Syria is a disaster.
Syria is an international failure. Syria is a failure of American leadership. Syria is a failure of humanity. Syria is a win for Iranian expansionism. Syria is a win for Islamic terror. Syria is a win for despots. Syria is a win for Russian aggression and expansion. Syria is the epicenter of a Trojan-horse, terrorist invasion in the name of “refugees.”
Syria is ground zero for World War IV.
For those not keeping track, the cold war was considered World War III. It was fought internationally by proxy. However, the coming World War IV will be a war involving superpowers, former superpowers, and wanna-be superpowers.
War is diplomacy by other means. In the absence of leadership, in the vacuum of morality, and often under the guise of non-intervention, conditions for war incubate until the virus leads to a full outbreak. We are there.
The second Syrian chemical gas attack on civilians is a direct result of American and international weakness combined with the dastardly, evil, cowardice of the puppet Assad and the rogue communist dictator Vladimir Putin. Putin uses assassins to kill political enemies with poison and radiation, so green-lighting chemical attacks against civilian Muslims in Syria is no big deal for him. It’s the same moral choice he makes each day in choosing his Vodka. He doesn’t care as long as it gets the job done. The job in Syria is to expose US weakness, create chaos, export terror into the west through refugees, and force America and the west into an action or war it won’t fight.
Putin and Assad bitch-slapped Barack Obama.
The single greatest Russian scandal in America is not the phony Trumpgate story. it is Russian expansion, aggression and war in the face of American weakness. The cowering, sniveling, naïve Obama gave us the Syria, Russia, and Putin we have today. He put us closer to world war.
Obama permitted the invasion and annexation of the Crimea. He permitted the invasion and ongoing war in Ukraine. He turned Egypt to Russia, he brought Russia and Iran together, and he let the Russians into Syria to back Assad … after he said Assad must go. Assad is still there and Mr. Obama is gone.
So emboldened by the Obama weakness was Mr. Putin that he set out to disrupt and destroy our county. The false flag of election influence is one-dimensional thinking. He set out to create the conditions in the United States where he would destabilize our government, call into question its legitimacy, and create such division that the next administration would be fighting to survive, rather than working to stop Russian expansionism and communist hegemony.
Liberal progressive rubes don’t even understand that their #resistance is really the American army of a communist dictator. We are a country of useful idiots. Everything that has happened to date is on Barack Obama’s bill of incompetence yet to be paid by the American people. Pay we will.
None of this reality excuses from action President Trump.
I fully embrace the concept of America first. However, I reject the notion of America only. The Syrian disaster is really an anti-west, anti-American, proxy war by Russia against the sole remaining superpower. The former KGB Colonel is trying to reunite the Soviet empire and give payback to America and the West for its fall. We can stop them now, or we can wait until they grow stronger. Short of an improbable Russian democratic revolution, fight them we will. Lose they must.
President Trump must act decisively, wisely and unapologetically.
Any US action in Syria must have a clearly stated objective and the full backing of the American people. The objective in Syria can’t be merely punitive strikes to show our dislike for chemical attacks. We must destroy drive Assad from power, and drive all foreign powers from Syria … that includes ISIS, Iran, and Russia.
To do this, we need a declaration of war to put behind the US a seriousness of our intentions and to give to our military the full powers necessary to quickly, immediately, and unapologetically meet our objective. This is not nation-building. That nation has been destroyed. This is chasing the demons from the land.
One might ask, fairly, what is the American interest in Syria?
First, stopping Russian and Iranian expansion is in our interest. Destroying ISIS, as the President promised, is in our interest. Stopping nearly a million refugees, which includes pockets of planted terrorists from proliferating ally countries or trying to enter America is in our interest. Stopping a religious genocide is in our interest, and stopping the use and acceptance of chemical weapons is in our interest. A stable, secure, Syria is part of American interests in too many ways to calculate.
Some might ask, simply: aren’t you really trying to start World War IV? Or, they may ask: isn’t this exactly what ISIS wants? Let’s take those questions in turn.
The War is on; we are losing. That we are not fighting, do not recognize the issues and interests, and do not acknowledge the threat does not make the war any less real or dangerous. There is no “peace in our time” merely because we refuse to act. The left has long confused the absence of joining the fight with peace.
