In order not to make America and its leader impotent in foreign affairs, many Republicans appear to rཧeluctantly support President Obama’s attack on Syria (“The War Congress,” Editorial, Sept. 4🀅).
This is being done to protect the office of the presidency and not Obama himself. However, the president has delayed for almost two years trying to build a consensus both within America and with our allies on this obvious tragedy taking place in S💮yria.
Obama has pontificated on what America would do all these months to the point where he has absolutely no credibility. Now he has to come to the Republ💧icans for cover.
He’s been an abject disaster on foreign policy,ꩵ and our country’s prestige has suffered foꦿr it.
H. M. Fishman
Manhattan
If the president strikes Syria without congressional approval, we should impeach him. We have no strat🧸egic interest there. It is not an imminent threat to us, and Syrians are fighting a civil war.
Now that the rest of the world is calling Obama a coward, he has decided to give them a little strike. But you don’t start a war because you have lost face, and that is exactly what it is: a war.
Suppose Syria were to give us a little strike, in Washington, DC, New York City or anywhere else? You don’t think for one second th﷽at we would not call that an act of war?
Atrocities happen all over this world, but we🤡 don’t start a war over it. We are not the world’s police force.
Cindy Conti
Apollo Beach, Fla.
Here is a suggestion for the GOP in the two houses. Take a page from what Obama has💜 done so many times: Just vote “present,” and punt the ball back into his court.
Sam Birnbaum
Oceanside
More than 100,000 lives have been l🍰ost in Syria the past few years. Where was the outcry?
Now, 1,500 lives were snuffed out due to chemical weapons. Why are these lives more important or more valuable to warrant a missile attack now?
Could we not have imposed sanctions?꧋ Cut off our funds to their military? Cut off other supplies to thi⭕s regime before it all escalated?
Are there not other avenues? Did our government suddenly realize there was some benefit to being involved? If so, what? It’s déjà vu all over again, like Iraq🅷.
We, the people, are bone-war-weary. Our taxes are i🐷nvolved in torture, assassinations and un💟warranted invasions. We are 59 percent against the missile attack.
When was the last time our government listened to the people? Our own country is in desperate need of attention. We don’t 😼need more trillions in debt.
Anyone for returning Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize?
Joyce Benedict
Hyde Park
Whatever or whomever convinced Obama to recons𓆏ider his “go it alone” plan to fire cruise missiles at Syrian targets, the change was absolutely correct.
From a constitutional s꧃tandpoint, congressional approval is a must. Additionally, the idea was strategically and geo-politically a poor one.
Both sides in Syria are vehemently opposed to Israel’s existence, and neither can be described as friendly to the United States. Initially, two-and-a-half years ago, the rebel forces consisted of ordꦗinary Syrian people who despaired of the brutal, despotic regime under which they lived. Those forces are now infiltrated and dominated by al Qaeda and other jihadi groups.
Their intentions, if they should prevail against the Assad regime, would bri🧸ng to Syria a terrorism element most unfriendly to Israel, America and the entire Middle East.
Some conflicts, such as the Iran🤡-Iraq war fought in the ’80s, are 🎀a boon to civilized people.
No sane, civi▨lized person approves of chemical weapons used in armed conflict, but the overriding point for the Untied States is to stay completely out of this latest Middle East con💧flict, which has all the earmarks of another entanglement we would live to regret.
Myron Hecker
New City