In the recent senatorial debate, candidate Gabriel Gomez chided Rep. Ed Markey for not promoting more forceful action against the Syrian government.  Gomez said something to the effect that “all you have to do is find the right rebel group in Syria and back them.”  Since John McCain was recently in town to support Gomez, he might have been referring to McCain’s efforts to find the right rebels.

Here is an email that I just received from VoteVets.org.

Dear Steven –

It’s been two weeks since the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted to give President Obama the authority to arm and train the Syrian rebels in their nation’s civil war.

Since then, the fighting has intensified along with Senator McCain’s insatiable appetite for intervention.

Ironically, the Senator’s relentless pursuit of more war crystalizes the case against our involvement better than anything else has so far.

By now you’ve probably heard the story about his secret trip to Syria to meet with rebel leaders and the picture he took with members of a known terrorist group during his short stay. His staff says he didn’t know who they were, and no one doubts that.

But that’s the point: if a U.S. Senator can unwittingly pose for pictures with terrorists in Syria, how can we guarantee the arms he supports sending won’t end up in the same place he did — with terrorists?

Will you use our “Contact Congress” tool to write a letter to your Senator telling them you oppose intervention in Syria at this time?

http://action.votevets.org/senate-intervention

No doubt, there’s an unquestionable humanitarian crisis unfolding in this conflict, but the truth is there are no good guys in this fight.

The government of Bashar al-Assad has the support of a number of groups who targeted and killed many Americans in Iraq. At the same time, many of the rebel fighters have also killed American and Iraqi troops, and they still seek to bring down Nouri al-Maliki’s government.

At some point we must learn that we will never, ever successfully maneuver the millennia-old fight between Sunni and Shia and the best move for our own security is to stay out. Write a letter to your Senators today.

http://action.votevets.org/senate-intervention

Thanks for taking action. We’ll keep you updated as things heat up on this issue.

All the best,

Jon Soltz
@jonsoltz
Iraq War Veteran and Chairman
VoteVets.org

As I would have said to Gabriel Gomez had I been there, ‘All you have to do’ is easy for you to say, but how are you going to do it? For somebody who thinks the government in Washington is incompetent, you put a lot of faith in them to pick the ‘right’ rebels

I favor Ed Markey’s approach to military intervention. On top of his requirements for using military intervention, I would include the caveat that you have to be pretty sure that the intervention will help our interests and not hurt them.