More Bullshit from the Secretary of Bullshit

Secretary of State John Kerry discussed President Obama's plan for a military strike on Syria, testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday afternoon. ... "President Obama is not asking America to go to war," Kerry said.And this:

“We don’t want to go to war. We don’t believe we are going to go war in the classic sense of taking American troops and America to war,” Kerry said [to Rand Paul].

Let's try a little thought experiment, shall we? Take a cricket bat, walk up to Mr. Kerry and smack him full on the nose. Then tell him: "I don't want to start a fight with you, we're not fighting in the classic sense of the word." Attacking another nation is an act of war, period. Full stop. If our military committed some wrong and the Chinese retaliated by firing a bunch of cruise missiles into Los Angeles, would we respond: "Oops, you were right. Our bad." or would we respond: "Game's on, motherfucker."?

No matter how it gets dressed up by Mr. Kerry, attacking another nation who has not harmed us (or a nation who we are bound to by treaty) is an act of war.

We are not the world's grown-ups or cops. We don't get to hand out beatings to other nations who transgress on international law. That is the job of the United Nations. And if the UN can't get its shit together, whether because of Russian intransigence or any other reason, too fucking bad. There is not another nation that is privileged in this matter to ask us to take their side. Presuming that a chemical attack took place, if any nation wants to indict Bashir Assad for a war crime, they are free to try and arrest him and to bring him before their own courts or before the War Crimes Tribunal.

The only national interest we have, so far as I can see, is because ol' Barry ran his mouth a year ago about "red lines" and now we may have to make good on that. But if you note, he's been proclaiming that it's not his red line, but the world's. So fine. That's the UN's job.

Another response would be to point out the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, except that the Japanese damn well intended to go to war and, in point of fact, delivered a declaration of war just after the attack.