#16 Something about Syria

I haven't really followed anything political in a long time, but for some reason I have been reading more and more about the possible American involvement in the Syrian Civil War.  Here are some of the things that I have found interesting (Please note that I am not a journalist, nor am I a politician, just an onlooker):

1. British PM David Cameron decided to take this to Parliament before calling for a military strike.  And they voted it down. There seems to be something telling about that.
2. France seems to be with President Obama.  What?  Can we call them french fries again?
3. Russia is against the action.  Not a surprise we have a new/old feud with them, which is also interesting to watch. We seem to be getting colder...
4. The UN is still doing their work deciding what to do with the breaking of international ban on chemical weapons.  You know investigating and deciding who is to blame, and how to proceed as an international community.
5. President Obama has cooled down on it a little and called for Congress to vote on it.  This is the first time in like 30 years that a President hasn't just pulled the trigger without Congressional approval, even though that's seems to be the way it is supposed to be.
6. I have heard that folks in Congress have a slight worry about casting a vote either way because it could be used against them in the next election.  Because pandering is the most important thing, not you know figuring out if we need to get involved to try to protect innocent life in a bloody war.
7. There doesn't seem to be a very clear objective in this.  No regime change just to send a message.  My question is: How does killing more people actually send a message? It appears that Bashar al-Assad is okay with killing his own people, especially if his regime is to blame.

Somehow I think this vote in Congress and how we proceed from here is going to significantly influence how we do foreign policy in the future.  I'm hoping that somehow we can come up with ways of creating peace that doesn't involve violence because peace through war doesn't seem logical, yet it is the prevailing wisdom of our age.

So here's to hope for a more peaceful form of conflict resolution.  Here's to hope for a way of doing foreign policy that spends less time bombing and more time trying to figure out what the underlying cause of the conflict is.

I know that I am coming off idealistic and it seems we don't have much chance of that, but I have to believe that a more peaceful world is possible.  Less eye for an eye; more turn the other cheek.