News Flash: 90,473,000: Record Number Not in Labor Force--Up Almost 10M Under Obama
90,473,000:
Record Number Not in Labor Force--Up Almost 10M Under Obama - See more
at:
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/90473000-record-number-not-labor-force-almost-10m-under-obama#sthash.RJEFKyBl.dpuf
90,473,000:
Record Number Not in Labor Force--Up Almost 10M Under Obama - See more
at:
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/90473000-record-number-not-labor-force-almost-10m-under-obama#sthash.RJEFKyBl.dpuf
90,473,000:
Record Number Not in Labor Force--Up Almost 10M Under Obama - See more
at:
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/90473000-record-number-not-labor-force-almost-10m-under-obama#sthash.RJEFKyBl.dpuf
Kliphnote: What is Obama's game plan? "Shot across the bow." "No regime change". Than why do anything if you aren't going to do anything? OMG!
- September 5, 2013, 6:40 p.m. ET
Noonan: Why America Is Saying 'No'
Syria and Obama: Wrong time, wrong place, wrong plan, wrong man.
It
is hard, if you've got a head and a heart, to come down against a
strong U.S. response to Syria's use of chemical weapons against its
civilian population. This is especially so if you believe that humanity
stands at a door that leads only to darkness. Those who say, "But Saddam
Hussein used chemical weapons—the taboo was broken long ago," are
missing the point. When Saddam used gas against the Kurds it was not
immediately known to all the world. It was not common knowledge. The
world rued it in retrospect. Syria is different: It is the first
obvious, undeniable, real-time, YouTubed use of chemical weapons. The
whole world knew of it the morning after it happened, through horrified,
first-person accounts, from videos of hospital workers and victims'
families.
The world this time cannot "not know," or claim not to know. And
though Bashar Assad has made his pro forma denials, it does not seem
believable that this was not a government operation. Assad's foes may or
may not be wicked enough to use such weapons, but it is hard to believe
they are capable.
When something like this happens and the world knows and does not
respond, you won't get less of it in the future, you'll get more. And
the weapons will not only be chemical.
So the question: What to do?
After 10 days of debate in Europe and America, the wisest words on a
path forward have come from the Pope. Francis wrote this week to
Vladimir Putin, as the host of the G-20. He damned "the senseless
massacre" unfolding in Syria and pleaded with the leaders gathered in
St. Petersburg not to "remain indifferent"—remain—to the
"dramatic situation." He asked the governments of the world "to do
everything possible to assure humanitarian assistance" within and
without Syria's borders.
But, he said, a "military solution" is a "futile pursuit."
And he is right. The only strong response is not a military response.
Randy Jones
The world must think—and speak—with
stature and seriousness, of the moment we're in and the darkness on the
other side of the door. It must rebuke those who used the weapons,
condemn their use, and shun the users. It must do more, in
concert—surely we can agree on this—to help Syria's refugees. It must
stand up for civilization.
But a military strike is not the way, and not the way for America.
Francis was speaking, as popes do, on the moral aspects of the
situation. In America, practical and political aspects have emerged, and
they are pretty clear.
The American people do not support military action. A Reuters-Ipsos
poll had support for military action at 20%, Pew at 29%. Members of
Congress have been struck, in some cases shocked, by the depth of
opposition from their constituents. A great nation cannot go to war—and
that's what a strike on Syria, a sovereign nation, is, an act of
war—without some rough unity as to the rightness of the decision.
Widespread public opposition is in itself reason not to go forward.
Can the president change minds? Yes, and he'll try. But it hasn't
worked so far. This thing has jelled earlier than anyone thought. More
on that further down.
What are the American people thinking? Probably some variation of: Wrong time, wrong place, wrong plan, wrong man.
Twelve years of war. A sense that we're snakebit in the Mideast. Iraq
and Afghanistan didn't go well, Libya is lawless. In Egypt we threw
over a friend of 30 years to embrace the future. The future held the
Muslim Brotherhood, unrest and a military coup. Americans have grown
more hard-eyed—more bottom-line and realistic, less romantic about
foreign endeavors, and more concerned about an America whose culture and
infrastructure seem to be crumbling around them.
The administration has no discernible strategy. A small, limited
strike will look merely symbolic, a face-saving measure. A strong, broad
strike opens the possibility of civil war, and a victory for those as
bad as or worse than Assad. And time has already passed. Assad has had a
chance to plan his response, and do us the kind of damage to which we
would have to respond.
There is the issue of U.S. credibility. We speak of this constantly
and in public, which has the effect of reducing its power. If we bomb
Syria, will the world say, "Oh, how credible America is!" or will they
say, "They just bombed people because they think they have to prove
they're credible"?
We are, and everyone knows we are, the most militarily powerful and
technologically able nation on earth. And at the end of the day America
is America. We don't have to bow to the claim that if we don't attack
Syria we are over as a great power.
Are North Korea and Iran watching? Sure. They'll always be watching.
And no, they won't say, "Huh, that settles it, if America didn't move
against Syria they'll never move against us. All our worries are over."
In fact their worries, and ours, will continue.
Sometimes it shows strength to hold your fire. All my life people
have been saying we've got to demonstrate our credibility—that if we,
and the world, don't know we are powerful by now we, and they, will
never know.
Finally, this president showed determination and guts in getting
Osama bin Laden. But a Syria strike may become full-scale war. Is Barack
Obama a war president? On Syria he has done nothing to inspire
confidence. Up to the moment of decision, and even past it, he has
seemed ambivalent, confused, unaware of the implications of his words
and stands. From the "red line" comment to the "shot across the bow,"
from the White House leaks about the nature and limits of a planned
strike to the president's recent, desperate inclusion of Congress, he
has seemed consistently over his head. I have been thinking of the
iconic image of American military leadership, Emanuel Leutze's painting
"Washington Crossing the Delaware." There Washington stands, sturdy and
resolute, looking toward the enemy on the opposite shore. If you imagine
Mr. Obama in that moment he is turned, gesturing toward those in the
back. "It's not my fault we're in this boat!" That's what "I didn't set a
red line" and "My credibility is not at stake" sounded like.
And looked like.
***
A point on how quickly public opinion has jelled. There
is something going on here, a new distance between Washington and
America that the Syria debate has forced into focus. The Syria debate
isn't, really, a struggle between libertarians and neoconservatives, or
left and right, or Democrats and Republicans. That's not its shape. It
looks more like a fight between the country and Washington, between the
broad American public and Washington's central governing assumptions.
I've been thinking of the "wise men," the foreign policy mandarins of
the 1950s and '60s, who so often and frustratingly counseled
moderation, while a more passionate public, on right and left, was
looking for action. "Ban the Bomb!" "Get Castro Out of Cuba."
In the Syria argument, the moderating influence is the public, which
doesn't seem to have even basic confidence in Washington's higher
wisdom.
That would be a comment on more than Iraq. That would be a comment on the past five years, too.
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