SIO33: Thinking Clearly on Syria

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:28 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is episode number 33 and I'm your host Thomas Smith. Alright, today as promised the part 2 on Syria where I want to talk about the reaction to Trump's action and what I think about it, what some other people think about, and as I alluded to last episode, the answer may surprise you. Clickbaity kind of thing that probably is not really effective as clickbait. But anyway, that's what I'm going to talk about. I've got lots of time because I'm doing this early. I'm not doing it on Thursday. There's not going to be a voicemail segment. So plenty of time to sit down and say everything that I intended to say about Syria. Oh, quick note. I've gotten this question a couple times where people, and I just got it after Thursday's episode.

0:01:18 Thomas: Hey, why do you always say you're running out of time? Or not always, but why have you said you're run out of the time? In an episode. You're doing a podcast. It's not radio. Yeah, understood. Apologies if that upsets some people, but here's the thing. With this podcast being twice a week and with sharing a huge percentage of listeners with Opening Arguments that's twice a weak and with the amount of media and podcasts everybody's consuming, I'm very sensitive to the fact that if I oversaturate with content, people just don't listen to it. There's just not enough time time in the week. So I'm not going to do four hours of podcasts in a week or something like that. I'm not going to release a two and a half hour one, unless there's like a real emergency, I'm shooting, I'm always shooting for 45 to 60 minutes.

0:02:05 Thomas: That's my target, because that's the amount that I think people and the tracking data I have shows that that's what people actually listen to. I'm not interested in putting out a bunch of content that only 10% of you are going to finish or something like that. I'd rather do something more concise that everyone will listen to. So that's my goal. That's why I say that. Apologies if that troubles some of you. Sorry about that. But that's what I'm shooting for. You know, I fudge it here and there. If I do a long interview, it goes a little long. That's fine. But I just wasn't going to do a double episode in one episode. It's just far too much for people to consume in one week, I think. All that aside, let's get right into the issues.

0:02:54 Thomas: So I mentioned on the last episode that Nanar, my guest from Syria who took us through a lot of the history and all that a couple weeks ago, Nanar believes that the Syrian regime did not carry out the attack. Of course, I've told you guys, I'm giving you a little bit of reason why I do believe that's the case. Uh, I thought that was really interesting that someone of his knowledge and background would see it that way, so I went ahead and invited him back and we had about a little over an hour of debate, we'll see what it edits to, probably about an hour, uh, over that very question. So it's, it's a debate between Nanar and I. It's a very friendly long-form debate where we weren't looking to score our points.

0:03:39 Thomas: We were just looking to explore the information and allow each other to speak as much as we wanted. So it was a very friendly, very good debate. However, we do disagree. So find out Thursday how that turns out. So I'm going to take that as a given for this episode. I accept the mainstream story that the Syrian regime is responsible. So just so you know. But there are a lot of you, I think, who are skeptical and with good reason. I think I certainly have respect for that, that view. And I think it'll be really interesting for both sides to listen to Thursday's episode and see what you think. So let's talk about, well, that is a given though, granted for the sake of argument that the regime did commit the chemical attack.

0:04:24 Thomas: Let's talk about what Trump did and the reaction to it. You already know the details, he sent, they sent 59 missiles, uh they attacked the airstrip that they believed to be respon- where the chemical weapon attack originated from, and I'm gonna play a boring Trump statement, but, I will play something, I wanna play something that you might, you probably have heard, but if you haven't, it is a, whew, it's a treat, in, in many ways, in depressing ways, but it is something you need to hear. Year. So as I alluded to in the last episode, my overall conclusion is going to be, and I'll take you through a lot of my thinking, there's a lot that goes into it, is that this strike was actually kind of maybe the right thing to do. In a world full of bad decisions and bad alternatives in Syria, this really, you really could have gone worse.

0:05:19 Thomas: It's something of an appropriate response. However, what I'm going to play you next should indicate, because you guys know me, I hate Trump. I absolutely hate Trump, I think he's incompetent, I think he's narcissistic, I think he's everything. Supporting one thing that he's done, and supporting with caveats and reservations about the path does not mean I have any faith in Trump. I have no faith in Trump. He is an imbecile. Listen to how he described the attack that he launched in this interview with Maria Bartiromo, who, boy, what a disappointment she is in this interview as well. Really just awful. So listen to this. This is remarkable. There is so much in this little clip I'm going to play you.

0:06:08 Clip: What? That was like, when did you tell us? But I'll tell you before dessert, but I will tell you only because you've treated me so good for so long, I have to tell you. Right, I was sitting at the table, we had finished dinner, we're now having dessert, and we had the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you've ever seen. And President Xi was enjoying it. And I was given the message from the generals that the ships are locked and loaded. What do you do? And we made a determination to do it. So the missiles were on the way. And I said, "Mr. President, let me explain something to you." This is during dessert. We've just fired 59 missiles, all of which hit, by the way, unbelievable, from, you know, hundreds of miles away, all of which hit, amazing, unmanned, it's so incredible, it's brilliant, it's genius, our technology, our equipment is better than anybody, body.

0:07:04 Thomas: Is already, incredible. First, off he says they all the missiles hit. He says 59 missiles hit, that is not true. Nobody, nobody thinks that. I mean even Mattis who made what might be an incorrect statement. I'm not totally sure but it seems to be an exaggeration said that 20% of the The aircraft, series of aircraft are taken out. It can't be, that can't be right. Looks like 20, 25 aircraft possibly taken out, but half the missiles, they don't even know where they hit. They didn't even hit. So that's wrong. And then, and then they, she marvels, Maria Bracharova marvels at unmanned missiles. Boy, gone are the days when we used to have to launch manned missiles. That was, that was that, that Was tough. Those are tough things to do, to look, look your friend in the eyes as he hopped aboard the missile that was going to be sent to blow something up?

0:07:56 Thomas: Does she imagine that war used to be like Dr. Strangelove, like that's how every missile was launched, a manned missile, I don't know what the hell she's thinking there, maybe she, to be very fair to her, maybe she's thinking like an unmanned drone versus, I, I dunno, like an unmanned aircraft or something, but missiles have never been manned, of course you just launch missiles at something, that's absurd. Third. It gets worse. Here, I'll keep playing it.

