Congress As A Last Resort

On Monday, Byron York posted an article at the Washington Examiner about President Obama’s decision to seek authorization from Congress for military intervention in Syria.

The article points out that President Obama first sought approval on the world stage. When it became apparent that the world stage was not interested in giving its approval, President Obama sought approval from Congress.

The article reports:

It was only after it became clear to Obama that he could not win acceptance in other, preferred, circles that he chose to go to Congress. Would he have sought congressional authorization if he had won United Nations approval for a Syrian attack? Highly unlikely. Would he have sought congressional authorization if the British Parliament had voted to join Obama’s action? Also unlikely. Even approval from the Arab League might have been enough for Obama to act.

So where are we?

Yahoo News posted an article today with the following statement by Vladimir Putin:

He said he “doesn’t exclude” backing the use of force against Syria at the United Nations if there is objective evidence proving that Assad’s regime used chemical weapons against its people. But he strongly warned Washington against launching military action without U.N. approval, saying it would represent an aggression. Russia can veto resolutions at the U.N. Security Council and has protected Syria from punitive actions there before.

It will be interesting to see how Congress votes on this.

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Why I Want To End The United Nations

Yesterday the U. K. Telegraph reported that Russia and China had vetoed a United Nations resolution to back an Arab League plan to end the violence in Syria. The problem issue was a requirement that the Syrian government withdraw tanks and artillery from the streets. Syria had agreed to do this in November. On Friday it was reported that the Syrian government had killed hundreds of civilians in the city of Homs.

This would seem to be an obvious situation for the United Nations, Amnesty International, and various human rights groups to be involved with. Where are they?

Why would Russia and China veto this? Syria is a puppet state of Iran. Iran does not want the government of Syria to fall. Russia and China have been supplying Iran with nuclear material and knowledge and have been doing a lot of trading with Iran. This is all in keeping with the policy of ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend.’ Russia and China are not friends of the United States. Their governments do not wish us well, although many of their people do not share those feelings. The United Nations is powerless because it has been taken over by dictators. It needs to be replaced by an organization that actually supports human rights and will protect innocent civilians.

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