End America’s involvement in Syria

To the editor:

I recently met with a group of peers to discuss America's involvement in the Syrian conflict. No one in this group of well-informed, motivated individuals could explain the situation in a way that justified our current level of participation and certainly not in a way that justified an expanded role in the future.

And yet, it is clear that our unanimous position of non-intervention is not shared by the media and certainly not by politicians. How could this be? There are three options: the political class knows something that they are not sharing, the political class has motivations that are not present in their rhetoric, or a room full of well-informed folks were incapable of assimilating the legitimate arguments made by politicians.

We recalled hundreds of years of intervention in the region, each new engagement beginning with the promise of lasting stability, each followed by less. It was our conclusion, with history as our supporting argument, that America's involvement in Syria, and the entire Middle East for that matter, has been a compounding disaster. It must end. There is nothing to gain that cannot be negotiated at a much lower price than trillions of dollars of debt and the lives of our soldiers. If there is something to gain, have the fortitude to put it to a vote in Congress before engaging in warfare. We will then see if there is a case to be made.

Heath Long

Cedar Rapids