A Terrible Reason To Go To War

The above chart was made from information provided on the website of RealClearPolitics. It shows clearly why the president has now taken his proposed military strike against Syria to Congress -- because the American public does not support it. Note that every one of the last six major polls shows that far more people oppose military strikes against Syria than support them -- and the average of those six polls shows only 32% supporting military action while a majority of people (52.2%) oppose it.

The president and his aides can read polls as well as anyone, and he decided he needed some political cover before attacking Syria -- and the best cover available is to get Congress to approve the military actions (and share in the blame for them). But Congress can read polls, too. And that is why the president is now pulling out all the stops to change public opinion -- and congressional opinions.

He will be speaking to the nation on Tuesday, but before that he will be giving interviews to the six most important TV news networks (NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, PBS, and Fox), that will be aired on their Monday night news shows. He will be using his speech and these interviews to convince as many Americans as possible that Syria must be punished for using chemical weapons, and that Syria's use of those weapons somehow impacts the security of the United States.

It remains to be seen whether those arguments will be accepted by a majority of Americans. The "bully pulpit" of a president can be a powerful weapon, but the American people are tired of wars that accomplish nothing but the killing of Americans and innocents in other countries, and it's going to take a lot of persuading to convince them an attack on Syria will accomplish much.

But as weak as the "security" and "punishment" arguments are, there is one even worse -- an argument the president's aides are using to try to get Democrats in Congress to support the attacks. The New York Times is reporting that those Democrats are being told "the president needs you to save him from a debilitating public defeat".

I can understand that the president doesn't want to suffer an embarrassing political defeat, but that has to be one of the worst reasons to go to war that I've ever heard. How can killing innocent civilians, which will surely happen with missile or bombing attacks, be justified just to protect the political reputation of a president (of either party). The United States has gone to war for a variety of bad reasons in the past, but this may be the worst reason yet, and I hope none of theose congressional Democrats fall for it.