A (DIS)HONEST Syria Debate Scam
Mike Walker, COl. USMC (retired)
All,
There are many honest and thoughtful Americans who oppose any action in Syria and I respect that and have been more than impressed by their reasoning.
What I do not respect is using lies to make false arguments and I am sick of listening to these so-call "informed talking heads” arguing against intervention in Syria because Iraq is a worse mess than it ever was or some similarly mindless rant.
Let us dismiss the malarkey and focus on the facts.
Before the Syrian Civil War erupted in mid-2011, Iraq was the 6th fastest growing economy in the world, more kids were in school than ever in history, it was undergoing the biggest building boom ever recorded in Iraq, the standard of living was increasing rapidly and al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) was a dangerous and murderous yet marginalized and contained threat.
Iraqis enjoyed a free press unlike any seen before and civil liberties had never been better protected. Life in Iraq, by 2011, was better than it was in 2003 (before the war) for every segment of the society, by region, by ethnicity, by religion and by every meaningful economic metric. Only Saddam and his minions were clear losers.
Now, two years on, AQI has a new lease on life in Syria (in fact the new name is al Qaeda in Iraq and the Levant (AQIL) - meaning Lebanon is included) and bloodshed in Iraq is back at the 2008 levels, albeit that is only 1/10 the level of violence in 2004-2006.
If you want to bring Iraq into the debate then tell the TRUTH: By allowing the Syrian cancer to spread across the region, we have hurt all its neighbors: Iraq, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon and Turkey.
Sins of omission can be as damaging as sins of commission.
Mike
