Letter to Senators and Congressman on Syria

Here is the letter I sent to my senators and congressman on the proposed military action in Syria.  I will post any responses I receive as well:

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I urge you to vote against any U.S. military action against Syria in response to Syria's likely use of chemical weapons against its own people in its civil war.  I oppose such military action for three broad reasons that I will briefly elaborate upon below:  (1) the U.S. has no national interest in getting involved in Syria's civil war; (2) the U.S. is not the world's police; and (3) sending a message is not a valid reason to use military force against a country with which we are not at war.  I assume for the purposes of this message that the government of Syria did use chemical weapons against its people.  I also assume we have good intelligence to support this conclusion. ... Please consider my comments and please vote against U.S. military action in Syria.

We have no national interest in getting involved in Syria's civil war.  We don't really have valid reason to help or hurt either side.  Even assuming Syria's government used chemical weapons against the opposition, we should not even consider acting unless and until we are certain that an opposition win in this civil war would be in our best interests.  We cannot say that the U.S. would be in a better position if the terrorist aligned opposition were to prevail than if the legitimate government were to prevail.  While Syria has certainly not been a U.S. ally in the recent past, Syria has not truly threatened or harmed the U.S. either.  Syria's use of chemical weapons against its own people does not threaten the United States or our interests.

We are not the world's police.  The use of chemical weapons is bad, but Syria's internal domestic use of chemical weapons does not warrant U.S. military intervention.  In fact, while many people died in this instance (or these instances), Syria's use of chemical weapons against its own people is not really any different than if an American police department uses tear gas on protesters - it still represents a government using chemical agents against its people.  And why does the fact that Syria killed people with chemical weapons, as opposed to a bomb or machine guns, make a difference with respect to a potential response?  Either way, the people are just as dead.  It's terrible.  We should strongly condemn the use of chemical weapons and the killing of these people.  But the next logical step is not for the U.S. to launch a military attack on a sovereign nation with which we are not at war and to kill more people.

Sending a message is not a valid reason to use military force (that is, to break things and kill people) that do not threaten the U.S. or our allies.  This would set a terrible precedent for using force against a sovereign nation that is not engaged in international hostilities.  We should only put our troops in harm’s way and use our military weapons when we have a strong need to protect U.S. national interests, when we have a clear goal (i.e., a well-defined end state we hope to achieve), and a high likelihood that our proposed military action will result in that end state.  The proposed action in Syria does not meet any of these criteria.

I urge you to oppose U.S. military action against Syria.  I request a detailed, specific response from you to this message.  Do not just send me an auto reply or form letter response.