[vundy33]

Both wars? We're only actively engaged in one at the moment (not counting the multiple other areas where we're fighting on a much smaller scale, like in Africa). Of course we shouldn't still be in Afghanistan but we are. I don't believe an attack on Syria will escalate, I don't believe we will be helping Al Qaeda at all and I have to laugh when I hear that honestly.

We're in a bad spot due to the incompetence of the White House and the State Department, and that's not me playing politics, it's just the truth. But I don't think we can fold. I'm thinking multiple moves ahead, mainly with Russia and China. The Russians have already spit in our faces multiple times this year and are showing that the balance of power has changed. The Chinese responded to our recent excercise with Japan, which saw the first amphibious Japenese troops since WW2 (they had always said that they didn't need amphibous troops to defend Japan before), to rolling out their own amphibious training exercise with the Russians showing that they're far ahead of one of our best allies in the area.

I don't think we can afford to look so weak in front of the entire world, including Russia, China, and the dozens of terrorist groups we're fighting all over the world right now. Any military planner knows that an enemy that is afraid to commit forces, due to any reason whether it's political or logistical, is an enemy that is weakened and open for attack. I don't want this to happen. I feel for the Syrian people, but they're not even close to the reason I think we should hit Syria obviously.

This has been jacked up from the start though. Personally I would rather be able to hit rewind and do it over again, but we can't. I definitely understand being afraid to get ourselves into another foreign conflict more than most, I just think it opens us up to unneeded risk if we don't backup our talk. We've backed ourselves into a corner where we're forced to do something or risk looking unbelievably incompetent, that was the biggest mistake of all, tying a hand behind our back.