0:08:24 Clip: So What happens, as I said, we've just launched 59 missiles heading to Iraq. Well, you headed to Syria. Yes. Heading toward Syria.

0:08:35 Thomas: Yeah, wow, someone pointed out on Twitter, boy, he can remember the chocolate cake they were eating in detail, can't really remember which country he bombed, that's a little tough, there are things that are slips of the tongue, and I know this was pretty much a slip of the brain for him, but that's pretty bad one, it just shows he's not too terribly tuned in to what's going on. I mean, and he's even admitted that the policy of Trump has been in the Middle East. Hey, military, do whatever you want. I don't really care, essentially. I mean he's not approving every strike like Obama was. He's given control over the military. And when you do that, when you take a hands-off approach, you tend to be able to make a little slip-up like that and not remember which particular country you just bombed.

0:09:30 Thomas: So that's absurd. And I just want, I'm playing that right off the bat to just emphasize that I do not trust Trump. I do not think that he's competent. I do NOT mean to say when I say that this strike was a good idea, I think it actually was a pretty good idea. I don't mean to say that I trust him in any other respect. So just let me make that clear. I think he's an idiot. I think that what happened here was there were military options on the table already, already drawn up from time going back to the 2013 chemical weapon attack, I'm sure. And the military, as I alluded to a bit last episode, the military has an establishment view more or less about how to deal with these things.

0:10:16 Thomas: And they came to Trump and said, should we do this? And Trump sounds like he gave the final word on this particular thing. And that doesn't mean that he masterminded the whole thing. It means that there are some people who I think came up with a pretty decent course of action here. Let me talk about why it was a decent course of action. So, again, we're taking for granted, which it won't be for granted. I've given some evidence and you'll hear more on Thursday, but we're assuming that the mainstream story of Assad having ordered this and this, at least the Syrian regime having perpetrated this is true. Going from that point forward, we can all agree that chemical weapons are a horrendous thing. They violate international law. Law. Sarin gas is, you know, it's horrible.

0:11:02 Thomas: It's a bad way to die. Even Obama said this is a red line. He said this was a redline. He wanted to take action in Syria. So that is a pretty bipartisan thing. So going off that basis, so right away, I think we're starting from an area of agreement unless you're buying into conspiracy theories that this is false flag and all that. But we're putting that aside so what are options here? Well, the far one side of things, the hawkish side I'll says, because there are some democrat hawks and you know, it's not just republicans, but on the hawish side, outright regime change. I mean, that's the far, far hawkish thing is try another Iraq, try to militarily go boots on the ground, dethrone Bashar al-Assad and that mess.

0:11:55 Thomas: So there's that. On the far other side, there's nothing, which I don't think is a good option. I think that is a bad option. I think both of those are very bad options. I think nothing is slightly better because there will always be a bit of a moral high ground to not intervening, not interveneing like there's like a do no harm kind of attitude is at least defensible. Like, why should we be the policemen of the world? Why should webe doing this? I get that point of view. However, you need to realize that that that also goes counter to even Barack Obama. So if you were an Obama supporter, I think you are obligated to support this particular action.

0:12:40 Thomas: Now, you may say, well, but Thomas, he never did military strikes on Syria. Well, first off, just to clear some things up, and I will get specific about this, but in general, Obama dropped 12,192 bombs on Syria alone in 2016 alone, so this is just to tackle the very, very naive view I'm seeing that, oh, look at this warmonger launching missiles, Obama would never do that, well, no, not true, so now we can get into specifics, it is true that of those 12,192 bombs, they weren't launched against the Assad regime, So that those those bombs in Syria were dropped in an effort to combat ISIS and maybe other terrorist groups in Syria.

0:13:30 Thomas: It is a little different when you are launching a strike against Against the actual regime. That is a little different, but to act like that difference is Dove versus Hawk, I don't think is true. To act like the difference is Warmonger versus calm, cool-headed, rational Obama, I dont actually think that's true. I think that, and here's why. First off, when you talk about the capability or the potential for civilian death, I am sure that the 12,192 bombs dropped on Syria by Obama in 2016 had far more civilian casualties when you're attacking areas that ISIS controlled areas that are a mix of civilians, ISIS does a lot of human shielding kind of stuff, does a a lot of guerrilla warfare where you don't know who you're getting.

0:14:21 Thomas: I am certain that there are more civilian casualties there than there are in this strike, which is against a military target in Syria. Now, part of that is because when you're attacking the regime, there is actually a military, like there's a hard line, easy to identify military. When you're attacking guerrillas, it's difficult. But guerrilla warfare has that advantage. You don't know who you're attacking. You don't know, there's no clean, like they're not wearing uniforms per se. They're not, you can't just look at the, they're not stationed in ways that make a whole lot of sense and make attacks easy. And that's on purpose. It's because, you know, it's to be very difficult to defeat. And it is difficult to defeat as we've seen in Vietnam and essentially all of our Middle East conflicts.

0:15:09 Thomas: So, in terms of potential collateral and civilian and innocent life damage, this strike is far more easy to pull off. Here's another thing that you need to be aware of if you were a supporter of Obama and now not of Trump. I think you are in the wrong. Now, I'll say as a side note, if you are someone who has always had a policy of, no, we never should attack anybody for anything or be the world's, but if you're a total pacifist, then then sure, you can condemn both of them. I disagree with you, but at least you're consistent. My argument here is to anyone who has the rosy notion that Obama wouldn't have done anything like this and Trump did because he's an evil warmonger. I've already shown, and again, check my sources. I will link them for you.

0:15:55 Thomas: The estimate based on the Council on Foreign Relations that Syria had 12,192 bomb strikes, bombs dropped by the US in 2016. And that's just 2016, by the way. And so the idea that Obama would have done anything different. Here's what Obama did. I mentioned it a little bit last episode, but I think it's important. After the 2013 strike, we talked about that. We talked about what he wanted to do. He went to Congress. Obama, so Obama took the idea of a strike just like this one and maybe more actually. He had a a few strike proposals on the table and one of them involved every air base in Syria. And he took those plans to Congress. And so what he's doing there is saying, can I do this?

