With mounting evidence of a chemical attack outside of Damascus in recent weeks, what’s happening in Syria right now is a horrific travesty that excels what the collective mind of the American public could fathom on their worst day.
With that said, even though it might possibly be the case that Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad has crossed the line of what is deemed acceptable use of weaponry in modern warfare worldwide, the uncertainty of who actually used the chemical tear gas sarin needs to be a warning sign to our government.
A decade ago, when President George W. Bush told of an almost definite sign of weapons on mass destruction in Iraq, and rightfully so, as a country we gathered around our president with a post-9/11 sense of justice. The idea of a terrorist attack here at home had just become an unfortunate reality. We weren’t untouchable anymore. The reality of what millions of people around the world face on a daily basis had finally hit home.
March 2003 started what would be a long, hard path to what would become normalcy for the United States. First, things seemed to be head in the right direction with the capture and death of Saddam Hussein; but among thousands of deaths of U.S. troops that would fade away into oblivion.
Then came Hurricane Katrina, a catastrophe that was completely out of our control, in cause but completely botched by us in lasting effects. This was the first of many signs that we needed to handle things domestically to stabilize the foundation that once allowed us to become the best among the elite powers of the world.
In 2008 came the collapse of the housing bubble, which led to multiple bailouts of national banks and companies, and the eventual recession. Unemployment spiked, homes were lost, and the stable sense of where this country was headed had been shattered. An obvious change was needed.
In Nov. 2008, we elected Barak Obama as president. With the realization of how much damage had been done by the Bush administration, the Obama campaign’s message of change seemed to be exactly what this country needed to turn things around. He was our first black president, a huge milestone for a country that was in the beginning stages of the civil rights movement just 50 years ago. This milestone led our nation into a false sense of progress. Being the first of anything comes with major expectations, especially when direction is lost and hope is needed.
The milestone of electing our first black president led us into a false sense current and future progress. He preached change and desperately needing it, we wanted it right away. Impatience growing, sentiment began to change and that false sense of progress that came with the election of Obama, faded away. It became clear that just like everyone around him, he was politician as well. Not a savior. Thankfully though, we were focusing on domestic needs, despite the battles over the national budget and healthcare.
Running in the background the entire time was the war in Iraq, plans of bringing the troops home were being enacted. That plan of change that had been preached seemed like it was slowly but surely starting to come into effect. On May 1, 2011, rumors were surfacing that Osama Bin Laden had been killed. Sure enough, President Obama took to his podium that evening at the White House to announce the Navy SEAL Team 6 had located and killed him. I’ll remember this moment forever. For the first time in my life, I felt like a true American. I had been too young to realize the gravity of 9/11 when it happened, so the feeling of nationalism that ensued after that tragedy never completely registered with me. But at this moment, I felt that and it was one of the greatest feelings I had ever felt. In that moment, I understood why so many men in my family had chosen to serve this great country, put their lives on the line for the freedoms that we have and maintain today.
But also with that feeling of national pride, I understood where the romantic idea that so many of us have of our country is rooted. The death of Osama Bin Laden was our generation’s superhero moment for our country. The type of pride that generations before us felt after World War II, but to make my point these feelings of national pride were rooted out of war and we need to get away from that. The idea of America as the difference-makers of the world is intertwined with this. And because those ideas are intertwined, the notion that we have to intervene in Syria is present. I do agree that Assad should be stopped but I do not think that we should interfere.
We have too much to take care of domestically and things are too uncertain overseas. President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry say this is a huge moment for the United States to establish to its enemies that use of chemical weapons will not be tolerated, which is a fair point but a misguided one. Secretary of State Kerry recently said that the U.S. cannot become “war fatigued” and that as the United States it’s our duty to hand out global justice. Well, I completely disagree with him on that point.
While many would yell, “We’re the United States of America, this is something we have to do!” Just as many would argue that it is time for us to take a break as the superhero of the world and let the chips fall where they may in the Middle East. In my opinion, the latter is correct. With our economy slightly showing progress since the recession of 2008 and our occupation in Iraq coming to an “end” (These things take years to end).
Now is the time for our government to focus on domestic needs directly, not indirectly by intervening in Syria on the grounds of “what is right and what is just” to humanity. With turmoil throughout the Middle East, striking and possibly arming rebels in Syria would only make things worse. A civil war within a country isn’t uncommon; we have had our own and many other countries have had their’s without any major intervention. It is time for the United States to take a break and rebuild itself to the national power that it once was so as citizens we can fully have that feeling of national pride, not from war from but from progress within our country.