Trudy Rubin's recent column proposes that we supply "vetted" Syrian rebels with anti-aircraft systems to fight Assad and thereby somehow prevent jihadis from obtaining nukes from Pakistan and setting them off in Times Square.
What is happening in Syria is awful but is not our fight, and the notion that we can keep fanatic religious nuts from our shores by intervening militarily in Middle Eastern conflicts is simplistic and wrong. We should supply humanitarian assistance but understand that a limited military commitment would fail; historically, half-hearted military ventures always have. An all-out commitment on the scale of World War II would succeed but would create death and carnage on a scale not seen since then.
Syria did not take sides in our Civil War and we have no business getting involved in theirs. If Rubin believes strongly enough, she should head for the desert, take up a rifle and march with the "vetted" rebels but please leave the rest of us out of it.
— Paul Richards
Talkeetna