Syria strike divides America — but 17 percent sadly ‘uncertain’

OPINION:

Fully 17 percent responding to a new poll about President Donald Trump’s unilateral strikes against Syria don’t know what to think — don’t know if the attack was good, bad, positive, negative, whatever.

That’s according to a new poll from HuffPost/YouGov that found 51 percent in support of Trump’s ordered strikes and 32 percent in opposition. But it’s these 17 percent who replied “uncertain” who sound a national alarm. What’s up, you 17 percenters? Is it you’re not informed — or worse, don’t care?

Either way, you’re skirting your duty as an American citizen.

Get informed and pick a side, please. This is a constitutional question — does the president have the right to strike unilaterally when America’s national security interests aren’t clearly at stake?

Or, a flip-flopping question — why did Trump in 2013 seem so clear the president didn’t have the right to unilaterally bomb Syria, but now it’s OK?

Or, a War Powers Act question — what’s up with the War Powers Act, anyway, and does it pertain for this Syria strike?

Or, any number of other considerations, justifications, questions, concerns and red flags, all of which should give even the most casual of news watchers cause to form some kind of pro-con, nay-yay opinion on Trump’s ordered strikes.

The silence from the 17 percent is what’s wrong with our country.

Americans should be educated enough to be sure — interested and concerned enough to weigh in — bold enough to stand strong on their views.

Americans shouldn’t be standing on the sidelines, shrugging shoulders at their elected leaders’ actions, waving this way in the wind, then that, waiting to be told what to think. The Founding Fathers, who believed in an educated and informed populace, would not be proud.

How can elected officials be held accountable if the people who pay their salaries are not duly informed on the day’s events?

And not just duly informed, but informed to the point where passions are aroused?

Get in the game, you 17 percenters. Straddling the line of unknown may be safe and comfortable and allow you to present as a diplomatic thinker, intellectually pursuing all sides of an argument and so forth — for a time.

But days after a U.S. strike on an overseas nation, you ought to have picked a side. You can’t simply sit by and see all views forever. There’s such a thing as over-analysis. This is America, not Switzerland. And in this of, by and for the system of governance of America, the fate of the country’s political and cultural successes depends on the pressings of its citizens, on the quality of their arguments and on their willingness and ability to stand strong on principles — all of which require, at step one, the picking of a viewpoint, the choosing of a side.