0:16:44 Thomas: Please debate amongst yourselves. Decide whether I have authorization or not. And Congress said, no, we don't want you to do this because Republicans said no to everything Obama did. And so he didn't. So but he didn't say, no, I'm never going to do a military strike on Syria. He didn't say that. He said he wanted Congress's support. They didn't give it to him. So at best now we have an argument that did Trump, should he have gone to Congress, does that make him way worse of a person or way more of a warmonger that he didn't go to Congress and just did this strike. Now, we talked about this on Opening Arguments. The fact is, and this is just a legal fact that, I mean, it's not a popular thing to say, but this is what Andrew Torrez taught me and what I've heard actually from many sources at this point.

0:17:39 Thomas: The president does not need that authorization to do a one-off strike like this. He doesn't. And I actually disagree with the the Democrats who are saying he does now. And I disagree with the Democrats and Republicans who said Obama needed to do this in 2013. He didn't need to if he wanted to just, if he wanted to do a strike, he didn't. Which is why some people speculate that he kind of didn't really want to, uh, and he used the going to Congress as, as a way to sort of get out of it, you know, and, and or if he did have to, if they did approve it and he did, you know, commit himself to doing some sort of strike on Syria, he would always have the excuse to fall back on that Congress said this was okay, that a, you know, Republican Congress okayed this. Now, here's what the Senate did say, 79 senators approve the strike, 79 senators support the strike.

0:18:35 Thomas: Now, this is after the fact, so this is a little different. It's It's hard to say for sure, had Trump gone to the Senate ahead of time and asked, what do you think about this? I, my theory and, and one that I've, I've heard people express that I agree with is that Congress doesn't really want this responsibility. They don't really wanna, because then they can be held accountable. What Congress is good at doing, especially Republicans, is opposing things, uh, taking things like Obamacare that, you know, have a misinformation campaign going against them and saying, this is terrible. It's ruining our lives. They're not so good and they're not So comfortable with saying, okay, we, uh, we take responsibility for, and we give you approval for a strike here and now go do it. And we'll just deal with whatever the political consequences are.

0:19:22 Thomas: They are for far more in favor of reacting after the fact, seeing what the public opinion already is and kind of going with that. So you can't say for sure. However, 79 is a lot. So, and the Republicans do control the Senate, of course. So so I imagine that had Trump gone and asked for permission to do this, he would have gotten it and it would have been the same. So all this is to say, I do not think what he did is that much different than what Obama did or would have done. Had there been a democratically controlled Senate, so that's that's what's going on now. I think now a lot of you may be mad, a lot people are upset, what's with these Democrats in the Senate supporting this strike, a lot of people are upset about that, including, I'm going to read an article or selections from that I find to be pretty stupid, to be honest with you, but I think my opinion is that this is a, this is believe it or not, a shining moment for Democrats in the Senate.

0:20:20 Thomas: I mean, for a lot of them, because they're showing backbone and consistency that Republicans just do not show. And I'll explain further. But first, let's talk about this article that is really, really blowing my mind with how frustrating it is. It's from The Guardian, it's by someone named Owen Jones that I'm not familiar with, and it's titled, Why Are Liberals Now Cheerleading a Warmongering Trump? Let's just read the first sentence. Oh, the subtitle, sorry, is, In just three months, those who vowed to oppose the president are eating out of his hands, applauding his Syria missile strikes only emboldens him to go further. The first sentence is, So now we know what it takes for an unhinged, bigoted demagogue to win liberal applause: just bypass a constitution to fire some missiles.

0:21:08 Thomas: That's, right away, red flag, he didn't bypass the constitution, what he did was perfectly legal. Sorry. Sorry, liberals, what you did was perfect legal. This article does two things, in my opinion. One, it completely overblows the idea of supporting a specific action that a president might take, and two, it It overstates this liberal reaction. The main example it gives, which is, to be sure, a good example of someone going way too far in supporting Trump on this, is Fareed Zakaria. But does he speak for liberals? He's on CNN and he's selling a show, he's got, you know, yes. His quote was, I think Donald Trump became president of the United States. And that was tonight, you know, because of what he did.

0:21:55 Thomas: And yeah, that's stupid. But I think that's a dumb thing to say. There's no, I don't know what Fareed Zakaria is thinking. I think, I think That's a question of the dynamic that I think I've referenced a little bit, which is these commentators, these pundits who are not who we should be really giving credence to. We should be giving credence To real journalists and not these, these talking Talking head pundits who need to get ratings and need to do all stuff. So there's an effect whereby they need to be saying something cutting against the grain all the time. Like it's very easy. And there was a great Twitter thread on this that went a little viral. There's a lot of pressure to say counterintuitive things to say and to make these storylines like, oh, is Trump turning around?

0:22:43 Thomas: Is it? That was the pivot. That was one we always got during the election. Oh, it's time for the pivot. Oh, this is where he pivoted. Because they want there to be that interesting storyline. It doesn't sell as much and it's not as, I don't know, dynamic or maybe interesting to get on the TV every day and say, hey, guess what? Today is another day where an imbecile is our president. Look what this imbecil did today. They want to seem objective. They want to seem fair. And I admire the ability to stay fair. Of course. If these were normal times, it might make a little more sense. These are not normal times. We have a clown as a president. There's no, you don't need to be fair to the clown. Like, oh, the clown, you know, this thing he did is great. He's now a great president. You can say, as I'm doing, you can endorse in a very limited sense, one particular thing he does.

0:23:34 Thomas: There is no danger that you are all of a sudden Trump's biggest fan after you do that, or that somehow somehow that licenses him to go start more wars or to go, you know, so that's what this article is making the mistake of. And if you look at the rest of the article, which I will link there, there aren't very many sources for this so-called, this alleged liberal cooing that over Trump. Was just, I'm sure you've seen it by now, but I don't know what the world that guy was thinking, just going on a soliloquy about how beautiful the missiles were and like quoting Leonard Cohen and all this crap. This is the media trying to be cool, trying to be interesting and get ratings. That's hardly Brian Williams and Fareed Zakaria aren't the DNC or they aren't The Senate Minority Leader or that, you know, it's just quoting them as liberals are now embracing Trump is stupid to me.

