Don’t act like you’re not impressed. Photo: KurtisUSA
Syria has waves and President Obama wants them. We may only be one or two military strikes away from pushing the stoke in Syria; nearly 120 miles of Mediterranean coastline stands in the balance. If the United States doesn’t act now, Obama will – once again – have to settle for a trip to the Vineyard or Kailua Beach. His traffic jams, posh lodging and bodysurfing no longer impresses the locals in New England or Oahu; next stop: Latakia.
Syria may not be synonymous with surfing and the conditions there are not always ideal, but that doesn’t mean there’s no hope for this arid land. We can turn it all around. With our finger on the trigger, Syrians will soon be trading in their cargo pants and boots for neon boardshorts and Sanuks. Obama will bask in his righteousness and, by golly, he will take that beach.
That can be the only rational explanation for our threats of military action in Syria, right? It couldn’t possibly be that we expect a positive end to the civil war. Do our leaders even know what a positive outcome in Syria looks like? Learning nothing from history, the U.S. government is still poised to shoot first and ask questions later. Thanks to numerous politicians on Capitol Hill, U.S. military involvement has been checked and delayed; whether or not their efforts ultimately succeed has yet to be seen.
Our obsession with conflict in the Middle East has seriously hurt U.S. foreign policy and diminished our credibility as a moral superpower. Why do we continue to seek opportunities to act as an aggressor in conflicts that the Western psyche fails to understand? Military action cannot be our preamble. Often forgotten, the most important decree of the modern Western world never seems to be considered in times like these: do the right thing. In recent days, the typically suspect Vladimir Putin has surprised us all by taking on the role of a bodhisattva by proposing a more measured approach. Scrutinizing and securing Syria’s chemical weapons cache is, right now, the most responsible action to take. Putin’s proposal is a short-term resolution that saves us from impulsive military action and reminds us that foreign policy is not just another game of Risk.
Of course, while diplomacy plays out, people still die. Though we realize this problem, our leaders fail to identify the best approach. What will end war? What will stop the atrocities in this world? These questions are very hard to answer – they may never be answered – but if there’s one thing we’ve learned, it’s that U.S. military intervention cannot resolve every conflict nor will it fix the deficiencies of our own nation.
The Gatling gun was invented during the American Civil War to be the weapon that would end all war. It didn’t. After dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we witnessed the proliferation of nuclear and chemical weapons worldwide. Now, we choose to fight this proliferation with expansive, advanced military power. The logic was flawed in 1862 and it’s flawed today. Military involvement should be a last resort, not an introduction.
While we threaten Bashar al-Assad with intervention, we continue to neglect the heart-wrenching conflict in Darfur, the conflict in Somalia, the conflict in Egypt, and a number of smaller yet equally dreadful skirmishes across the globe. What conflict doesn’t need our intervention? And what about the millions upon millions of mouths that need to be fed in both developed and underdeveloped nations? What about the men, women and children of all nationalities who are kidnapped in foreign lands and held captive for months, sometimes years? What about the worsening epidemic of poverty at home and abroad? Are we any closer to successfully – and consistently – intervening in any ongoing conflict or tragedy? Our barometer for success is skewed – unless, of course, this is all about waves. I guess if Assad ain’t gonna surf ’em, we might as well take ’em.
Sadly, we are left with a tragedy that rages on, an intervention plot that reeks of noob, and a POTUS as honest as he is objective with as little conviction as he has humility. Correct me if I’m out of line, but I believe surfers’ values are at odds with the way our government behaves. Surfers are typically a peaceful lot but I can say – with great certainty – that this isn’t just another liberal, hippie surfer reaction to the threat of war, this is just an endorsement of a fairly vast consensus: America doesn’t need to surf Syria.
