Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam. All these countries have one factor in common: Intervention by the United States. Upon leaving office, Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of the “military industrial complex” and the possible perils in the future. Clearly, nobody heeded the warning.
President Barack Obama has proposed a measure to start missile strikes on Bashir Al-Assad’s troops in Syria who are fighting numerous rebel groups. The United Nations has conducted surveys on alleged gas strike sites. There has been “evidence” of the use of saran gas against the rebels, but who are we to point the finger? The United States notoriously used chemical weapons throughout its military history. Agent Orange is still wreaking havoc in Vietnam through a resistant chemical known as dioxin, causing health defects in 2nd and even 3rd generation Vietnamese.
The Syria situation has similar echoes to that of the Vietnam War. Although the United States no longer officially practices the foreign policy of containment against Communist nations (Cuba and North Korea exceptions), the solution here is no different than the one proposed all those years ago. Ho Chi Minh was similarly a dictator of epic proportions and exhibited a similar leadership style to that of Assad, ruling with an iron fist. The United States had started by drafting the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, essentially giving them a blank check to ward off “any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.”
Does President Obama’s resolution not reek of the same grounds? After American advisers had been attacked by Viet Cong guerilla forces, then president Lyndon B. Johnson stepped up involvement by launching Operation Rolling Thunder and increasing troop presence in the area. What had started as a simple observe-and-train mission had escalated into full-on US involvement. By the end of 1966 there were 385,000 troops in South Vietnam. It was a massive financial and tactical blunder by the Pentagon, costing the United States 168.1 $ billion dollars total.
Defense spending has already been on the rise since the Bush administration had left office, and is expected to have a slight decrease from 729$ Billion to 716$ billion. And for what? To keep being the international police force for the Middle East? The Syrian campaign will only start and continue as poorly as these other mismanaged interventions. MSNBC reports that one tomahawk cruise missile costs anywhere between 607,000 to 1.4 million dollars. And now President Obama plans to launch myriads of these projectiles at Assad’s troops? Talk about burning a hole in your pocket.
Now, I’m not trying to say Assad should be allowed to bulldoze the rebels into oblivion. John Locke stated that every human being should be afforded their most basic human rights, and he is undoubtedly right. Right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The United States should not act solely in this matter. If they are to continue intervening in the Middle East powder keg of chaos and confusion, we will only dig ourselves a deeper hole. So I ask you, I ask all of you to heed my warning about the United States dipping its toes in another countries’ revolutions.
