The brilliant (and usually non-political) writer Anne Lamott expressed the aching heart of many thinking, feeling Americans on the subject on her FB page yesterday:
===
Anne Lamott
Author · 128,152 likes
There's no way regular people like us could know what to do in Syria, whether to strike or not. The greatest strategic and political minds of our day, with genuinely brilliant advisers and sci-fi intelligence gathering, can't figure it out. So how is some aging hippie Nana peacenik going to figure out the Rubic's Cube of this distant savage heartbreaking civil war, where many of the rebels are jihadis, and there's no one who is prepared or organized enough to run the country post-Assad?
But isn't this one reality--that the most fastidiously trained and learned people in the government, military, humanitarian and diplomatic fields, can't figure out the right move--reason enough to hold off bomb strikes for the time being?
The one thing everyone agrees on is that there is no good move--that our strike will not take out Assad, the Al Nusra Front, or the chemical weapons.
And yet, if you mention this one tiny fact, people sneer, "Oh, you're saying we shouldn't do anything in the face of 400+ children having been gassed?"
No one is saying that. So stop spitting already.
I'm glad that we haven't bombed yet. This would almost certainly have given Assad a big p.r. win. And I actually trust that Barack Obama will not bomb Damascus just because he said at a press conference a year ago that the use of chemical weapons was a red line. I don't believe he'll bomb for political gain. Sometimes you have to decide to trust someone, and I've decided to trust Obama and his advisers.
He's brilliant, clearly, and I happen to believe he has a good heart. And he's got Michelle. That a lot.
I love that he decided to wait for Congress to reconvene. That's like waiting for the clown conference to come to town, where they all come tumbling out of the VW bugs. I wish, during the coming debate, that they had to wear red sponge noses and slap shoes, like English lawyers have to wear pwdery wigs in court.
But in the meantime, while waiting for Congress or the UN inspectors or whomever, since we can't take out Assad or the chemical weapons themselves, what if we take in food, medicine, water, shoes, for the people? Instead of take-out, the US could offer the Syrians free delivery.
Isn't our hope for their nation that her people be fed, clothed, cared for? Well, what if the people and the government of the US subvert the insane regime, rebels and circumstance, and take direct care of the Syrians, in country and the refugees? It would be like that great group who bring food to homebound people with AIDS, God's Love We Deliver.
(I have GLWD engraved on the inside of the ring I wear, which is the dove of peace, the holy spirit of breath and goodness. It is all I have to remember most days.)
One clue I've had when searching my own heart about Syria, is that in the old days, I just had to discover what Henry Kissinger had expressed on any issue, and then I knew I felt the exact opposite. Now I ask myself, "What Would Joe Leibermann do? WWLD?" And since he and his amigos want to bomb, now, or maybe tomorrow, at the latest, maybe right after lunch, I'm leaning towards not bombing.
No one knows; our wisest thinkers can't figure this out. It's okay that the rest of us are torn up and confused about it. Some of us will go to church, temples, mosques tomorrow, and we will pray in our communities for truth and peace and justice to prevail. I have to believe this will help.
Obviously, you can say anything here in response, but maybe just this one time, if you disagree, you can say why, and not attack. Besides, I can't figure out how to block people here. (Over at Twitter, however, I can block you, and doing this is really my only happiness.)
Ban Ki-Moon said, at the UN, to give peace a chance. That's all we are saying.
