Chris Matthews Imperialist Designs: A U.S. Syria Strike May Invoke a 3rd World War

President Obama is pounding the drum for war against Syria and I have to give him credit so far. He on the surface at least seems to be trying to make his case to the American people and involve Congress unlike George Bush, who lied to gain support for a war against Iraq by saying that Iraq possessed an A bomb it was about to use on the American people.

However, both men used, Bush in the case of Iraq, and Obama now with Syria, the “punitive strike” or related phrase, hinting that the struggle in Syria will be a quick one. If it’s a fact that Syria used chemical weapons as alleged, I might be willing to support a quick chastisement. But quick “lightning” “punitive” “surgical” strikes in war rarely happen or accomplish whatever is intended.

Instead, you have seven usual periods of warfare in the Middle East. Here are the seven and this is probably what will happen in Syria:

1.   We go in and take ground.

This is the easy part. Getting into wars is always easy, getting out, not so easy. We have overwhelming force. We push in with our tanks and air strikes and take the villages. This happens quickly and fosters the myth of the “quick punitive strike” the president, if he didn’t out-rightly promise, then alluded to, or hinted at. The natives are now in their proper place with the U.S., the world’s policeman, ruling over them. Lots of the soldiers by the way are Hispanic, or blacks, including women, using military service for civilian job training. Consistently absent in this exercise are white well-to-do young people, children of the well-off, particularly the offspring of Republican members of Congress who voted for military action.

2.   We settle in and do patrols.

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