Runaway train and no Denzel.

It's the indiscriminate killing that bothers me. Any country that does that is no better than the scumbags who leave car bombs in shopping districts in order to blow up innocents. We object to the senseless killing of Syrians so we should do some too?

I think only a tiny number of Americans have actually thoughtfully considered the chain of events unleashed when engaging in a tactical attack on civilian infrastructure in foreign countries . . . .^[1]

To put this in perspective, consider this great pretend Obama quote devised by The New Yorker's Andy Borowitz:

Let me be clear. Our goal will not be to effect régime change, or alter the balance of power in Syria, or bring the civil war there to an end. We will simply do something random there for one or two days and then leave.

H/t: James Taranto.

The responsibility to protect "doctrine" of very, very recent vintage, let it be said, did not extend to our own people in Benghazi but it now applies to strangers caught up, innocently or otherwise, in a civil war between parties who despise us with equal passion. Apparently, the United States haven't learned their lesson about involving themselves in the Muslim world whose politics and religious savagery defy comprehension. Even when the national budget is succinctly defined by the word "hemorrhage," the insane desire for mindless foreign military involvement is as ever-present in the White House as Reggie Love.

The supposed responsibility to protect raises the question, "Protect against whom?" "President Assad!" is the immediate Obama/Kerry answer with the U.S. intelligence community said to be four-square behind them. However, apart from the fact that

• chemical weapons are indiscriminate weapons that depend on favorable (and accurately perceived) meteorological conditions,
• there was no tactical or strategic advantage to Assad to have used them given that he appears far from defeated, and
• it's probably unwise, on balance, to taunt even an unstable, inexperienced American president (even if protected by a lap-dog national press establishment),

there are reports that the chemical agents were supplied by the the Saudi intelligence chief and/or some "Saudi militant" and mishandled by the "rebels" and that it was the "rebels" who initially denied United Nations inspectors access to the supposed attack site (H/t: New Zeal Blog) not Assad.

The ability of the Dems to lead the American media (and the Republicans) by the nose from the swings to the tricky bars to the slides to the sandbox is formidable. Excellence is alive and well in the hollowed out America of Holder (my people; territory = nationhood), Jones (I'm a commie), Jarrett (we love Van), Glover (Chavez and Castro suck up), Bloomberg (eat your veggies), Goldberg (whoopee cushion; DDR suck up), Sharpton (depart white interlopers), the New York Times (Duranty who?), Cone (black liberation theology; kill whitey), Winfrey (sweet, sweet grievance, I thee embrace), Biden (Peter Principle), Roberts (it's a righteous tax), Zinn (garbage America), Reid (send more Mexicans), Maher (The Finger), and The Man with No Past.

Notes
^[1] "No Mercy." By HMS Defiant, 8/30/13.