Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 7:59pm

Various & Sundry, 9/3/13

Tonight’s V&S has a Syria-heavy theme. It’s pretty much what everyone’s talking about, so I apologize in advance.

Not so Smart Power

If there’s a sub-theme to tonight’s post it’s that everything you heard Democrats say a few years vis a vis foreign policy has basically been discredited within the past few weeks – if not more. Jim Geraghty discussed this in his Morning Jolt, parts of which he highlighted on NRO.

As we await Congress’s decision on authorizing the use of U.S. military force in Syria, Democrats are suddenly realizing that their foreign-policy brain-trust completely misjudged the world.

Being nicer to countries like Russia will not make them nicer to you. The United Nations is not an effective tool for resolving crises. Some foreign leaders are beyond persuasion and diplomacy. There is no “international community” ready to work together to solve problems, and there probably never will be.

You can pin this on Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Susan Rice, but most of all, the buck stops with the president. Those of us who scoffed a bit at a state senator ascending to the presidency within four years on a wave of media hype and adoration are not quite so shocked by this current mess. We never bought into this notion that getting greater cooperation from our allies, and less hostility from our enemies, was just a matter of giving this crew the wheel and letting them practice, as Hillary Clinton arrogantly declared it, “smart power.” (These people can’t even label a foreign-policy approach without reminding us of how highly they think of themselves.) They looked out at the world at the end of the Bush years, and didn’t see tough decisions, unsolvable problems, unstable institutions, restless populations, technology enabling the impulse to destabilize existing institutions, evil men hungry for more power, and difficult trade-offs. No, our problems and challengers were just a matter of the previous hands running U.S. foreign policy not being smart enough.

The President Must Make His Case Directly

Kurt Schlicter, meanwhile, argues that the President must make his appeal for war directly to the people. His column is worth reading if only for the first few paragraphs.

The grossly obese Syrian officer was coming in the door of the King Khalid Military City exchange while I was coming out. I saw instantly that this was no soldier; this was a thug, a threat only to the unarmed civilians that are his kind’s prey. My eyes fell downward from his cruel face to the piece of flair gracing his olive green fatigues.

“Nice Assad button,” I sneered. Real warriors don’t wear pictures of dictators on their uniform. He glared back at me with his dark, rat eyes, not understanding my words but fully appreciating my contempt. Though Syria was a putative coalition partner, I knew I was staring at an enemy.

Not much has changed since Operation Desert Storm. The Syrian regime’s “soldiers” are still just punks fit only to oppress the defenseless, unable to even hold their own against a ragged band of barely-armed insurgents. But like the vast majority of Americans, I have grave concerns about attacking them.

Guess Who Came to Dinner

Yes, I know there’s a limit to these gotcha games, but in light of all the mileage the left got out of the picture of Donald Rumsfeld shaking Saddam’s hand, this is delightful.

Speaking of shaking hands, heh.

Russia’s False Concern for Children

Not directly related to Syria, though it does concern its BFF.

 

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Elaine Krewer
Admin
Wednesday, September 4, AD 2013 6:28am

Here’s an item to add for today (Sept. 4) if you haven’t heard about it already:

The National Park Service was (until recently) requiring local churches to get permits 48 hours in advance for performing immersion baptisms in the Ozark National Scenic Riverway in Missouri — that is, until the local Congressman called them out on it:

http://jasonsmith.house.gov/media-center/weekly-capitol-report/capitol-report-permits-for-baptisms

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/08/30/btodd-american-dispatchb-feds-forced-churches-to-get-baptism-permits/?test=latestnews

No permit is needed to swim in said river, by the way. This also isn’t the first instance of state or federal parks cracking down on baptisms in public waters either (other examples are cited in the Fox News story).

Elm
Elm
Wednesday, September 4, AD 2013 9:55am

Are we really sure who is the villain and who is the good guy in this debacle? Feeling like we are caught in a bad rendition of What’s My Line. There will be no winners in this deadly game we are playing. How do we know Assad wasn’t set up by those we will be supplying with arms? What is in it for him to gas his countrymen? Guess we will have to wait until the Friday p.m. media dump to find out.

Jeanne Rohl
Jeanne Rohl
Wednesday, September 4, AD 2013 1:24pm

In Capulin Colorado the little church of St. Joseph has had a parish Mass for decades near a little mountain stream up in the San Jaun Mountains. This year the Mass was cancelled as they received a notice that they had to have a”permit” which apparently for the parish was an extravagant expense.. It is a very poor parish and well known for it’s “Penitente” heritage. They have exposition of the Blessed Sacrament every day. They “tithe” a certain amount every month to help a little church school in Mexico. Most of the parishoners were born and raised there and founded the church hundreds of years ago. What’s wrong with this picture. The problem is these people are so humble and work so hard just to keep the Church going. There is one priest from Nigeria and he serves 5 mission parishes! freedom of religion? I think not.

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