...or so one could conclude from the language Rep. Kristi Noem uses in her August 29 interview with the editorial board of that Sioux Falls paper.
Publisher Randall Beck asks Rep. Noem the extent to which South Dakotans are engaged with the issue of going to war with Syria. Noem gave this interview prior to publication of David Newquist's essay or Michael Larson's discussion of his students' questions about the Middle East or (update!) Terry Sohl's ruminations. She was able to say that Syria as come up "at every town hall" that she's held during this August recess.
Then laying groundwork for political criticism of whatever decision President Obama makes to respond to Syria's use of chemical weapons, Rep. Noem damns America's military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq as fatiguing and fruitless:
...their perspective most of the time to me is that they don't want another Iraq and Afghanistan. And they've seen the millions and billions of dollars we've invested in those countries and there's no assurance that as soon as we pull out that those countries are going to be any better off or be more democratic when we leave, and so they don't want another one of those situations.
I think for them the only way the American public and South Dakotans will get behind an action against Syria is if they know clearly what the objectives are and that our plan is to get in and get back out [Rep. Kristi Noem, interview with editorial board, that Sioux Falls paper, 2013.08.29].
Rep. Noem sets three criteria for backing military action against Syria: the objectives must be clear, we must have a transparent timetable for entry and exit, and the President must guarantee Syria will be more democratic when we're done. The first criterion is doable but must not be mistaken for an inflexible pledge that hamstrings us in the face of changing situations. The second criterion is arguably hazardous. The third is impossible soothsaying.
But under all three, Rep. Kristi Noem transported to 2001 and 2003 would have voted against military intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq.
When Rep. Noem says we don't (read: she doesn't) want another Iraq or Afghanistan, she is implicitly saying invading Iraq and Afghanistan were bad ideas. Republicans, is this your new orthodoxy, or is "Not another Iraq! Not another Afghanistan!" just the convenient popular shorthand of the moment to cover your ceaseless anti-Obama campaign and avoid sincere analysis of the unique and complicated situation Syria presents?
Representative Noem: It's time to get back to Washington. Please know that your job depends on your decision to support our Presidents position on Syria. Waiting until Sept. 09 is not proper.
NOem is clearly saying that Bush's wars were not necessary and hurt the American military and pocketbook, deeply. She is correct on that and affirms her Obama support as his view is more or less the same. She needs a tea party challenger to further purge her alignment with Obama. Now, lets ask Marion what his view is. I think that he will be a square peg in a Rounds hole just like NOem. It is always fun to see hypocrites exposed.
Update: President Obama says he has the evidence, the justification, and the war powers authority to attack Syria, yet he is seeking Congressional authorization. As yet, neither the President nor Speaker Boehner sees the need to bring Noem and colleagues home early from recess to debate and vote on this momentous issue.
More time for NOem to sit in her pot of stew. She is cooked no matter what she does, kind of like she thought the President was. President Obama just pulled the rug out from under her and the rest of her lot. Could not have happened to a more sorry bunch.
I had one of my Republican friends ask me if I was for attacking Syria. This person was trying to paint me into a corner. If I was against going to Iraq how could I be for going to war in Syria.
I told this person that I was against going to war with Syria and the question I had for this person was why aren't you and other Republicans like Noem supporting Obama going to war?
Last time the Republicans were for going into Iraq even though there was no proof of WMDs. They should be for it now because there is proof that Syria used chemical weapons on its own people. The Republicans should be leading the charge to go to war.
They aren't though because it might make Obama look good. And they can't have that.
Owen, the WMD argument interests me. We justified our attack on Iraq as pre-empting the grave threat that Iraq would use its WMDs on us or our allies and/or pass those WMDs to terrorists, even though Saddam Hussein had no WMDs.
Syria has WMDs. Syria has used WMDs. Under our 2003 logic, isn't Syria demonstrating a greater risk to our national security and the security of our allies (especially Israel) than Iraq did?
What ever happen to the War Powers Act, I ask? We have obvious proof of WMD in Syria used by the Syrian political leadership against it civilians, but yet we must wait for people like Noem to return to Washington to properly act....?
I am not advocating a boots on the ground invasion, but a couple precise cruise missiles I think could get the job done. And any POTUS has that Constitutional right under the WPA as long as he/she notifies the Congressional leadership and any further US action does not precede beyond 45 days without a Congressionl Act of War.
