President Obama will address the nation today about possible action in Syria. While I hardly expect him to direct his words at me specifically I would still like to suggest what I (and I think others) would like to hear.
You do not need to convince me that Assad is a brutal dictator or a cruel man, I am already convinced of that.
You also do not need to show me images of the victims of the chemical weapons attacks. I know such weapons are horrible and the effects are terrifying to see.
I might want a little more documentation as to whether the government used these weapons (as opposed to one of the rebel factions) and if the government did use them I might want to hear as to whether Assad gave the order or if it was a rogue commander.
However even absent this evidence I am convinced the world would be a better place with Assad out of power and with the chemical weapons no longer in his control.
Which brings me to what I would like to hear.
I would like to hear how the proposed action is going to solve the problem. From what the administration has said the plan is not to remove Assad from power and that they will not target the weapons. So it seems that we will have Assad in power with the weapons before the attack and we will have him in power with the weapons after the attack.
Certainly I can see that getting him out of power may not be a good idea since the options (AQ factions) are worse.
But I don’t see how sending in some missiles and bombs to blow up mostly innocent civilians is going to deter Assad from doing what he has already done (presuming he did so this time).
I also kind of wonder about the strategy of emphasizing as much as possible that your upcoming attack is going to be small and have little or no impact (as far as I know nobody has done that before).
Obviously if the current Russian proposal works out this whole debate may be moot. But if the attack is going to proceed these are some questions I’d like to have addressed.