Our missiles are bigger than your missiles

Barack Obama is now swimming in a stew of his own making. He drew the red line and now he's having to figure out what to do now that it's been crossed.

All of this talk and bluster about how the Assad regime committed a heinous act by launching a rocket loaded up with a chemical agent is quite hypocritical, however. The United States used chemical agents against Iraq in the first Gulf War. The US dumped Agent Orange over the countryside in Vietnam. The US dropped two atomic bombs on major cities in Japan. No one was made to answer for those atrocities.

The President wants to launch missiles are certain military sites over a two-day period. Why? If the missile attack is in retaliation for the chemical weapon attack, why not attack the actual stores of chemical weapons? Why declare ahead of time that you'll only be blowing up stuff for a couple of days? And what of the innocent civilians who are going to be killed in the attacks? How will their deaths be any different than those who died in the chemical weapon attack?

The alleged chemical weapon attack in Syria killed some 1,400 people - not an insignificant number - but there were more than 100,000 killed in the prior two years; along with over a million refugees. What makes the use of chemical weapons any more heinous than the slaughter of tens of thousands of people by use of bullets and bombs?

And then we have the hypocrisy of Congress. Our elected representatives wrote George W. Bush a blank check after Colin Powell went before the UN and lied about Iraq possessing stores of weapons of mass destruction. They couldn't wait to authorize the president to do whatever he wanted to do to Iraq.

There was little debate about whether military action was called for. There was little debate about exactly who has the power to declare war. Now Republicans are up on the high horses about just who has the authority to get the US involved in someone else's civil war.

That horse, my friends, has already left the barn.

Congress stood by and allowed Harry Truman to send troops to Korea. They stood by as president after president got the US more and more entangled in Vietnam. They stood by as Ronald Reagan and George Bush sent troops into Central America. They stood by as Bush the Younger got us stuck in the morass of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Congress long ago abdicated its power to declare war.

There are plenty of good reasons to oppose an attack on Syria. Doing so for partisan political purposes, however, isn't one of them.

A tale of two men

British Prime Minister David Cameron said the other day that he would support safe passage out of Syria for embattled dictator Bashar al-Assad if it would end the bloodshed in that country.

But Mr. Cameron won't allow Wikileaks founder Julian Assange safe passage to Ecuador following Ecuador's decision to grant asylum to Ms. Assange.

Mr. Assad is a murderer. He has turned his military on the people of Syria in the name of holding on to power until the bitter end. He has ordered planes and helicopters to fly over and bomb urban areas in an attempt to end the rebellion in the country.

Mr. Assange is a journalist who published secret (and not-so-secret) documents as part of a campaign for transparency. Wikileaks was provided information by Bradley Manning that revealed human rights abuses at the hands of the US government and its agents abroad.

Mr. Assad, much like his daddy, is a brutal dictator who cares less about the people of Syria than accumulating wealth and power. In response to the Syrian people who demanded more say in the running of their government, he cracked down on dissent and turned a political movement into a civil war.

Mr. Assange, through Wikileaks, exposed (and embarrassed) the US government by releasing State Department cables detailing the ways in which the US and its proxies operated under cloak of darkness and secrecy. He exposed the US backing of repressive dictatorships around the world and US-backed attempts to limit dissent.

Mr. Assad has committed crimes against humanity. He should be in the dock at the International Criminal Court answering charges for murder, torture and gross human rights abuses. Despite his actions, Mr. Assad is being promised safe passage out of the country in order to facilitate an end to the civil war.

Mr. Assange faces a complaint in Sweden that he sexually assaulted two women. Not charged, mind you. He has offered to answer any questions Swedish authorities have for him - provided that either the interview take place in the Ecuadorean embassy or that Sweden provide assurances that they won't extradite him to the United States to face a possible indictment alleging he committed treason.

Mr. Cameron is very much continuing the legacy of former Prime Minister Tony Blair who willingly allowed himself to be prostituted by the United States. Whatever Washington wanted from him, Mr. Blair was only too happy to do. The Obama administration has decided that it is time for Mr. Assad to step aside (while leaving brutal dictators in charge in both Saudi Arabia and Bahrain).

The US Government has also decided that the documents published by Wikileaks have so hindered the government's ability to pull the strings around the world, that Mr. Assange must be punished. Let us not forget that this has nothing to do with revealing state secrets - the White House has done that routinely over the years when it serves the President's purposes - it has to do with pulling the curtain back and exposing the Wizard.

In the meantime Mr. Cameron is okay with granting safe passage to a dictator, but not to a journalist. What's wrong with this picture?