In
Britain, the Daily Mail features
photographs of Kerry’s 2009 “cozy dinner” in Damascus with “Syria’s ‘Hitler’” before
Assad’s regime was beset by revolution.
Can
Americans today give Holocaust metaphors a rest in debating whether or not the
US should attack Syria? As vile as Assad’s reported use of poison gas against
rebels may be, it’s degrading to elevate that with the systematic murder of six
million Jews in death camps.
Even
if comparison is irresistible, how does a hit-and-run air strike compare with
years and casualties it took to overthrow the Nazis? As someone who took part
in that effort, I am offended not only for fellow Jews who were the victims but
other American veterans who bled and died to stop it.
The Congressional debate deserves better than overheated rhetoric. As a New York Times editorial suggests, “Obama and his top aides will
have to explain in greater detail why they are so confident that the kind of
military strikes that administration officials have described would deter
President Bashar al-Assad of Syria from gassing his people again (American
officials say more than 1,400 were killed on Aug. 21) rather than provoke him
to unleash even greater atrocities.
“They
will also have to explain how they can keep the United States from becoming
mired in the Syrian civil war--something Mr. Obama, for sound reasons, has long
resisted--and how military action will advance the cause of a political
settlement: the only rational solution to the war.”
For
the moment, voters can be grateful that John McCain did not win in 2008. If he
were in the White House now, our armed forces would be attacking Syria with “very
serious” and not “cosmetic” strikes.
How
many World War IIs would McCain and his followers have started in the Middle
East over the past five years?
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