STEVE PIECZENIK TALKS

America!  Please Listen to your Military General Martin J. Dempsey,  Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Of Staff:  Don’t Go To War In Syria!!

In a military/civilian career spanning four decades,   I have learned one very important lesson from Senior Military Staff in five administrations:  Don’t go to war  if you don’t have to because if you go to war,  it will be very costly and the outcome will be at best uncertain.    If we do go to war,  don’t hamper the US military capacity in combat  if we want to be victorious. 

  On July 23, 2013,  the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Of Staff,  Army General Martin J. Dempsey,  informed the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee,  Carl Levin [D-Michigan],  that in effect it will be very costly in terms of dollars and human lives for the US military to intervene in the Syrian Civil War.

This is a very simple but exceedingly important statement of fact by a man professionally trained in the Art of War.

  More importantly,  President Obama has chosen wisely  to limited covert CIA supplies to the so-called ’Syrian Free Army’  ….no thanks to unnecessary pressures from Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham to go to war!

I might add that as much as I have criticized the DCI,  John Brennan,  in the past for his untoward activities regarding covert activities,  I do applaud the fact that he is now at home,  where he belongs at the CIA.   Consequently,   I know that Brennan and the CIA have the necessary experience to ‘vet’ whatever ‘free fighters’ they deem ‘worthy’ to acquire light weapons from the USG.

In reality,   all the parties concerned in this conflict including:  Turkey,  Russia,  Saudi Arabia, UAE and others know fully well that whatever shipment of weapons that are ‘donated’ to the Free Syrian Fighters will eventually end up on the black market or in Syrian President Bashar Assad’s army.

There are very few civil wars in the Middle East that do not involve a conundrum of conflicting interests where eventually your enemy becomes the best buyer of your weapons that your enemy will use against you later on.

  Paradoxical?  Perhaps!  But very true.

  Throughout the entire civil war in Lebanon in the 1970’s-80’s  the Phalangists were selling weapons to Fatah and vice versa all day long.   Then they or whomever bought the new weapons,  would use them against their enemy later in the day.   Then the next day,  this infernal cycle of death would continue…. on for years.   Finally,  all parties stopped fighting for one simple reason—both parties were EXHAUSTED. 

In effect,  what had happened in the Lebanese Civil War,  as in many other wars,   is that the end game usually results in a stalemate where hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians die needlessly and billions of dollars go into the military/industrial profit machine.    And parties actually engaged in the fighting are too exhausted—both mentally and physically—to continue.

  I reiterated the simple point that the Syrian Conflict—be it called a Civil War or a Humanitarian Disaster—Is both unfortunate and containable.   But the United States of America does not belong in that conflict in any way shape or form.

  Obama had been misled in the past and unfortunately made a public statement to the effect that “President Bashar Assad had to go!”

  That intemperate pronouncement is not worth spending any more American lives or for that matter anyone elses’ lives.   Simple fact:  American citizens and legislators have a choice- Either we can enter the war or stay out!!
  General Dempsey effectively gamed out the scenario in response to Senator’s McCain and Graham request for a full military scenario.

  Gen. Dempsey,  unlike Generals Maxwell Taylor and Westmoreland during the Vietnam War,   has made completely clear to everyone concerned that placing America boots on the ground or initiating a ‘no fly zone’ strategy is prohibitively costly in terms of $$$,  lives and time.  

  Do the right thing,  please listen to a COURAGEOUS MILITARY GENERAL and his knowledgable  PENTAGON STAFF [ARMY, NAVY, MARINE, AIR FORCE, SOCOM}---- and don’t enter the Syrian Conflict- either on the ground, or in the air, or on the seas!!!

Praemonitus Praemunitus!
Forewarned, Forearmed!!!