That that's trying to find a story that isn't The there. Only other actual quote in this article to support his thesis, the last one is, Trump reacted viscerally to the images of the death of innocent children in Syria, declared Mark Sandler in the New York Times.

0:24:45 Thomas: The original headline on the article since amended? On Syria attack, Trump's heart came first. I'll be honest, I don't really have a problem with that quote or that headline. It's possible. Now, imagine if Trump had dropped a nuke or something. You could still say he responded viscerally to the images of the death of innocent children, but he responded too much. He responded in a bad way. It was horrible. Dropping a nukem, that wasn't the answer. So just saying that he reacted visceraly to the death images of innocent Children, that's just a statement of what he's expressed, of what Trump's expressed. By all accounts, there's many accounts of this, actually. He seems to have been affected by the images of children. I mean, whatever.

0:25:31 Thomas: Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't. But stating that, which has been corroborated by a few sources, stating that isn't an endorsement of him. He could have been infected and then gone way too far. And then you would say he was affected by deaths of innocent children, but he's a madman, he went way too far. What I'm saying is merely pointing out that that seems to be one of the reasons Trump authorized this attack does not speak to whether or not the attack itself was justified. The 59 missile attack could have been unjustified. It could have been too much depending on what he did. Imagine if he killed a bunch of civilians.

0:26:09 Thomas: I think I've made the point, but it's not dependent on whether or or not you think the reason is he reacted viscerally to the deaths of innocent children. So this is a weak thesis. I think this thesis is very, Overblown. And I also think, what is the alternative? Is the alternative that we are supposed to, because, you know, we said he was a sex offender for what he did on the set on the video, because he's a horrible person, which he is, of course he is. Because of all that, we are obligated to oppose everything he does, even if it's a good idea. At that point, we're just Mitch McConnell then, at that point we're Ted Cruz and, and, And other horrible, horrible Republicans who oppose everything Obama did for no reason, no matter what, and then turned around and were hypocrites.

0:26:55 Thomas: I will not be a hypocrite if I can help it. I will do my best to judge the actions of any president by what they are, and look, most of Trump's are going to be terrible, it's not that hard, there's plenty of terrible things he's done, but you don't have to forfeit all integrity and truth in order to oppose every single thing he does, even when he does something that might be a good idea, which I actually think this strike was. Was. Now, here's why I think this was kind of a shining moment for Democrats and displayed how horrible Republicans are. There was a poll done by ABC News, Washington Post, and the poll was partisan support for bombing Syria as punishment for using chemical weapons 2013 and 2017. This is such a useful poll because the situations are so similar and the only ways that they are dissimilar similar 2013, 2017, is that 2013, the chemical attack was much worse.

0:27:50 Thomas: Killed thousands of people or over a thousand, I think. 2017, 80 people. Now, I know that's horrible. It's a lot less casualties, a lot fewer casualties. So this is so instructive. Democrats under Obama, 38% support for a strike in Syria as punishment for chemical weapons. 2017, 37%. So Democrats under Obama, 38%. Democrats under Trump, 37%. I'm surprised at how consistent that is with With how partisan people are these days. I actually would have predicted a bigger swing, but look let's look at Republicans Let's look the other side of the aisle guys. Let's see is it gonna be something like that is gonna be similar gonna be close Republicans under Obama 22% support for a strike in Syria in 2013 Hmm.

0:28:40 Thomas: What was it under Trump? Any guesses for anyone who hasn't seen this already? 23%? 24%? Could it be 30%? Is that how partisan that could have gone up a little bit could it be? Could it be something as crazy as 40%? Nope, 86%. 22% support under Obama, 86% under Trump. That's versus the Democrats, which was 38 and 37. Look, Democrats aren't perfect. There's some Senate examples of people flip-flopping Democrats in the Senate. They're not perfect. We're not perfectly perfect. We're way better than Republicans. Republicans are partisan to an absurd degree because their whole stance is based on misinformation and fake news and Fox News and the alt-right and Russia and all this crap.

0:29:29 Thomas: It makes it impossible to be consistent on stuff. 22% to 86%, that is absurd. That's partisanship. I mean, they're really simple. Marco Rubio tried to make it out like, well, in 2013 there wasn't a coherent plan, 2017 there is a coherent Plan. I'll link a PolitiFact article, there was a coherent plan in 2013, and Obama brought it to Congress. Obama said, I want to make these strikes, here's what I'm hoping to do, I am hoping to deter future use of chemical weapons, etc., etc., there was long, there's like a week of lobbying and explaining exactly what their plan was. Trump just did it. And we're not totally sure. Like we eventually it pieced together that, yes, this was just to send a message.

0:30:15 Thomas: It wasn't meant to actually disable the whole air fleet and all this stuff that wasn't available ahead of time. But Rubio says, well, now there's a coherent plan. So that's why I support it. Bullshit. That is bullshit. So there you have it. And let me just point out that just because you support if somebody supports this doesn't mean they support for the right reasons. For example, John McCain said, oh, yeah, this is fine and it's all authorized under the authorization for the use of military force against Iraq from 2002 or 2003 or whatever. No, that's not true. Andrew pointed out that can't be true. You read the details of that authorization and military use of force. There's no way it extends to Syria in 2017. So that's wrong. Even though I agree that this strike was okay, you can definitely be wrong in many ways and be right in some ways.

0:31:03 Thomas: And that's how things work. That's how the truth works. It's not simple. Let me give you some top Senate quotes. These are great. I already talked about Rubio. His is a great flip-flop. Here's Paul Ryan. Oh, sorry, not just Senate. It looks like this is all of Congress. Here is Paul Ryan, I believe the President's proposed military strike cannot achieve its stated objectives. In 2013. In 2017, this action was appropriate and just. The tactical strikes make clear that the Assad regime can no longer count on American inaction as it carries out atrocities against Syrian people. Cool. Bull. Here's Representative Mac Thornberry, Republican from Texas. At some point in the future, this is 2013, at some point the future U.S. military operations may be required, but I do not believe the president's proposal should be approved at this time, 2017.

