Chris Jepson: The kettle bombing the pot

My father had a question for me anytime I became overly prescriptive in my “Thou shalt” assertions. He’d ask, “Who died and made you Pope?” We’d laugh (actually he laughed and I backtracked) and I’d acknowledge, “Point taken.”

The question of the moment is whether or not America should unilaterally punish Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad for allegedly gassing his own people with poisonous gas. Upwards of 1,400 Syrians died from a Sarin gas attack purportedly delivered by Syrian forces loyal to Assad.

Can foreign governments and dictators murder and terrorize their own people in ways so egregious as to warrant unilateral American intervention?

Upwards of 100,000 Syrians have already died in this conflict. “Some” international reports have nearly 2 million Syrians as refugees, now living in camps in surrounding countries. To recap, 100,000 dead, 2 million refugees and 1,400 dead from an alleged gas attack.

An estimated 98,600 Syrians have died in this conflict as a result of aggression, conventional weapons and collateral damage. Another 1,400 or so have died of poisonous gas. All 100,000 died as a result of violence.

Why specifically did the deaths of 98,600 Syrians trigger no unilateral American action but 1,400 deaths by Sarin gas does?

I point out that as a consistent national policy, intervention on the grounds of “egregious behavior” has been at best an intermittent foreign policy.

I point to our own national comportment as sufficient reason to give America pause when claiming moral rectitude. In 1838, American military troops force-marched Cherokee Indians off their Georgia tribal lands for resettlement in Oklahoma. Five thousand Cherokee died in that march, known infamously as The Trail of Tears.

In 1906, the U.S. Army massacred 600 mostly unarmed Moro villagers during the Philippine-American War. Read Mark Twain’s incredible account of that cowardly slaughter of innocence.

In May of 1939, the transatlantic liner St. Louis was denied access to American ports by the U.S. state department and President Roosevelt. On board were nearly 1,000 Jews who were denied asylum and forced to return to Europe and the Nazi onslaught.

In the 1950s, America subverted the democratically elected government of Guatemala. Lobbied by an American corporation, United Fruit Company, America poured weapons, training and money into overthrowing that “socialist” government. Over the next four decades an estimated 250,000 Guatemalans died or disappeared. Do cheap bananas wash that blood off our hands, or from our conscience?

In 2003, America invaded and occupied Iraq. We know the results of that fiasco. Since 1848, since the Mexican-American War we have been an imperialistic power. No ifs, no ands, no buts.

We too often pick and chose our morality, like our wars, in support of those with a dollar in the fight.

I am of two minds when it comes to Assad. He’s a two-bit dictator who will slaughter his own people. Yet in the name of Manifest Destiny did America not once relentlessly slaughter people (see Indian wars/policy)? President Barack Obama said the use of chemical weapons was a red line, not to be crossed. Will America be perceived as weak if we waver? Does it matter?

How relevant is our history of questionable foreign interventions (and flexible morality) as we debate yet another questionable foreign intervention?

We will bomb Syria and America will inevitably receive the predictable what-goes-around-comes-around payback.

My father would have legitimately asked, “Who died and made America Emperor?”

I await the Congressional “war” vote with a jaundiced eye.

Jepson is a 27-year resident of Central Florida. He’s fiscally conservative, socially liberal, likes art and embraces diversity of opinion. Reach him at [email protected]