You will be asked to represent the people of Delaware. This is an accountability vote. One which will always be used against you, by someone, no matter which way you choose to vote. Hillary’s similar vote cost her the Presidency. These type of votes don’t die. They are never forgotten.

Your Great- Great Grandchildren’s descendants will rate you based on this vote. This is one you don’t want to cast lightly. You, no doubt, will be offered a lot of short term promises, in return for the loyalty you choose to show the President. It would be wise to remember that a promise easily made, can just as easily be broken.

But if you get this vote wrong, it will haunt you.

There are huge questions that need answered. By you.

  • Why is launching cruise missiles the “only” option being considered?
  • What is the Pentagon’s and outside experts’ assessment of the damage, a “limited” attack will cause?
  • How does this petty retaliation show resolve? For example, if you put a starving man in jail for stealing an orange off a fruit stand, does this act affect his behavior a week later when he is starving again?
  • How does any act against the regime, not worsen the plight of those who live within its borders? Any damage suffered by the military will get repaired asap while taking resources away from the already suffering population.
  • How does sticking to our principals, when the world tells us our principals are dead wrong, “win us friends and influence people?”
  • Exactly how is using chemical weapons good when it is the US Marines making it rain white phosphorous as was done over Fallujah, and only bad when it is someone else?
  • If the US launches an attack, and fails to achieve the teaching of a lesson, doesn’t that in real life, embolden Iran that much more, knowing that if the USA can’t effectively execute against Syria, it surely is not a threat to Iran?

And what is the other sides argument?

  • We have to look like men, and defend our honor.
  • Nobody will respect us if we don’t respond ruthlessly.
  • We have to do this (kill more poor innocent children) so those children who died in the chemical attack, did not die in vain,
  • Our Pentagon has new surface to surface weapons we have not yet tested in combat,  This is our only chance to do so.
  • It gives our nation macho-swag.
  • We always go to war when we feel like it; why stop now?
  • We want to see the footage on TV.  This television season is so boring already  (Just don’t bomb between 9-10 on Sunday nights!)
  • As soon as the first bomb will fall, Assad will apologize, step down, and surrender, and not retaliate in any way, just as did the USA after being attacked on 9/11.
  • It is too much expense and trouble to actually “do something” meaningful in Syria, to make life palatable for those living there.   Just send them a delivery by air mail and then be done with it.  Like wiring some flowers on Mother’s Day.

All these are very valid reasons for launching cruise missiles into Damascus and the surrounding desert.  So you, Carper, Coons, and Carney, must weigh these opposing arguments very carefully, and not only be conscious of how opinion flows today, but as everyone directly saw after the invasion of Iraq, be very wary of how all that “we yet don’t know”, can rise up and forever attach itself to your reputation for as long as men look back upon this time.

You have to get this one right…..

My advice?  (you knew it was coming…. )  Listen to NO ONE in official capacity, because everything they say will be slanted.  Get your “read” from your children, your mom and dad, your aunts, uncles, grandkids if you have them.  Your friends from high school and college.  Go into a bar incognito in another state and listen to what real people are saying….

These kind of decisions are not to be decided lightly.  These are not decisions of the moment.  These decisions come from whom you really are….  Someone who decides for themselves?   Or who decides based upon which option looks the best at any given moment?

For if you are right.  And you know it, Then history will be kind to you.  You will be able to rest in peace.