0:31:49 Thomas: I support the president decision to make military, take military action in Syria. My hope is that this action will help deter future atrocities by the Assad regime. Couldn't be more transparent. Really couldn't. Ooh, Mitch McConnell. I love this. Uh, I, I think that the, the best thing about Mitch McConnell is he knows he's a hypocrite. He will always be a hypocrit. He's a pile of shit in my opinion. And he doesn't even try that hard.

Like I think the people are a little more guilty about being piles of shit, you know, put a little bit more effort into it. Here's the statements, 2013 Mitch McConnell, a vital national security risk is clearly not at play. 2017, I support both the action and the objective he doesn't even care, does he care? He doesn't care he does not care how hypocritical he has to look to get what he wants to get done and well, unfortunately it has worked out great for him lately, there's no one I wish for things to work out great for less than Mitch McConnell and unfortunately that's where we find ourselves Now, among Democrats, there's a couple flip-flops, but if you read the statements, it's not so simple. It's not as simple as the horrible Republican flip- flops, which is this is terrible, this is great. In 2013, let's look at Nancy Pelosi.

As the president stated today, military action in response to Assad's reckless use of deadly gas that is limited in scope and duration, without boots on the ground, is in our national security interest and in furtherance of regional stability and global security. That was 2013. Let's look at 2017. Tonight's strike in Syria appears to be a proportional response to the regime's use of chemical weapons. If the president wants to escalate the U.S.

0:33:30 Thomas: Military's involvement in Syria, he must come to Congress for an authorization of the use of military force, which is tailored to meet the threat and prevent another open-ended war in the Middle East. Pretty consistent to me. I mean, yeah, you could argue she's a little bit more hesitant now, but that's pretty consistent. I mean, she said it appears to be a proportional response, but if you're going to do more, come to Congress, which is what a lot of the Democrats have said in Congress. A lot of them have said that. They've said, I support this one response that you did. It seems like it's reasonable. However, we need a plan going forward. And if you're gonna do more you need to go to Congress. That's what so many Democrats have said. And And that's the kind of reaction that this guy I read earlier, whose piece I read earlier, is outraged about.

0:34:20 Thomas: Oh, how could they be just, look at them. They're just fawning over Trump. No, Democrats aren't fawning over Trump. They're saying, you know what? Okay, this one thing, it looks like it was reasonable. If you're going to go further, I want to hear a plan. You know, I wants you to come to Congress. That's a reasonable response. Like here's Chuck Schumer, Foreign Relations Committee resolution is clear, limited, and specific, it prohibits any boots on the ground and puts strict time limits on American involvement in Syria while still allowing an appropriate response to the use of weapons of mass destruction and I will support it. That's 2013. 2017, he says, it is incumbent on the Trump administration to come up with a strategy and consult with Congress before implementing it. Yeah, I mean, yeah, a little more critical, but it's not the outward hypocrisy that you saw. Hey, let me give credit where it's due. Senator Bob Corker, Republican, in 2013 was supportive.

0:35:09 Thomas: He said, while I'm opposed to American boots on the ground in Syria, I would support surgical proportional military strikes given the strong evidence of the Assad regime's continued use of chemical warfare. And in 2017, he said this, it is critical that Assad knows he will no longer enjoy impunity for his horrific crimes against his own citizens. And this proportional step was appropriate. As we move forward, it will be important for the administration to engage with Congress and clearly communicate its full strategy to the American people. Very reasonable. So that's credit to Bob Corker, Republican from Tennessee. Pretty reasonable response. So I found one. So that is good. But I want to give credit because that is reasonable. He was consistent. Uh, just one more because I, I could go on forever with all the Congress people's, uh, responses, but this one I thought was interesting by Tim Kaine because it's consistent, but I think wrong.

0:36:00 Thomas: So that's kind of a, that's something we, we haven't quite looked at that. That's something that I would put pacifists in the category of being in, in my opinion, I, extreme pacifist for me would be consistent. It wouldn't be something that I'd say, hey, look at you, hypocrite, you're whatever. You're not a hypocrite. But I do think that that's not the correct tactic to take. I don't think that's the correct philosophy when when people are being gassed and when civilians are being killed and tortured. I don't, I actually probably lean more towards some sort of intervention. But anyway, let's look at Tim Kaine, 2013. I applaud the president's decision to come to Congress for authorization, something that I have called for publicly since the debate for Syria over Syria began. End. 2017, he says, Congress will work with the president, but his failure to seek congressional approval is unlawful.

0:36:49 Thomas: See, I think he's wrong. I don't think it is unlawful, but at least it's consistent. You couldn't say, oh, Tim Kaine, you're just saying that because you hate Trump. No, he said that in 2013. He said that he's always called for congressional approval. So I disagree with his analysis based on what I've been reading lately in Andrew Torrez and other legal sources that seems as though as long as the limited engagement under 60 days, it's something that the president has the right to do. So I disagree, but consistent. So, and that's better to me. Like I would rather see like a disagreement over facts, which is totally, which happens with Republicans. I would rather see a disagreement, like maybe they would want more use of force or whatever the issue may be. But they say, but they're consistent about it.

0:37:34 Thomas: In 2013, they should Should have said, yeah, you know what? We need to strike Syria because Assad is gassing his own people. They should have been supportive then and supportive now. Oh, and it has to be pointed out, you guys already know this, you've seen this before a million times, the most partisan asshole in all of this is Trump himself, he tweeted a tweetstorm in 2013 saying, Obama you idiot, don't go into Syria, you know, basically, and the funniest joke that a lot of people have made, but the version I liked and I saw first on this was like, we're now to the point where I wouldn't be surprised if Trump trips over a duck that we uncover a tweet from 2012 saying, Only fat idiots trip over ducks or something like that. Like everything Trump does, every action he takes virtually, there's a tweet you can find from him Condemning the same action that Obama did.

