Of All the Opinions I've Heard on Syria

It’s all Assad’s fault and the U.S., ISIS, al Nusra, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and anybody who will help should overthrow him come what may.

It’s all a U.S. crime, and Syria, Russia, and Iran should fix it with bombs.

It’s all an ISIS problem that should be solved with U.S. and Russian bombs plus lots more arms for the moderate murderers.

The whole thing is Russia’s fault and it should go home or fight an ever more heavily armed collection of moderate, extremist, and ultra-extremist killers.

If people keep killing each other, it’s good for U.S. arms sales, and eventually whoever’s left will be totally peaceful.

A No-Fly zone would create safety and security by blowing lots of people up and creating a staging area from which to overthrow another government on the admirable model of Iraq and Libya.

If all the foreigners would get the hell out, Syria would be just fine, thank you — but wait, we didn’t mean stop the weapons shipments!

The thing to do is to leave the government of Syria alone but destroy ISIS by arming people against ISIS whose goal is to overthrow the government of Syria.

ISIS must be destroyed by bombing it, because there is a chance that the resulting terror groups will use some name other than “ISIS.”

If the United States is going to start a war with Russia it damn well ought to just start a war with Russia and stop dillydallying. They asked for it by being Russia.

Let drones handle it.

What good are 7,000 nuclear bombs if you’re never going to use one?

*****

To figure out which of the above views is the correct one, you can follow these simple rules:

1. If you oppose U.S. war making, you are in love with Bashar al Assad and must begin worshiping him every morning.

2. If you oppose Syrian war making, you are in favor of the United States overthrowing Syria and must do whatever Hillary Clinton says.

3. If you oppose Russian war making, you are in favor of ISIS killing your family, and you must turn yourself in at the nearest Republican campaign office.

4. If you oppose regional support for war making in Syria, you are in favor of the United States paying for everything, and you must donate your house to Goldman Sachs.

and most importantly . . .

5. If you oppose arming anybody, bombing anybody, shooting anybody, or slitting anybody’s throat, if you want the arms shipments halted, if you want actual aid delivered on a massive scale, if you want withdrawal of foreign forces and the opening of serious negotiations for disarmament and peace, then you have just claimed that every crime committed by anyone in Syria is exactly identical to every other crime committed by anyone else in Syria. As punishment for this absurdity, you must worship Assad while holding hands with Hillary Clinton in a Republican campaign office while leaking Goldman Sachs’ emails to Putin.

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