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" Those of us who are old enough to remember the famous Vietnam Syndrome generally are divided into two camps depending upon the definition we placed on the conditions. There are those of us who thought that the Vietnam Syndrome was generally a salutary thing since it prevented the nation from hurling half-a-million soldiers into the maw of an unnecessary and unwinnable war based on lies. (Among its other salubrious effects, it kept the Reagan people from tossing American soldiers into Central America, thereby forcing the Reagan people to commit a staggering number of unpunished crimes and unpunished impeachable offenses to get what they wanted. Scoreboard!) Then, there were those who dreaded the Vietnam Syndrome because it kept their imperial pretensions in check as regards the political utility of other people&amp;#039;s children. When Poppy Bush won his walkover in Kuwait, he is said to have declared that &amp;quot;we&amp;#039;ve kicked the Vietnam Syndrome once and for all.&amp;quot; This turned out not to be such a good thing because the slower of his several sons eventually was installed in the presidency by some old family retainers, and we all know how that turned out. We could have used a good flareup of The Vietnam Syndrome in 2002, I&amp;#039;m thinking. Which brings us to what we can call The Iraq Syndrome. Because of C-Plus Augustus&amp;#039;s savage stupidity, and because of the running one-year Gulf Of Tonkin Incident that he used to justify inflicting that stupidity on the world, a great number of Americans are understandably dubious about the prospect of military action based on the underlying geopolitical grounds of &amp;quot;We Have The Proof, But We Can&amp;#039;t Show It To You.&amp;quot; Again, I think this is a pretty good thing. However, it seems to have unsettled not only some of our more bellicose politicians, but also some of the people who cheered them on to glory a decade ago. (Amid the liberal-hawk Rationalization Carnival last week, more than a few people suggested that it would be wrong to treat the pronouncements of the intelligence community with the skepticism a logical mind might perceive as being completely appropriate to recent historical precedent.) Yesterday, for example, Rep. Mike Rogers, a rising star in Republican national-security circles, which means he is someone to keep an eye on while simultaneously holding onto your wallet, said this about Syria: There&amp;#039;s mounting evidence that over the last two years the Assad regime has used &amp;quot;at least a small quantity&amp;quot; of chemical weapons against rebel forces in Syria&amp;#039;s raging civil war, House Intelligence Committee chair Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said today on &amp;quot;Face the Nation,&amp;quot; adding that the time is now for U.S. intervention. ... Rogers said the fact that President Bashar al-Assad has ordered scud missile attacks on civilians &amp;quot;in and of itself should prompt action.&amp;quot; The &amp;quot;wholesale slaughter&amp;quot; of Syrian rebels and civilians, he said, &amp;quot;is now spilling up to the doorstep of Israel.&amp;quot; And, also: Rogers said Mr. Obama &amp;quot;can do this in a way that doesn&amp;#039;t lure the United States into a big, boots-on-the-ground conflict.&amp;quot; Intervention, he said, &amp;quot;doesn&amp;#039;t mean 101st Airborne Division and ships; it means small groups with special capabilities reengaging the opposition, so we can vet them, train them, equip them so they can be an effective fighting force.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;The president went to the Middle East and said, &amp;#039;This is a hard decision: If I go in, it might be wrong, if I don&amp;#039;t go in it might be wrong,&amp;#039;&amp;quot; Rogers said. &amp;quot;Indecision, in this case, is dangerous.&amp;quot; Actually, two cheers for indecision in this case. (Perhaps Congressman Rogers can borrow a term from an earlier age and call the &amp;quot;small groups&amp;quot; he suggesting we send in &amp;quot;advisers,&amp;quot; because that worked so well the last time.) The evidence for a Syrian chemical-weapons attack is not as solid as it ought to be.And a truly effective Iraq Syndrome would not allow the country once again to get euchred into bumping theater chemical weapons, as horrible as they are, into the category of a weapon of mass destruction. It appears that the administration is afflicted a bit by the Iraq Syndrome. And I applaud them for it. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a20984/iraq-syndrome-032513/>