0:38:27 Thomas: I mean, it's absolutely absurd. And I'm not going to dwell on it because it's so stupid. It's so hypocritical. It's so transparently partisan and just, ugh, cynical. It is everything. It's horrible. It's hyperpartisan, it is hypocritical, but there's not much for me to say on that. People are already pointing that out. Everything he does, people retweet his old tweets, which is great, you should. You should do that. But I just want to acknowledge it and then move on because there's nothing I can add to that. It's just terrible. Some of you may be familiar with Shadi Hameed. I think he's been on Sam Harris's podcast. He wrote an article that I thought was pretty good that said, and the title is, A Practical Guide for Avoiding Fallacies on Syria.

0:39:14 Thomas: I obviously, I don't want to try to read the whole thing, getting a little short on time to piss those people off. But let me, let me hit the highlights. Military action does not equal regime change is one of his points. I'll just read the bulleted points, I think. Not everything is Iraq, is his second point. The fallacy of anti-interventionalism. Actually, let me read this because it's a short paragraph. The presumption that not acting is neutral, but it's not. Do no harm can do tremendous harm.

In the case of Syria, it has. Deciding not to act in the face of war crimes is a very conscious decision. Just as we judge the consequences of intervention, we must be willing to judge the consequences of non-intervention. I agree with that. Got a better idea is his other point. I think this is very valid as well. I think this is something that in 2013 we should have been asking Republicans, what's your idea? Okay, 2013, you don't want a military strike. Okay, well, what's, what's your counterproposal? But the, but the, the truth is the worst kind of politics is when you just say no, no, not good, bad, bad idea, no. That's just partisanship. That's just being a Republican. Sorry, I really, uh, I, I, I'm sorry. I'm mad at the Republicans. I apologize. But that, that chart really, uh, really got me going. Um, but that's just partisanship.

When you just oppose things without a better idea, you got to have a better idea. And I would include that for anyone who's going to respond to this, which I absolutely encourage you to, if you're going to correspond to my episode, ooh, this would be great for voicemails. If you want to leave voicemail. With, uh. Telling me why I'm wrong. Please do so. Please make them pithy.

0:40:51 Thomas: Uh, don't just go until the machine stops you at three minutes. That's, I almost never gonna play those because it's three really long and then it gets cut off. So make sure it's like a minute, you know, or something, but this would be a great topic to do that on, like if you have counter, if you objections to me, if you counters, I'm happy to hear them.

But that's something I would say, if you oppose this strike, you need to have a better idea of what to do. Prove it is this other bulleted point. Let me read this one because I think it's interesting. Quite understandably, critics of intervention ask its proponents to explain why intervention would be preferable. Over the years, those calling for airstrikes, safe zones, and no-fly and no drive zones have laid out any number of proposals. But can they prove that their preferred policy course would lead to better outcomes? Comes. No, they cannot. But that's an unrealistic standard that could just as easily be applied to Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda, or Kuwait in the lead up to actual or potential interventions in those countries. To apply this standard to policy debates is basically a means of blocking any discussion of alternative options. No one has ever argued that military intervention is risk-free. It entails risks, just as not intervening in the face of chemical weapons also entails risks. I agree with that.

His final two bullet points are, what will Russia do, and his response to that is, Russia needs to ask what the US will do, which is, I mean, they should have asked what the U.S. will do when they support Assad in Syria, and they don't really, and then the last one is the imperfect vessel argument that Trump is, since he's, you know, such a crappy president, we can't authorize him to do any of this.

0:42:29 Thomas: And Shadi Hameed's response to that is that means no matter what happens, the logical conclusion of that is like we can't do any military action under Trump. And I agree that that's not realistic. I mean, if there's a severe violation of human rights, I like the idea of leaving military options on the table and that's, to be honest, guys, that's why I think this military operation is okay. OK, I can tell you this. If the response to this attack had been Trump launching strikes all over Syria and wherever and without too much regard to casual, to casualties and collateral damage, I wouldn't support it. I support this limited action because I actually do think it makes sense as a way to show Syria, look, we didn't even, despite the fact that confusingly the Trump administration was kind of pro-Assad March 31st, despite that, you took advantage of us.

0:43:22 Thomas: You did something you shouldn't have done. We're showing you in the most limited way we can without too much death and destruction that there will be consequences if you do this and there will be consequences probably more so if you doing it again. That may save lives. That may save chemical weapons agonizing horrible deaths that might have happened if they hadn't done that. Alright, I'm gonna now take a look at some counterarguments that I've heard and also ones that I thought of. You may have heard in a recent Opening Arguments episode that I was pretty negative on this attack and I changed my mind because that's something that I'm willing to do, so here's some objections I've heard. The first one is, oh, but Trump warned the Russians. Look at that, he warned the Russians 90 minutes ahead of time.

0:44:10 Thomas: How could he do that? Like, how could he warn somebody, somebody who is aiding Assad. Does this prove some collusion between Trump and Putin? Did this undermine the attack on the base itself? That kind of objection. And I have a response to that, which is you really need to picture the alternative. Are you really saying, and are you really okay with the fact that you are essentially implying that Trump shouldn't have warned Russia to get military personnel out of there? That he should have just killed a bunch of Russian soldiers? Would you not? Pretend that that's how it went down. Tell me that you wouldn't be saying, dear God, this madman is starting World War III the next day. I mean, it is what you would say. You would say, look what he did.

0:44:56 Thomas: This irresponsible attack. He killed a bunch of Russians. World War III. I actually think it makes a lot of sense to, even though we don't have any reports of any Russians were killed in the attack, it looks like maybe not. It looks like just Syrians and Syrian planes and a couple of Syrian civilians. Maybe, I don't know who they would have been. But imagine if we'd killed a bunch of Russians. I mean, I, for one, don't think that's a better option. I think it makes sense, regardless of the Trump-Russia connections, to warn Russia on this case and to try to send the message to the Syrian regime, you can't do this, but he doesn't need to risk World War III with Russia in order to send that message to of the Syrian regime. Now, and he's actually been tough.

