and multiple spokesmen have said that any doubts expressed by the United Nations or allies will not affect our decision regarding military strikes.

The only concern that Obama has expressed is that his attack might be to small to satisfy Republicans, thereby exposing him to criticism.