The Obama administration understands politically the fatigue of war which has in recent years precipitated upon the American people, but Obama's political caution here does not serve well the Presidency nor its responsibilities or relationship with any future Congress and potential international crisis.
Cory, have some info for you - cannot get through your spam filter
Winston, it's struck me that maybe the Reagan-Bush strategy was to spend America into such debt that future Presidents wouldn't be able to spend any more on new programs, that a generation or two of politics would be dominated by talk of cuts. Did Bush Jr. do something similar with military intervention, wearing us out with two long, ill-defined occupations, one based on demonstrably false arguments, and thus leaving the current and future Presidents with much less room to use the War Powers Act and project force overseas?
Cory, that's a good point. There is definitely parallelism there between the two examples, but then the question becomes why would they want to diminish the War Powers Act, which could potentially give a future Neo-Con Republican President preeminent war powers. But the answer to that question is that such Neo-Cons see the Executive branch's war powers in a protracted sense and not as a momentary exercise of power, and, in order, to promote their geopolitical agenda(s) even they understand the need to have Congress on their side to shore-up the legitimacy of their often ill-conceived war ambitions, which a 45 day window of opportunity does not suffice.
[Bret: that's odd! Check your e-mail!]
"Winston, it's struck me that maybe the Reagan-Bush strategy was to spend America into such debt that future Presidents wouldn't be able to spend any more on new programs, that a generation or two of politics would be dominated by talk of cuts. Did Bush Jr. do something similar with military intervention, wearing us out with two long, ill-defined occupations."
Cory as much as I dislike W I have to say that he does love this country. He was the victim of his own ego, a corrupt VP who's ties to the CIA made him think that he was bullet proof, and a faulty assessment team that was forced into a preconceived conclusion from the facts that they were allowed to have. Never mind that those facts were later found to be false.
W was easily led and easily convinced of the WMDs because he wanted revenge for his dear old dad. Of course it didn't hurt that the war machine, "the defense contractors," also needed a boost in their income to continue their little party about that time either.
It's easy to get a congress critter to go along with something when their pockets are getting a fresh lining of green to help them make up their minds. So with faulty information, a president and VP preaching war, and an American public that wanted. I'm not sure anymore what they wanted. We headed down the trillion dollar wars road, the wrong one first and the right one last. Now we know we shouldn't have been in either place.
The Bushes were and are business people,like Robin Hood in reverse. They want to rob the poor to give to themselves. But they also know that the poor have to have something to rob or they wont get anything. I'm sure W never even took that into consideration when he went to war. He was to inept to think that way.
The Blindman
Blindman, Bush enriched himself at the great expense of this country. He and his crew are now lying their fannies off in his "library papers". You are spot on about his vp though, but W loves his money a hell of a lot more than country. Take a look at what he did with the NSA and how that little group has done what it is doing. Patriot Act? Not even. The fact that your keystrokes are read in real time by eyes that we are clueless about, shows that we are all blindmen.
Ehm . . . chemical weapons are NOT WMDs. Chemical weapons are psychological weapons. Over 100k died in the on-going Syrian conflict. Over 10% of the population fled the nation. All that occurred before the use of chemical weapons. Adding 1400 to a six-figure death toll is not significant.
Uh.... John Uh..... How can chemical weapons be psychological to a dead civilian victim? They are only psychological to a third party or a survivor, which is the case with any weapon. Direct psychological warfare upon the actual intended victim would be propaganda, show of force, or load music like what was used against Noriega in Panama when he was hiding out at the Papal Nuncio in Panama City, Panama back in 1989.
Also, any listing of WMD mentions chemical as one of the potential means. And to suggest that a particular lack of deaths from a given chemical attack makes such a means as not meeting a particular definition is to ignore the capability or potentially of such a weapon like a chemical weapon in the future, which any civil society has an obligation to note.
I paused when I mentioned WMDs as well: I had some doubt, like John, that chemical weapons fit that category. But chemical weapons figure prominently in the WMD language used in the Iraq discussions. The United Nations includes chemical weapons in its WMD category.
John's doubt does raise a valuable question: does the means of killing really make a difference in our moral judgment of killing? Why have we waited through the shooting and shelling of civilians only to act on the gassing of civilians? Why would it be less acceptable for Assad to ship a crate of chemical weapons to an ally than it is for us to ship tanks and fighter jets to our allies?
ehm, . . . Winston, "any listing" matters not. Civilians routinely confuse and disorient things military. The phrase originated in civilian diplomatic doctrine - ground in fear (the original psychological roots of the phrase). The Soviets began using the phrase in their military doctrine in the 1950s. The US applied the phrase to military doctrine in the 1990s.
