Kerry on Syria: 'An Unbelievably Small, Limited Kind Of Effort'

Hey, given the unbelievably small and limited men signing off the concept, “An unbelievably small, limited kind of effort” certainly seems apt:

Secretary of State John Kerry says the White House is planning an “unbelievably small” strike against Syria’s regime to punish it for using chemical weapons against civilians in Damascus.

That’s contrary to other reports from the Pentagon, where officers are reportedly planning a two or three-day campaign, complete with hundreds of strikes from ships and long-range bombers.

“We will be able to hold Bashar Assad accountable without engaging in troops on the ground or any other prolonged effort — in a very limited, very targeted, very short-term effort, that degrades his capacity to deliver chemical weapons,” he told an audience in London.

“What we’re talking about doing [is] an unbelievably small, limited kind of effort,” he said, similar to previous strikes “on many different occasions.”

To coin a phrase from a decade ago, when Saddam Hussein was successfully toppled by President Bush, accomplishing a long-held bipartisan goal, “If you have to ask, it’s not ‘shock and awe.'”

In contrast, as Roger L. Simon writes today:

What [Obama] is is confused, one day decrying American exceptionalism, the next day invoking it, a nowhere man, weak and ineffectual, the very worst type of person to lead in wartime, certain not to inspire even for a second.

Worse still, he has proven to us through Benghazi that he has no moral core. He was willing to lie, and have his minions lie continually, to the American people about what happened in that city on September 11, 2012, and he hasn’t even begun to correct the record.

A man without a moral core cannot be trusted for a second to lead in wartime because he is constantly confronted with moral and tactical decisions.

To my shame I ignored this. This is particularly painful to admit, since I wrote many times about the importance of Benghazi, how finding the truth about that horrifying event is necessary not only for the families of the Americans who were murdered, but for the future health of our republic.

The deceptions about Benghazi runs through Barack Obama and, of course, through Hillary Clinton.  I wouldn’t trust either of them to mow my lawn, let alone command the American military.

I wouldn’t presume to speak for Roger, but I would definitely add our esteemed Secretary of Winter Soldiering to that list as well.

Update: Great Moments in Sober, Adult Wartime Messaging, as spotted by USA Today:

A second senior official, who has seen the most recent planning, offered this metaphor to describe such a strike: If Assad is eating Cheerios, we’re going to take away his spoon and give him a fork. Will that degrade his ability to eat Cheerios? Yes. Will it deter him? Maybe. But he’ll still be able to eat Cheerios.

Somewhere, Patton, Ike and MacArthur are all laughing as loudly at that dreadfully inept metaphor as Obama, Gibbs and Axelrod are pretending to in the above photo.