American is exceptional. That is this view of President Obama as well as politicians on the left and right. In this post, I argue that America is not exceptional. Was America ever exceptional? Yes, but those days have dissolved into the rear view mirror and now we are a country deeply divided along economic, political,… Continue reading
Let’s face it; the US is a violent country. Murders are an everyday event. Mass murders, workplace slaughters, and school shootings are common occurrences. I could quote statistics about how often these crimes occur, but one only has to pick up a daily newspaper in a large city or tune in to the nightly television… Continue reading
Given the quickly changing “goals” of military intervention in Syria, it is important to determine the likely beneficiary from such action. Initially, the President wanted to send a message to the Syrian regime about the cost of using chemical weapons. Targeted, limited, and proportional strikes were the strategy of choice to punish the Assad regime… Continue reading
The phrase “blood and treasure” refers to the costs of war, both in lives and resources lost. Consider the cost of a US led “…limited and politically tailored response”1 to President Bashir al-Assad’s mass killing of civilians in Syria. What a limited and politically tailored response would look like is unclear, but it will be… Continue reading