Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Politicians attend secret meetings. They view secret evidence. They emerge to assure you the secret evidence shows we must go to war, but they can’t tell you how – it’s secret.

Ten years, nearly 5,000 U.S. deaths and more than a trillion dollars later, it turns out all that secret evidence they used to justify war was wrong – some of those politicians even flat-out lied to you.

On Aug. 21, a chemical attack is carried out in Syria.

Soon after, politicians emerge from their secret meetings, assuring you we must take military action against President Bashar al-Assad because the secret evidence suggests he was responsible. They can’t tell you how though. It’s secret – you’ll have to trust them.
It’s the definition of insanity.

The main reason why so much of the American public continues to allow this to happen is because we let these matters become so heavily politicized.
We allow politics to cloud our judgment and knowledge of the past, as we remain so willfully ignorant of the pain and suffering we have so recently endured.

Many of those who support military intervention differ in background, but have similar view points. They include:

A) Neoconservatives who believe we should just use our military might to shape the rest of the world.

B) Establishment Democrats on board with whatever Obama wants to do (even though they criticized the last president for doing almost the exact same thing a decade ago).

And/or C) Those who believe our government leaders as they try to convince us (with no real proof) that Assad is guilty and that we have a moral imperative to attack.

Last week, President Obama was forced to appease the masses of Americans who have not forgotten the past, and fear another Iraq episode. In a shocking move, the president decided he would actually follow the Constitution and seek congressional approval for attacking Syria.

The Democrat-controlled Senate is on board.

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives, however, is expected to have a real fight on their hands.

But even if a resolution to attack Syria is shot down in the House of Representatives, President Obama is suggesting he might carry out an attack anyway.
At the G-20 summit last week, the president was asked multiple times what he would do if he could not get Congress on board. Each time, he did not give a direct answer.

The president also asserted last week that he has the right to attack Syria without approval from Congress.

The only problem is, he doesn’t.

The president claims that under the War Powers Resolution of 1973, he does not have to get congressional approval to attack Syria.

However, this legislation allows for the president to take actions of war without this approval only after “a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.”

The situation in Syria clearly does not present a national emergency or threat to national security.

If we do attack, however, we will be opening up a Pandora’s box of national security threats – whether it be from Russia, Iran, China, the Syrian government or the al- Qaida affiliates whom we will be helping take control.

This loophole has been used before to get us into meaningless and costly conflicts that the American people did not need or want.
It’s about time we put politics aside and remember our past – the insanity has to stop.

Nick Smith is a senior broadcast and digital journalism major. His column appears weekly. He can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter at @Nick_X_Smith.

Published on September 9, 2013 at 1:50 am