0:45:42 Thomas: Trump has, uh, he's flip-flopped as he does with most things, but he's been a little tough on Putin in implying that Putin probably knew about this chemical weapons attack, which I think it's smart for, uh. The administration to say that and put that verbal pressure on the, um, on Putin and just to do everything we can to make sure that a chemical weapons attacks doesn't happen again. I already covered the he's a horrendous warmonger for this objection. I've heard that a lot. I would just point out that Obama wanted to do this and wasn't allowed to by Congress and Obama was bombing Syria a lot. Now, this doesn't mean, by the way, when I say the warmongers objection to the Syria strike is invalid, when I say that, that doesn't mean that any time you call Trump a warmongering is invalid. I don't mean to say that there's other stuff that he's already currently doing and going to do that, that could be certainly a time when you would say, oh, look at this guy trying to start wars everywhere.

0:46:38 Thomas: He's doing something terrible. I want to be very clear that this is very specifically to do with this strike in Syria. Here's one that surprised me a lot. This was an argument I heard, and I thought, you're right, that's a great thing to say. I even tweeted that I endorsed it, and over the course of this research, I realized it doesn't follow. I'll tell you what it is. Somebody had tweeted at me, sure, maybe if this strike is right, whatever, but what's definitely right is that this obligates Trump to take on refugees. You know, any place we're bombing, we can't you can't pretend you're bombing to save the children from chemical attacks and then not take on children refugees. And I have to say that I actually think that doesn't follow.

0:47:25 Thomas: Now let me say this, I absolutely support taking in more refugees. I want this administration to give up its fight against poor women and children and victims and the demonizing of them, and the fact that we're not, I want to take in more of refugees, do not get me wrong, I absolutely do. But it's not a hypocritical thing to do to say, and I was surprised when I realized this, it's don't want to take in refugees, we think they're dangerous. And then to say there's been a chemical attack on the civilians by the Assad regime, we are going to do a strike that should endanger virtually no civilians at all, we're just going to strike one military target. That doesn't obligate us to take on civilian refugees, because you're not creating any more.

0:48:18 Thomas: That's the point. The, the argument was Trump's creating more refugees on behalf of trying to save children, and when really he should just be taking in refugees. And I just have to say that I don't think that that follows. I actually think that it's a consistent position to say, no, we're not taking refugees still, however, we are going to do this airstrike to try to make sure that Assad won't use chemical weapons again. So it's still a net benefit to refugees, it's not a hypocritical thing to do. That being said, we absolutely should take on refugees, I'm not saying we shouldn't. I just realized that that argument didn't necessarily follow, because I think it's, I think Trump's position as of now is, is at least internally consistent, even though I find not taking in refugees to be terrible. So I thought that surprised me, I just wanted to to share that with you.

0:49:09 Thomas: That's, that's how I feel, that's what I think is true. Next objection I've heard is jets, and this is one I made, this is what I made, so I gotta come clean. I said, I can't believe, at least disable the whole airfield and make sure they're not operational the next day. This I'm still sensitive to, I'm not completely recanting that.

I think that there's something to be said for being a little more successful in your strike, maybe not giving the Russians that much time to get out, I think they gave 90 minutes, maybe give a little less time so that Syrians can't hide their best stuff or something. So there's something to be said for that.

But I don't think it's that devastating, because I think the effort to be a little bit moderate, and the effort to not start a war with Russia and to not completely neutralize the Assad regime, because, lest we forget, theoretically, the Assad regime is also keeping ISIS at bay a little bit. Now, we can argue about that, there's some accusations that he kind of lets ISIS survive because it's good for him politically, whatever, we can argue about that. But still, if we were to do a strike that just disables Assad's military, virtually speaking, there would be a lot of instability in Syria. There would be, there, I mean, that's, that's a foggy area.

It's, again, it's another one of these problems that Trump thought was so simple until he was in charge of it, that there's maybe no right answers there. But I don't think it's a terrible thing to have only wanted a limited strike, to have said, here, we're going to take out some of your air capacity on the specific base that was responsible for this chemical weapons attack, so that it's very clear signal.

0:50:58 Thomas: So I don't, I mean, I do actually wish they had taken out a few more, a few more aircraft, but I don't know. It seems like for some reason, half of the, uh, missiles didn't hit their targets. Maybe there's some anti-missile system, I don't know that much about that. Um, I don't know why we would have missed. Yeah, 50% seems like a lot of misses, but I don't know, I'm, I, I'm absolutely not an expert as regards to that kind of thing. So maybe there's, there's a, there may be some ballistic defense, maybe the, who knows? I would have liked that we hit more as far as the runway stuff goes, I mean, maybe you take out the runways, I don't know. I mean, my point here is that that to me, that doesn't cripple the whole idea as much as I thought it did at first. You know, I thought it was a mockery to kind of launch all these missiles at something and then have it be operational the next day.

0:51:49 Thomas: When I read the reports that 20 to 25 aircraft were destroyed, that's, that's significant, when, when it's not the 20% that Mattis claimed, I think that's wrong, I don't, I still can't make sense of that claim. I'm still waiting to see if we get a better sense of why he would have said that. But it's probably not 20% of their air capacity, but it's, it's a percent of their air capacity, might be, could be 10%, something like that, could be a little less. It's enough to send a message, and I think I think an acceptable course of action. Alongside this argument is the "look how much these missiles cost" argument, is something like, I don't know, 70, anywhere I've seen different estimates, but all we launched 70, 90 million dollars worth of missiles and we barely accomplished anything. Yeah, that sucks. I don't think that it is a reason to not do this military strike. Here's what's a reason to do.

0:52:40 Thomas: It's a reason to fund the military less, because apparently they've got all kinds of just millions and billions of dollars of stuff sitting around, we don't even use most of what we have, but it's a good reason to not make the argument that we don't have money other places. I agree with that. So, Congress should not be enacting the terrible Trump budget, they should not be slashing PBS and doing stuff like that, yes, I agree with that. However, when it comes to a chemical weapons attack against citizens, I don't know that we can say, well, we have all these missiles, but we spent too much on them, so we shouldn't use them. Doesn't make sense to me. It's Congress's job to limit what we spend on military, and what we ought to do is elect better Congress members and get them to cut the military a little more.