Peace is when no one wants to fight and no one is fighting. Peace is not when one side is fighting and seizing ground and the initiative while the other hopes the fight goes away. The Russians have a communist dictator leading an advanced military regime that really is in no position to challenge the US military if the US commits to war and brings to bear the resources it has to do the job. In victory comes peace.
Putin will hightail it from Syria and cause problems for us elsewhere, likely in the Baltic states where our NATO allies must be ready. If Putin chooses to defend Assad, the chemical weapons dictator, he risks a possible all-out war with the US that he cannot win right now. Putin is evil, not stupid. That’s why the declaration of war is essential, along with a strong pre-war build-up led by Mattis, who will explain why the Russians and the Iranians ought to leave before we crush them.
If the Russians choose to stand and fight, then know that they were always on a collision course to fight us, and it will now happen at the time, place, and under the conditions of our choosing.
The second question is from the Obama playbook of weakness. Do some religious zealots in ISIS want to fight their personal Jihad against US soldiers? You bet. Many Japanese kamikazes were equally honored to give their lives for the emperor against America. Wars, however, are won and lost by killing the enemy and destroying their ability and desire to make war. ISIS stands no chance on any battlefield with a fully engaged US military with the power, strength, resources, and resolve to defeat them, without regard to enemy casualties.
The only objectives of war are unconditional surrender or complete destruction. If America can’t commit to that … then don’t go to war.
Any US war to destroy ISIS and drive Iran and Russia from Syria would have to look like WWII or Desert Storm. It cannot look like Iraq, Vietnam, or Afghanistan. That is why the Constitutional declaration of war is the only starting point. With it, must come the mandate of unconditional surrender. Moreover, the maximum application of US power, including air resources like those employed against Germany and Japan would be essential to annihilate the enemy and cripple them before one single ground force took the land back.
Without that commitment … we cannot send Americans in harm’s way … Ever.
America is a superpower in decline. Our military is not the issue, despite cutbacks and force reductions. Our decline stems from our loss of moral authority. We have surrendered our national resolve, which is a symptom of moral and cultural regression. We have no unifying sense of national purpose, and internally we are closer to civil war than we have been since the months prior to Fort Sumter.
We have never been in a worse position to strike out and lead the world, yet not since WWII has it been more necessary for our country to stop the advance of our enemies. Russia, Iran, North Korea, and ISIS are our enemies.
The West is in peril.
The Russians are trying to put the gang back together. North Korea is wreaking havoc as the dysfunctional, irrational, agent of the communist pirate country China. The Chinese are on the prowl in international waters. The Iranians are on the move across the middle east. ISIS is fighting along-side sympathizers in nearly a dozen countries. The Baltics fear invasion.
The Crimea was our modern Sudetenland. Ukraine is our modern Poland. Syria is the genocide.
France is fighting a war against radical Islam in its streets, and the invasion of religious fanatics throughout Europe is destabilizing, radicalizing, and transforming former allies. Deny these facts at your own risk.
Mr. Trump has been handed a complete mess. The mess, however, is now his. War is here. We are not fighting, which means we are losing.
The longer we don’t fight, the stronger our unique blend of enemies become, and the more emboldened they are by our weakness, apathy, and political fragility.
Syria is where America must restore world order. It is not for the purpose of glory or conquest, but for the survival of the West and to halt the advance of our enemies worldwide.
Author: Richard Kelsey
Richard Kelsey is the Editor-in-Chief of Committed Conservative.
He is a trial Attorney and author of a #11 best-selling book on Amazon written on higher education, “Of Serfs and Lords: Why College Tuition is Creating a Debtor Class”
Rich is also the author of the new Murder-Mystery series, “The ABC’s of Murder,” book one is titled, “Adultery.”
Rich is a former Assistant Law School Dean and Law Professor. At Mason Law Kelsey conceived of, planned, and brought to fruition Mason’s Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property, known as CPIP, drawing on his expertise as a former CEO of a technology company specializing in combating cyber-fraud.
In 2014 he was elected by the graduating class as the faculty speaker at their graduation.
He is a regular commentator on legal and political issues in print, radio and on TV. Rich has appeared on hundreds of stations as a legal expert or political commentator. He provided the legal analysis for all stages of the Bob McDonnell trial and appeal for numerous outlets including NPR and WMAL.
Rich also writes on occasion for the American Spectator and CNSNews.com.
In his free time, Rich is part of the baseball mafia of Northern Virginia, serving on numerous boards and as a little league and travel baseball coach.
His Twitter handle is @richkelsey.
