Dear Editor:
On Aug. 29 the News Tribune carried an Associated Press article in which President Obama was quoted as saying, "We (his administration, not the U.S. citizenry) have concluded that the Syrian government in fact carried these (poison gas attacks) out. And if that's so, then there need to be international consequences."
Let's look at his grammar. If the administration has concluded a finding, then why does his next sentence start with "And if that's so"? The president has, even if it is a Freudian slip, indicated to all of us, by use of an "if' transition, that the administration really has no conclusive evidence that the Assad regime is responsible for the gas attacks that have taken place.
In the Aug. 31 paper Secretary of State Kerry is quoted as saying, "... it (taking some military action against Syria) is directly related to our credibility and whether countries still believe the United States when it says something. They are watching to see if Syria can get away with it (using weapons of mass destruction against one's own population) because then maybe they, too, can put the world at greater risk."
Secretary Kerry makes the false conclusion that non-vetted statements by the president of the United States are the same as statements of the U.S. government.
Our country is not the president, it is the citizenry, and I have not yet spoken with a single Mid-Missourian who thinks that intervention in Syria is a good idea. This beating of the drums of war is very damaging to our nation's standing and security. This administration simply has things wrong.
Given that this yet to be defined retaliation will be "measured" and "no boots on the ground" and "maybe a targeted cruise missile strike" indicates that we are considering an ineffectual and token action. That kind of action is what weakens U.S. credibility internationally.
While the use of poison gas against one's own people is a horrible act, it is not an act that the United States should react to militarily.
All the president has achieved to this point is a temporary increase in the price of oil. Let us hope that the damage ends here. His ego is not important enough to endanger any of our troops or our national economy.
We should all let our federal senators and representatives know we do not support such actions.
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