27 August 2013 The guns of august echo still

Cassi Creek:  It is horribly frustrating to sit here and watch the military, already too thinly stretched, ramping up for a coordinated airstrike against one or all Syrian factions. 

          After delaying our response to the use of nerve agents for a year, while we did nothing to stabilize the situation, the Administration is going to hurl Tomahawk and other enhanced and advanced weaponry into Syrian air space at a cost of billions. 

          The possibility of a small coalition - Us and the British – striking simultaneously may decrease the risk from Syrian anti-aircraft batteries.  Flying missile and flak suppression will not be easy for our pilots and will likely cost some lives. 

          It has been stated that Assad is not an allowable target.  Nor are the weapons storage sites where nerve agents are located now.  Not only have we blown the chance for a surprise attack, we’ve declared the most important and effective targets off limits. 

          There is concern that the Arab League approve of the strike.  Who really cares about what the Arab league thinks today.  They’ve ignored the problem too, exacerbating the refugee problem and, once again, throwing away the opportunity to move the Arab states into the 21^st century. 

            “The Guns of August (1962), also published as August 1914, is a volume of history by Barbara Tuchman. It is centered around the first month of World. After introductory chapters, Tuchman describes in great detail the opening events of the conflict. Its focus then becomes a military history of the contestants, chiefly the great powers.

The Guns of August thus provides a narrative of the earliest stages of World War I, from the decisions to go to war, up until the start of the Franco-British offensive that stopped the German advance into France. The result was four years of trench warfare. In the course of her narrative Tuchman includes discussion of the plans, strategies, world events, and international sentiments before and during the war.” 

            As we leave August 2013 behind, we are still fighting because of actions and reasons dating back to 1914.   Harry Patch, the last British soldier who fought in WWI described war as “organized murder and nothing more.”  Now we have wars that defy organization.  The term “clusterfuck” becomes more and more an apt description of the mess we’re about to step in yet again.

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