September 11, 2013

I've sat through it twice, and it was poorly done.

First the logic. Estimates are that more than 100,000 are dead from the Civil War. We've seen videos of Executions, and brutalities for the entire civil war. But somehow, 1,400 dead from Chemical Weapons are the only thing that matters. Now, I'm no Mathematician, but by my calculations, roughly 1 in 71 dead have died from suspected CW attacks. So 1.4 % of those dead are from suspected CW attacks. And I'm not supposed to really concern myself with the dead adults from CW attacks, but the Children, the children are what Assad must answer for.

http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/09/10/20427421-full-transcript-of-president-obamas-remarks-on-syria?lite

So I'm supposed to ignore 98,600 deaths because those were proper deaths. Death from shrapnel, and shock from explosives is fine, even it is children being bombed. Deaths from machete's in far away lands is no skin off our nose, even if children are hacked to death, that's an acceptable death. Death from starvation is just fine, because when you're starving you're too weak to writhe on the ground and nobody has videotaped that. Oh and bullets are the best way to die, because bleeding out is a perfectly acceptable way to be taken into the next life. No parent has ever held a child who was shot and beg them to live.

That was asinine, and it was childish, and it was even worse than amateur.

Look Mr. President. Let's be honest here. Syria is not in violation of international law, because they did not sign the CW treaty. You can't hold me responsible for a credit slip I didn't sign. Nobody does that. But you are claiming a violation of international law based upon a treaty that Syria hasn't signed. Will you allow yourself to be held accountable for landmines which are banned by nearly every other country but we haven't signed it? No of course not. That would be silly. But that is the standard you are trying to hold Syria to.

The even worse was the stretching of the imagination to the breaking point in trying to explain how this was a necessary action for the American National Security. I write fiction, and in creating a story you have to make it believable enough to suspend disbelief. Mr. President, you failed to get me to suspend disbelief on that one.

In 2011, 32,367 deaths occurred on our highway. Many of those people writhed as they died, it's a terrible thing to watch someone die, because only in Hollywood is it clean as they bravely stare off to space. Should I be more upset if 1.4% of those people died in Fiat's than if they had died in Ford's? Are Ford deaths any more dignified than deaths in some other kind of car?

That is what we are reduced to debating Mr. President. That the deaths by Gas that affected 1.4% of those killed in this war are somehow more offensive than the 98,600 who died by bombs, bullets, bladed weapons, gang rapes, bludgeoning.

You can't promise that no retaliation is going to happen. Russia has a Naval Base there. Unless Putin has assured you in writing that no retaliation will come from them, and even then I'd be suspicious, especially with all the Naval Deployments Russia has to the region, you can't promise no retaliations.

Three million Syrians are living in refugee camps, but that's fine too, because starvation and disease in a refugee camp is a proper death that is morally acceptable to the worlds oldest constitutional democracy. Asinine.

From amateur to ridiculous. This speech had it all. I love the Democratic Party, but I'm supporting other Democrats for this one gang.