The phrase, WMD, is almost meaningless due to its misuse, overuse, general uselessness (Lake Superior State Univ., 2003), and reinvented meanings to comport with the definers' "new" need. By one count WMD has over 50 definitions, see below.
A more common US/NATO Cold War definition included that WMDs use "high explosives" and 'caused massive destruction or casualties'. Biological and chemical weapons with the technology them and now, are incompatible with using high explosives for the true high explosion destroys or alters the biological or chemical agent and greatly interferes with a uniform dispersal required for surprise to overcome avoidance and other defensive measures. Causing high casualties from a biological or chemical attack is too uncertain for adequate military planning due to the properties of the agents, their dispersal, and the environment (nonuniform distribution, dilution, wind, ambient moisture, individuals resistance to doses, etc.). Thus, though the definition used the terms biological and chemical - the same definition's operational parameters precluded them from being true WMDs - no high explosive, lack of any reliable destruction or high casualties (recall the sarin attack in the Tokyo subway). Thus military planners concluded that biological and chemical weapons are really psychological weapons - weapons used or proposed for use to alter the enemies future behavior out of fear of their use or repeated use.
Consider: Defining Weapons of Mass Destruction, from the National Defense University; http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:NmmoAZHF6k8J:www.ndu.edu/press/lib/pdf/CSWMD-OccasionalPapers/CSWMD_OccationalPaper-8.pdf+&cd=6&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a
WMDs are defined in US law at:18 USC §2332a - a ubiquitous definition allowing the FBI to label a crock-pot a WMD - what a crock.
Whether chemical weapons are WMDs isn't the point here. Bush took us to war because of WMDs and it turned out to be a lie.
Obama wants to go to war because Syria used chemical weapons on its own people.
The point, I believe, is that the Republicans in congress (Noem) have to vote with Obama or look like hypocrites. It'll be interesting.
I'm guessing Noem will vote no on this.
John, what is gained for humanity by lessoning the fear of chemical warfare through an almost syntax discussion on the definition of WMDs and the relationship of a chemical attack to that of an alleged "true" weapon of mass destruction like nuclear or even biological warfare? No one doubts the political definition of WMDS, however, you question the technical or scientific definition of chemical warfare, in terms of WMD, as if it matters in a time of war. What individual conventional weapon has the means and capability to make a chemical attack, less than a conventional attack, and therefore making chemical capability not only not holding the bronze amongst WMDs, but rather 4th place behind conventional capabilities which do not even fall underneath most political or/and technological definitions of WMD, I ask?
Chemical weapons have the potential to cause mass destruction and loss of life. Survivors will always be pulled from the rubble of a successful "Shock and Awe," but less likely from a successful deployment of a chemical canister. There will always be "duds" amongst the chemical and even biological deployments, yes, but there will also be "duds" in a "Shock and Awe" air raid as well and, thus, only increasing the survival rate from a "Shock and Awe" conventional attack.
To qualify the definition of WMD by saying chemical weapons are truly not WMD does a disservice to a humane society and is merely the blackboard argument of a war college academician, who quantifies a chemical capability next to a nuclear capability rather than a conventional capability and the maintenance of a civil society. I ask, is Pluto a planet? To you it is not, but to me its a dwarf planet compared to a greater WMD like an ICMB nuclear warhead, but yet a planet.
Such an apologetic attitude towards chemical warfare only feeds its potential use in the future, which further explains and legitimatizes the political definition of WMD to begin with, which you appear to have such distain for.... Those who quantify war are most likely the ones who will most likely allow it to happen.
Read the following article by James Holmes in The Diplomat:
http://thediplomat.com/the-naval-diplomat/2013/08/31/chemical-weapons-are-not-a-wmd/
This article appears to given credence to your argument about chemical warfare and WMD, but only if you want to quantify a chemical capability rather than prevent it.
Then if you have more time read the following book: With Enough Shovels, by Robert Scheer
This book is a demonstrative example of how some military academicians enjoy quantifying warfare as if it is best for society and humanity. There is a reason for a political element in any debate, which the technical element often fails to accomplish - and our discussion about chemical capabilities and WMD so demonstrates this so well.