Amid worldwide protest, skepticism and scorn, Obama won't be bombing Syria today.
The sneakiest president since Tricky Dick Nixon has finally conceded what was more than obvious to anybody else with an ounce of integrity and a brain: That he needs congressional approval to declare war, even a "limited" one.
For the past few decades, however, many administrations similarly confronted with a souring domestic situation and charges of illegal doings have sidestepped the democratic process; successfully distracting the public by rushing into high profile and costly disputes with "enemies."
Obama himself, guilty of gross violations of the Constitution in implementing wide sweeping spy programs against citizens, allies and journalists, was hoping to take advantage of Congress being on recess for the summer to launch his "surgical" but "narrow" attack in the middle east.
He and other top ranking officials with a military industrial complex say they "have evidence" that Syrian forces led by president Bashar al-Assad maimed or killed over 1400 unarmed civilians last month using chemical weapons.
But thus far that claim and Obama's supposed outrage have been regarded both here and abroad with suspicion, and even the UK has refused to take part in a retaliatory strike, brief or otherwise.
Presently, UN inspectors are on the ground in Syria trying to ascertain if such outlawed weaponry was used or not. But they say it can take a few more weeks to definitively rule on the matter, a declaration that only seemed to make president Obama and his advisers more antsy.
America itself manufactures chemical weapons and has more than once used them on defenseless peoples as well as supported regimes which have done the same. Not to mention being the only nation ever to drop nuclear bombs and napalm on nonmilitary sites and cities.
The U.S. was also a key player in the extensive firebombing of Dresden during World War II. Again, a city full of tens of thousands of noncombatants, most of whom were scorched to death or slowly suffocated from lack of oxygen.
EPONYMOUS ROX
