Mid Rivers Newsmagazine 4-19-17

FACEBOOK.COM/MIDRIVERSNEWSMAGAZINE
MIDRIVERSNEWSMAGAZINE.COM
JOHN Stossel
April 19, 2017
MID RIVERS NEWSMAGAZINE
I OPINION I 3
TREE SERVICE
Warrior Trump
Somehow, firing Tomahawk missiles at
Syria suddenly changed people’s opinions
of President Trump. Now they call him a
“serious” leader.
William Kristol said Trump’s action
“reassures you.”
Senators Lindsey Graham and John
McCain, long critical of Trump, now say
he “deserves the support of the American
people.”
Politicians from France, the U.K., the
EU, Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Australia
expressed their support. So did Hillary
Clinton.
“Why is war such an alluring illusion?”
asks Jeffrey Tucker, of the Foundation for
Economic Education. “Good intentions are
never enough to justify government intervention
in anything. This is especially true
in war, the meanest, deadliest and most
destructive government program ever conceived.
And yet we keep doing it.”
Trump says pictures of Syrian children
killed by nerve gas moved him to order the
attack. His supporters say launching the
missiles was the “moral” thing to do.
But Syria’s dictator killed more children
in the past.
In 2013, after a horrible chemical attack,
Trump tweeted, “Do not attack Syria.
There is no upside and tremendous downside
... If the U.S. attacks Syria and hits the
wrong targets, killing civilians, there will
be worldwide hell to pay. Stay away.”
Fortunately, it appears that these missile
strikes didn’t kill civilians. But four years
ago, Trump also said, “What will we get
for bombing Syria besides more debt and a
possible long term conflict?”
What changed? Just seeing pictures on
TV?
For years, we’ve tried to sort out who is
on which side in Syria. Last week’s attack
was an awfully fast switch to military
action.
Both Democratic and Republican interventionists
focus on Assad as the bad guy.
Many say getting rid of him will make the
Syrian public less likely to side with ISIS.
Maybe. But they’ve been completely
wrong before about the aftermath of war. In
Syria, dozens of factions are fighting each
other. We don’t know the motives of all of
them. Some rebels Assad wants to crush
are openly allied with ISIS.
None of this makes Assad a good guy,
but it means we don’t know what will
replace him if he gets toppled. Fourteen
years ago, many people thought nothing
could be worse for Iraq than Saddam Hussein.
The groups unleashed when Saddam
fell were worse.
Before that, our support of “freedom
fighters” in Afghanistan helped arm the
Taliban and eventually ISIS. Today, they
kill Americans with weapons American
taxpayers paid for.
In Libya, Tucker reminds us, “The U.S.
intervened with airstrikes to overthrow
a terrible dictator but instead of unleashing
freedom, the results unleashed a terror
army that continues to spread violence and
death ... It is not enough merely to bomb
a government or regime into disgrace,
resignation or obliteration. It is grossly
irresponsible not to ask the question: what
comes after?”
We don’t even know for certain that it
was the Syrian president who used nerve
gas.
He claims his regime attacked anti-government
militias with conventional bombs,
and one must have hit gas that the militias
themselves stored.
I don’t know if that’s true, but I have a
hard time being as confident as people like
John McCain about what’s going on over
in the Middle East.
Even if Assad was responsible for the
nerve gas, it’s not obvious that using nerve
gas is a more horrendous crime than fighting
wars by other means. Nearly everyone
seems to think so, and chemical weapons
do drift in the air, making them more likely
to kill civilians. But families torn apart by
conventional bombs take little consolation
in knowing that what killed their relatives
wasn’t poison gas.
If Trump turns out to be like most past
presidents, he’ll see his popularity rise
because he took military action. George
W. Bush’s approval rating spiked 10 percent
after he invaded Iraq. When his father
invaded, his approval rating jumped 28
percent.
Trump loves being popular. I fear his
new slogan may be “Syria first, then North
Korea, then...”
© 2017 Creators.com
SPECIAL
SPRING
RATES
Call For Details
Located in St. Peters • Owners: Tom & Greg