Peacemonger

In 1980, the United States, under the leadership of Ronald Reagan, gave Saddam Hussein the ingredients he needed to make sarin gas to use against his own people, and to use against our enemies, Iran. He used the gas. He used it against Iraqi citizens. He used it against Kurds. He used it against Iran. The United States and Ronald Reagan looked the other way.

Tonight Barack Obama asked the American people what the world would look like if the United States looked the other way as a dictator crossed the red line and used sarin gas against his own people. Well, Mr. President, it will look like 1980. It will look like all the other times we looked the other way because it suited us to do so. 

Pretending that there are civilized rules in war is ludicrous -- war is the break down of civilization and the rules of civilization no longer apply. That is why we used Napalm against civilians in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam, which is why we used atomic weapons in WWII. And even back when Weapons of Mass Destruction were still guns and bullet, the United States used guns and bullets against women and children who had no weapons at all in order to steal their land.

The United States likes to pretend as if we have some moral superiority in war, but we have proven over and over that we are willing to get down in the mud with the worst of the worst.

Pretending you care about children being gassed to death by bombing them is insane. Is sarin gas worse than Napalm, which attached to human flesh and burns for days at a temperature of 1200 degrees celsius -- twelve times as hot as boiling water? Is sarin gas worse than dying slowly from losing a limp or being wounded by a bomb? Is sarin gas worse than being shot and wounded in a way that causes a slow death from sepsis? KILLING IS THE RID LINE! Killing civilians to punish people for killing civilians to show them that killing civilians is wrong if they don't kill them in ways we deem "civilized" is bullshit. It's f*****g bullshit. 

The President wants his war and he'll probably get it, just like Reagan got his Iraq/Iran war, just as Clinton got Kosovo, just as Bush got Iraq. When a President wants a war, we tend to give it to him -- and the partisan politicians will spin the war to suit their advantage, and to the disadvantage of the other party.

When we have to kill civilians in other countries to fight our political battles at home, we have become the evil we claim we want to protect ourselves from. Who will protect the world from us?