Will military intervention mire us in another Middle East conflict?

Should more Americans Troops and more blood be shed and to what end?

Will this save lives or escalate the horror?

Intervention is Syria…to what end?

Dear Mr. President,

I understand that the Hawks are beating the drums for war and that some Doves are joining in because of the suffering of the Syrian people.  However this is a “civil war” in Syria and civil wars a inherently messy and bloody; the United States Civil War was no exception.  Both sides in this war are questionable to the interests of the United States.

Roughly 1,264,000 American soldiers have died in the nation’s wars–620,000 in the Civil War and 644,000 in all other conflicts.  It was only as recently as the Vietnam War that the amount of American deaths in foreign wars eclipsed the number who died in the American Civil War.  If we risk the lives of more American Sons and Daughters can you fully explain why we are doing this, to what end?

Will our intervention really make things better for the Syrian people as the Doves would have us believe?  114,168-125,082 Iraqi’s died in a United States intervention to find WMD’s.  So far in August 2013 alone 685 civilians have died in Iraq. Our intervention did not save Iraqi lives and our intervention did not stop the ongoing deaths of Iraqis.  The Bush Administration predicted that the conflict would be short and that the Iraqi people would welcome us with open arms.  The conflict lasted 10 years and the Iraqi people wanted us out and became allies with Iran.

The war in Afghanistan continues taking and destroying lives, both due to the direct consequences of violence and the war-induced breakdown of public health, security, and infrastructure. In 2004, life expectancy was measured at a mere 42 years; moreover, 25 percent of children did not reach the age of 5. The first half of 2011 saw the most intense fighting since the early part of the war and more lives have been lost as a result of war than when the Taliban was in control. 16,725-19,013 Civilians have died in Afghanistan since the war started.  So did we make things better?

Syria is not Kosovo, this is already a violent civil war with a potential to drag us into a horrific conflict that will be labeled the “DEMOCRATS” war, since a Democratic President committed us to this war.  Hillary Clinton lost the 2008 election by many accounts because she supported the war in Iraq.  This puts her in a difficult situation.  If she supports you in this ill-advised endeavor she will be vulnerable to Rand Paul who will undoubtedly stake out an anti-war position.  If Hillary does not support you that puts her on the opposite side of many of your die hard supporters.  In either case, she is unlikely to win the election if the “Democrats” take us into a full blown military intervention that embroils us into an out of control quagmire.

One of the rebel factions is the Syrian Liberation Front, numbering 37,000 fighters, and the Syrian Islamic Front, numbering 13,000 fighters, operate in Syria’s southeast and northeast respectively. Both of these groups espouse an Islamist ideology, in contrast to the self-declared non-sectarianism of the Free Syrian Army.  How many American lives, how much American blood are we willing to spill to help install yet another Islamist regime.  What will happen to the Syrian people when the country becomes an Islamist Nation with no guarantees for the minorities?  We saw what happened in Egypt when the Muslim Brotherhood won a legitimate democratic election, then quickly decided to dismantle democracy and freedoms of the Egyptian people.  Will our intervention bring more death to Assad supporters?  These are Syrian people also…no less deserving of life.

However the real true moral dilemma lies in Jabhat al-Nusra, to whom thousands of Free Syrian army fighters have apparently defected. Numbering only 5,000 fighters as of January, but now perhaps many more, al-Nusra’s core fighters come from Iraq’s post-war insurgency and have recently pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda in Iraq.  We have lost over 6,000 American Troops fighting Al-Qaeda and now we are going to arm them.  Al-Qaeda brought down the World Trade Center and hit the Pentagon.  Are they now our allies?  I sincerely doubt that.

“(Reuters) – The Syrian rebel commander who rose to international notoriety for footage of him cutting out and eating the organ of a slain soldier said he was willing to face trial for his actions if President Bashar al-Assad was also sent to court.

A video released on Friday showed the commander in Syria’s central Homs province, known as Abu Sakkar, praying in a field and taking questions from a cameraman.

“I am ready to be held accountable for my actions, on condition that Bashar and his shabbiha (militias) are tried for crimes they committed against our women and children,” he said.

“I send this message to the world: if the bloodshed in Syria does not stop, every Syrian will become Abu Sakkar.”

A video of Abu Sakkar, a founder of the well known Farouq Battalion in Homs, went viral earlier this week. It showed him cutting into the torso of a dead soldier and taking a bite out of one of his organs.”

Who are these rebels that seem to make the hearts of MSNBC and CNN bleed?  Their actions seem to be as equally as barbaric; will they be any more “humanitarian” than the Assad regime.  Will MSNBC and CNN take responsibility for outcome of these conflicts and the lives lost?  Yes it is hard to watch the horror in Syria, but will we make the horror even worse?  Can you assure us that that loss of more American lives and more American treasure will procure a better outcome?

As we pass the 50,000 American Troops wounded in the Iraq and Afghanistan war we need to really think about what we are committing ourselves too?  We cannot afford to be in a perpetual war, we cannot continue to ask the American People to give more treasure when we cannot save Social Security and Medicare, feed our hungry, provide affordable education to our children…we cannot even take care of the wounded warriors coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan. War does not seem to solve anything and our intervention is no guarantee that more Syrian Civilians will be saved…quite to the contrary, judging by history more will be lost…