Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Drones or Poison Gas

I am going to make a brief observation regarding our possible involvement in Syria and our moral standing in the world. According to the President and some high ranking members of the United States Senate our drone strikes in the Middle East have resulted in the deaths of 22 al Qaeda leaders. They have also resulted in an additional 4,700 deaths over the past 10 years. Many of those killed were, to borrow a phrase from Secretary of State John Kerry, "innocent civilians, women and children." The gas attack alleged to have been carried out by the Syrian government killed an estimated 1,400 civilians including women and children. The argument being made is that the gas is an indiscriminate attack on a civilian population. Well, that makes me feel so much better about drone attacks. They are not indiscriminate, we know when we shoot the Hellfire missile that innocent civilians, women and children will be killed. At least we didn't make them suffer the outrages of a death by leathal gas, we incinerated them instead. Much better way to go. Would you agree Mr. Kerry and Mr. Obama?

In case you are curious about cruise missiles be aware of the following. The cruise missiles that will most likely be used against Syria cost approximately 1.5 million dollars each. When we used them against Lybia it was approximately 250 missiles at a cost of about 400 million dollars. The money will have to come from somewhere to pay for this action if it is taken. What programs will suffer. The military is hungry and demands to be fed. Will we lose more social programs? Early childhood education? Veterans health care cuts? Food safety inspections? Boarder agents? TSA cuts?

So there are a couple of things to think about.

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