0:53:31 Thomas: It's an unpopular thing thing to do. It's hard to do, that's what we should do, not decide to let Assad use chemical weapons on his own people because of how much the missiles we already built cost. Here's another argument. The US shouldn't be the policeman of the world. This is a big, big topic that I don't want to cover in five minutes. I also, I'm not an expert on it. It's not something that I think I have the perfect answer to. But one thing that has struck me that I want to tell you is how difficult the situation is in the world and how, honestly, I think maybe we do need to be the world's policeman sometimes because when it comes to the UN, UN, we saw just this week when they tried to adopt resolutions condemning Syria or doing this and that, Russia just vetoes it.

0:54:24 Thomas: So you've got a country with veto power that is backing a horrible dictator, that makes it so that nothing can ever get done by the UN on this. Because either Russia's vetoing, or if the US is wrong or something, the US would veto, like, say if you went the other way. So either way, nothing's going to happen on this, because there's two sides and they each have veto power. So it's like a lot of the international community and the UN specifically just can't do anything about it, and they won't do anything about.

So, I don't know what to say about that, I think that the US has long had a bit of a weirdly leadership role in the world, it's a long history of stuff, and I get that there's many Democrats and many people maybe abroad, or the rest of the world, who might look at how the US acts and be judgmental of the fact that we consider ourselves the police person of the, the world. I get it. But also, if we don't do anything, no one else is doing anything on this. The UN can't do nothing on this, what do we do? I mean, no one else is trying to stop Assad from using chemical weapons on his own people, and his regime is backed by Iran and China and Russia. I don't know, maybe we do. So that's a bigger argument, I'm not saying I'm 100% assure either way.

0:55:56 Thomas: I just think that Russia's veto power on this matter makes it impossible to rely on the international community, on the UN specifically, to do anything. All right, it's time to bring this to a close. I'll just say this. In the end, my ultimate statement is I support this limited action, this one very specific action by the Trump administration to attempt to get Assad to stop gassing his own people. I have lots of reservations going forward. There's lots of caveats. It doesn't mean I support Trump now. And this shouldn't even, in my mind, this shouldn t change his approval rating at all. It's weird that it probably probably will. I hope it doesn't, but he still should have almost no approval just because he does one thing right out of hundreds of horrible things.

0:56:43 Thomas: Uh, so, but anyway, that's my overall statement on it. And guys, I'm, I're open to your comments on this. I'm open to hearing from you about this, uh, check the phone number and the ways to contact me in the show notes. I'm open to it. I want to hear if I'm wrong on this. But I want to go out on a positive note. A positive note, everybody, here's the positive note. I don't know if you've been following the special elections, these are obviously, special elections are elections that take place before 2018 or whenever they would be up, and it's usually people who are appointed into the administration, for whatever reason they're leaving their seat, whether it be the Senate or the House. These ones I think are all the House, and there is good news from these special elections. There is a strong Democratic surge in the first few special elections, and there's a key one coming up, if you're listening to this on time, tomorrow, Tuesday, and that's Georgia 6, the 6th district of Georgia.

0:57:41 Thomas: This is huge. So here's the two that have already happened. There's a special election in California's 34th district. Typically, this has been 69 plus 69 Democrat. It's obviously it's California, so that's crazy margin. Margin. The level of margin in the special election was plus 87. So that's a plus 18 Democrat swing. Now there's the Kansas election you may have heard of. There's a bit of controversy on this. Democrats are mad at the Democratic establishment for not putting more money into this. Separate argument. I think that it's tough to want to spend a bunch of money on something that was plus 29 GOP. Now, when the special election happened last week, the margin was only plus seven GOP. So that's a plus 22 difference in favor of the Democrats.

0:58:28 Thomas: Here's the big test will be this week, Georgia. Like I said, this is only a plus nine GOP district. So if the, if the difference that has kind of been happening stays, if this anti-Trump effect stays in place, we could see that that seat flip and go Democrat. And that's, that's You know, it's small, but it's a start. And it's indicative that there's possibly a huge anti-Trump backlash coming. And guys, I you know, we need to be I'm keeping my hopes in check a little bit. It. But if there's this big of a Democrat surge in 2018, even though I pointed out how horrible the election map looked and how horrible which, you know, the seats looked for the Senate in 2018.

0:59:15 Thomas: Hey, if there is a in the 20s Democrat shift, you know, that that that will solve a lot of problems, that will probably win us back the Senate, even thought it'll just be barely because the map is so bad against us at that time. But but still, that will likely win us back the Senate, if we can get those kind of numbers, and maybe we will, maybe Trump will be, people will be so soured on Trump that they will, uh, we'll switch that way. Republicans will stay home and Democrats will get out there. That's what I hope. Keep the enthusiasm up, vote in these elections. If, if you are in these districts that are having special elections, vote in them. It is important. It is importante to vote. So that's my positive note to leave on. I hope that you've enjoyed this episode, I hope you've also enjoyed my sort of counterintuitive conclusion that I came to, that I wasn't sure, I didn't hold myself, until I started researching, and I thought, I don't know, I think there's a reason why 79 senators out of 100 approve this.

1:00:12 Thomas: I think that even though there's Democrats with reservations, I also think there is a reason a lot of Democratic senators approve this, but let me know what you think. I really value your input and I have a ton of brilliant listeners, I mean that. And you guys really helped me to see if I ever make any mistakes. And let me know if you think I've made any mistakes in this. I'm open to hearing. Thank you for listening to Serious Inquiries Only. Thank you to everyone who has pledged at patreon.com/seriouspod. I really appreciate that, especially. And look forward on Thursday to a debate with Nenar over whether or not the Syrian regime is responsible for a chemical weapons attack. Very interesting to have that debate. Look forward to that. I certainly look forward to hearing it and I really look forward to the reaction to it too. So thanks for listening. Have a great week and I will see you on Thursday.