U.S. Government Moves Toward A Wider War In Mid-East

(This image of Kerry asking Congress for more war funds is from rt.com.)

More than three-quarters of the United States Senate voted to fund the arming and training of some Syrian rebels to oppose ISIS (and the Assad government). The same measure was approved by the House already by more than a 120 vote margin. And both in the House and Senate, there were members of both political parties voting to inch ever closer to getting back into a full-blown war in the Middle East. We are already bombing in Iraq, getting ready to bomb in Syria, and even though the president promised there would be no "boots on the ground" in that area, we have over a thousand soldiers now in Iraq. This we send to arm and train the Syrian rebels will just increase that number.

Time and time again, I listened to senators from both parties say that ISIS posed a serious threat to the United States. That is just an outrageous lie. ISIS poses no military threat to the United States at all -- and if they pose some kind of terrorist threat, that should be handled by the FBI (with the help of the CIA) and not by military intervention in some foreign country. We supposedly went to Afghanistan to stop the terrorist threat of al-Queda, and we are still there nearly 14 years later -- and the threat still exists while there seems to be no end to that ridiculous war. Are we now going to make that same mistake in Syria and Iraq?

While ISIS poses no military threat to the United States, it does pose a military threat to the countries of that region. Why aren't those countries acting in their own defense. Why is the United States (with a little help from other Western nations) doing the heavy lifting for them. The nations in the Mid-East should be leading the effort against ISIS, but they are still on the sidelines. Until they take charge of their own self-defense, the Western nations, including the United States, should be taking no action. This is not really our war, and we are doing nothing but creating new enemies by taking the lead in this religious fight.

We have let ourselves be scared (by the military-industrial complex and its congressional supporters) into a state of perpetual war, and it makes no sense. It is good for the corporate bank accounts, but it is bad for the United States. Terrorism cannot be defeated with military power, but must be fought as the criminal enterprise that it is -- and that can only be done by law enforcement and intelligence services.

I simply cannot support the president on this. He has gone down the same road to endless war that Bush started (and couldn't finish) -- and he has taken too many Democrats down that road with him.

The following 22 senators voted "no" on the resolution:

INDEPENDENT
Bernie Sanders (Vermont)

DEMOCRATS
Tammy Baldwin (Wisconsin)
Mark Begich (Alaska)
Sherrod Brown (Ohio)
Kirsten Gillibrand (New York)
Patrick Leahy (Vermont)
Joe Manchin (West Virginia)
Edward Markey (Massachusetts)
Christopher Murphy (Connecticut)
Elizabeth Warren (Massachusetts)

REPUBLICANS
John Barrasso (Wyoming)
Tom Coburn (Oklahoma)
Mike Crapo (Idaho)
Ted Cruz (Texas)
Mike Enzi (Wyoming)
Dean Heller (Nevada)
Mike Lee (Utah)
Jerry Moran (Kansas)
Rand Paul (Kentucky)
Jim Risch (Idaho)
Pat Roberts (Kansas)
Jeff Sessions (Alabama)