Pantywaist

President Obama is a pantywaist.  He has emphatically said that, if Bashar Assad were to use chemical weapons on his people, it would be a "game changer" and he would have crossed a “red line" (see: Economist Story).  Now, even his recently-appointed Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, has confessed that, “with some degree of varying confidence,” this has happened (see: NY Times Story).  And what does Obama do?  He equivocates.  "We must have irrefutable proof."  "We will ask the U.N. to validate this charge."  "We need more time."

Now I am not advocating that the U.S. send troops to Syria … neither do the vast majority of the American populace. But then again I don’t believe that we want a pissant President.  (There are a multitude of other options). If Obama was not going to do anything significant if Assad dumped sarin or chlorine gas on the people of Aleppo, then he should have kept his threatening words to himself … and not made an ass of himself once again on the world stage.  He has sent a strong message to the Iranian and other world leaders that “red lines” are in the eyes of the beholder … and they are nothing that a little Visine can’t cure.

WMDs

Yesterday was the tenth anniversary of George W. Bush’s inspired invasion of Iraq in order to secure its weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).  Even though the U.S. was successful in this military operation, the popular narrative is that there were no WMDs in Iraq … and thus “Bush lied, people died.” 

Now, the civil war in Syria is again raising the specter of WMDs which most concede that President Assad of Syria has at his disposal … see: The Atlantic Wire Story.  Many analysts believe that, in the months that it took George Bush to muster the U.N. support and the coalition forces to invade Iraq, Saddam Hussein merely transported these weapons into Syria where they now still reside.  If Bashar Assad has WMDs, surely Saddam Hussein did also.

Another incident in this on-going saga of  Iraqi WMDs was when ex-diplomat, Joe Wilson, said that his trip to Niger in 2002 produced no evidence that Iraq was trying to purchase yellowcake uranium from that country.  This was the trigger to the infamous Valarie Plame CIA-operative outing and huge investigation in a New York Times’attempt to defame many in the Bush administration.  Isn’t it funny that in 2008 the United State secretly transported 550 metric tons of yellowcake uranium out of Iraq and into Canada … see: NBC News Story

So, even though the popular narrative is that there were no WMDs in Iraq ten years ago, I think the evidence is not so conclusive.  However, going against the popular narrative is not the brightest thing to do if one wants to establish one's street creds.  But then truth has, for me, an insatiable appeal.  The popular narrative be damned.