OPINION:
Since Syrian President Bashar Assad is considered in violation of international law by the United Nations and the international community, he alone should be held responsible for the use of chemical weapons. We have no assurance of what form of government will replace Mr. Assad. A democratic form of government in an Islamic nation appears unlikely when you consider the history of many Muslim nations.
Secretary of State John F. Kerry postures before Congress and goes whichever way he thinks the political winds are blowing. Mr. Kerry testified before Congress in 1971 about his investigation in Detroit of veterans who had served in Vietnam: “They told stories that, at times, they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads … and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam, in addition to the normal ravage of war and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.” Yet he now supports applied bombing power in Syria with the same military complex in place that he criticized in 1971.
As one who served as a counseling psychologist and chief of vocational rehabilitation and counseling with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for more than 33 years, I never heard a veteran or colleague recount the stories Mr. Kerry told Congress in 1971.
It is time to hold the leaders of this nation and foreign powers accountable for their actions, and not hold the peoples of the world accountable, too.
SELBY PARKER
Clinton, Miss.
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