Norms.

Editor,

That a military strike on Syria will deter Assad from further use of chemical weapons is not necessarily true. A strike could just as easily convince him he should use 'em before he loses 'em.

The same goes for groundless claims that a strike will prevent Assad from using chemical weapons on Israel or another of his neighbors and that a strike will deter other actors who possess chemical weapons from using them.

These may be the reasons the Obama administration has convinced itself will justify a strike, or these may actually be scenarios the administration has convinced itself will ensue, but at bottom they are mere beliefs, at best projections of how Mr. Obama thinks he would react if he had used chemical weapons and a military power retaliated on him.

My biggest problem with this whole Syria story, and I have many problems with it -- not least that the United States' responsibility here is to do the hard diplomatic work required to deescalate the situation, not inflame it further -- is the amazing hypocrisy coming out of Washington.

If you want to talk about "international norms" where are the prosecutions of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld Rice, Cambone, Sanchez, Miller, Yoo, Bybee, Wolfowitz, et al. who have bragged repeatedly in public about the torture apparatus they implemented in flagrant violation of "international norms?"

And what about all that napalm and Agent Orange the USA dropped on civilians in Vietnam?

Re: "Debating the Case for Force" (9/3/2013)