U.S. Intelligence Confirms Chemical Weapons Use In Syria

It has been confirmed by U.S. intelligence. Syria’s government has used chemical weapons in its ongoing civil war.

The President has not made a specific decision on a responsive action to this information. The White House saying it will make decisions on its own timeline.

The President is expected to talk to other world leaders about Syria at next week’s G8 Summit in Northern Ireland. …

McCain, Graham, Krauthammer, all the tools that advised GWB and others qualify, http://www.freedomvrights.com/classicalvneo.html:
“Neo-conservatives and classical conservatives may very well share positions on some issues. Perhaps this is why neo-conservatives frequently regard themselves as simply “conservative.” But the formal assumptions from which they begin are logically incompatible with one another. That neo-conservatism and classical conservatism are as distinct from each other as the utilitarian and natural law traditions can be seen from their respective answers to questions concerning the basic character of reason/knowledge, morality, and the State.

Reason/knowledge. Neo-conservatives, whether they explicitly admit as much, endorse a trans-cultural, trans-historical conception of Reason. Reason, on this score, while influenced by tradition, is ultimately capable of rising over and against it. When neo-conservatives (and others, for that matter) approvingly cite Jefferson’s affirmation of “self-evident” truths, this is the model of Reason on which they rely.

Classical conservatives, in contrast, from at least the time of Burke in the eighteenth century, have repeatedly rejected this notion of Reason as a rationalist’s dream. The individual has reason, it is true, but his reason is the product of centuries of tradition. Knowledge consists not in the abstract intellectual apprehension of “self-evident truths,” but in unarticulated feelings, habits, and customs that have become “second nature.”

Morality. Inseparable from the neo-conservative’s abstract, universalistic, tradition-neutral notion of Reason is an equally abstract, universalistic, tradition-neutral conception of morality. Morality is comprised essentially of “principles,” specifically, principles of “natural” or “human right.” Neo-conservatives are as given to the language of “human rights” as are their ideological opponents on the Left. These principles are uniquely accessible to all rational beings.

Classical conservatives, on the other hand, have tended to eschew all talk of “natural rights” and/or “human rights.” Morality is local, tradition-constituted. Whatever principles there may be, they are the offspring of a historically specific, shared way of life, and not its parent: principle stands in relation to practice the way cliff notes relate to the text that they summarize, not the other way around.

The State. Neo-conservatives, like ideologues of various left and right wing persuasions, conceive the State as an “enterprise association.” This is the term that the twentieth century conservative British philosopher Michael Oakeshott used to describe a model of the State on which it is said to exist for the sake of bringing to fruition some premeditated ideal or end, like Freedom, Equality, Virtue, Security, Prosperity, or Democracy. The ideal is held to transcend society, but it is the goal toward the accomplishment of which the resources of citizens must be deployed. At no time is a State more like an enterprise association than during times of war, for it is when a state is at war that government must have every available quantum of power at its disposal in order to insure victory. Also, it is in war that citizens are expected to make a concerted effort to bring about the telos, the purpose, for the sake of which the association exists. This explains why even when a nation is not literally at war, ideologues on both the Right and Left avail themselves of the language of war in order to unify support behind their favored causes (“The War on Poverty,” “The War on Drugs,” “The Cultural Wars,” etc.).....”

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.