The stampede towards waging war on ISIS and whoever else is quite weird. I see no real discussions of the sense of it all. How much will this cost? What are possible unintended consequences? How long will it take? How will we know when it is over?
No one seems to ask these questions. Instead this is considert to be journalism and reporting on teh issue:
Over a dinner of D’Anjou pear salad and Chilean sea bass, Obama, Vice President Biden and the outside experts engaged in a deep discussion of the options to combat the Islamic State, those who participated said.
"D’Anjou pear salad" – how interesting. But what are the options discussed, what are their up- and downsides and what are their costs? There is nothing about that in the Washington Post. The fourth estate is gone, nowhere to be found.
But what about the parliament. Isn't the United States supposed to be a democracy? What about those people who were voted into Congress? Cowards:
Democratic leaders in the Senate and Republican leaders in the House want to avoid a public vote to authorize force, fearing the unknown political consequences eight weeks before the midterm elections on Nov. 4.
“A lot of people would like to stay on the sideline and say, ‘Just bomb the place and tell us about it later,’ ” said Representative Jack Kingston, Republican of Georgia, who supports having an authorization vote. “It’s an election year. A lot of Democrats don’t know how it would play in their party, and Republicans don’t want to change anything. We like the path we’re on now. We can denounce it if it goes bad, and praise it if it goes well and ask what took him so long.”
Obama would be crazy to let Congress get with this position. A war on ISIS will certainly have some very bad consequences, as any war does, and he will be solely blamed for all of them should Congress be allowed to dodge its responsibility.
Should Congress be forced to vote the real discussion, missing now, would have to take place and the vote in the end would likely be a resounding "No!"
These are the two groups. Which one would have, after an open public discussion, more support with the people?
some lawmakers in both parties will team with conservatives who do not want to support Mr. Obama on anything to oppose or limit any authorization of force, Mr. Kingston said. Hawks in the Republican Party will team with pro-Israel lawmakers and humanitarian interventionists in support.
The warmongers are of course trying to avoid the discussion and the vote and that is why they are pressing the stampede and hope that everyone else will panic with them and jump off the cliff.
The reporting today makes it look as if Obama has already taken the decision to, illegally by the way, bomb Syria. I sense a lot of hawkish spin in that and will not be surprised should Obama kick the problem over to Congress and demand a vote.
