Episode 340 – CBS News Poll, Assad, Syria

 

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – So, Assad is protecting his own clan, the Alawites, and the remaining Christians and Catholics in Syria.  If there’s no Assad, what’s going to happen to the Christian populations in Syria?  They’re going to be martyred, that’s what’s going to happen.  It’s already happened in Iraq.  Over two-thirds of the Christian population in Iraq that was being protected by Saddam have either moved, fled, become refugees, or were killed.  Nice job.  Now we’re trying to do it as an encore.  Check out today’s transcript for the rest….

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  So, Assad is protecting his own clan, the Alawites, and the remaining Christians and Catholics in Syria.  If there’s no Assad, what’s going to happen to the Christian populations in Syria?  They’re going to be martyred, that’s what’s going to happen.  It’s already happened in Iraq.  Over two-thirds of the Christian population in Iraq that was being protected by Saddam have either moved, fled, become refugees, or were killed.  Nice job.  Now we’re trying to do it as an encore.

So why do I have Catholics that I know and Christians that I know and Evangelicals that I know chanting “USA! USA!” when Donald J. Trump, after receiving tearful exhortations from his daughter Ivanka, tries to kneecap the man and the army that stands between ISIS controlling Syria and decimating those Christian populations?  It’s almost as though we want to bring about the end of days.  It’s almost as though some people are actually pining away for it and are trying to bring about the end of days.  Why?  Because we think it’s okay.

Here’s the CBS News poll.  I’ve got to tell you, this is shocking stuff here.  I used to say, and I will say from time to time, if you’re driving, pull over; if you’re standing, sit down.  This was on the news last night.  “What Americans think about U.S. strike on Syria.”  Folks, if you want a sobering assessment of where we are today as a people, this is a good little signpost here of who we are.

[reading]

Fifty-seven percent of Americans approve of the airstrike against Syrian military targets — calling immoral the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons that led to the strike — but most are leery of any military involvement beyond airstrikes, a CBS News poll shows.

[end reading]

Mike:  You’ve got a total figure, Dumbocrats, Independents, Republicans.  If I asked you: Which of the three political categorizations is the most excited about lobbing 59 Tomahawk missiles into Syria, you probably would answer what?  [mocking] “Mitter Church, it’s the Independents.”  No.  Shocker, right?  Republicans.  Wait a minute.  I thought that Republicans were principally made up of people that were good people, Christian people, moral people, constitutionalists, strict constructionists.  Eighty-four percent — if you’ve wondered – total is 57 percent.  Only 40 percent of Dumbocrats, so a majority of Dumbocrats say no.  What does that mean?  If someone is in Syria, if a Christian is in Syria going: What is wrong with these idiots?  Assad is trying to protect us.  For Heaven’s sake, stop the madness.  They’re not going to look at the breakdown between Republicans, Independents, and Dumbocrats.  They’re going to look at what we said.  We?  Who’s we?  Fifty-two percent of Independents say, “USA! USA!”  Eighty-four percent of Republicans.  Here’s the disapprove: 36 percent total, 53 percent of Dumbocrats, 38 percent of Independents, and 11 percent of Republicans.

I ask you, aren’t many of – if you’re listening to this show right now, there’s a very good chance that you are registered as, or once upon a time was registered as a Republican.  If you still are and still run in those circles, you’re in an 11 percent minority.  I’ll put that to you another way.  You might as well not even exist.  Of course, we all know what happens when an American president chooses to go to war.

[reading]

President Trump’s overall approval rating edged up, though most respondents voice unease about his approach to Syria going forward, and say Congress must authorize further actions there.

[end reading]

Mike:  You’ve got Navy destroyers out there in the Persian Gulf, soldiers right now, even though Trump says: We’re not going into Syria, believe me.  That’s what he told Michael Goodwin at the New York Post yesterday: We’re not going into Syria.  Why are there reports, then, of troops being mobilized and shipped so they can be put into position to go into Syria?  It’s madness, folks, absolute madness.  This is how your average American thinks as well.  Only 18 percent of Americans say we are justified in using air-delivered ordnance to kill people in third-world countries that most people can’t find on a map.  [mocking] “We draw the line when it comes to putting our boys in uniform there.”  Oh, okay.  So it’s okay to kill, bomb, maim, and destroy from a distance, but it’s not okay to kill, bomb, maim, destroy – what did they used to say in the Olympics?  Up close and personal.  I got it.  [mocking] “Mitter Church, you don’t want to put any life at risk.”  No, let’s have a bunch of kids in trailers somewhere in the middle of the Nevada desert playing drone warrior.

Here’s the actual numbers:

[reading]

How far are you willing to see the U.S. go in Syria?

Full U.S. military involvement with ground troops – 18 percent.

[end reading]

Mike:  That’s madness.  Almost 20 percent, almost one-fifth of fellow citizens want to get into another ground war in Asia.  Even the Sicilian from The Princess Bride knew what folly that was.  Of course, we don’t have any recent experience, do we?  Wait a minute.  Maybe in Afghanistan.  What are we in, the 16^th year of the war in Afghanistan?  What are generals now telling President Trump?  There’s really no way to bring the conflict to an end.  You could leave.  Yeah, but if we leave, the Taliban comes in and takes over.  So?  They took over before.  Gee, I wonder how that happened.  Can you say Mujahideen?

[reading]

Only airstrikes, but no ground troops – 30 percent.

Only diplomatic talks, no further U.S. military action – 26 percent.

No U.S. involvement at all – 15 percent.

Seven-in-ten Americans think Mr. Trump needs to get authorization from Congress . . . [Mike: That’s a novel idea, isn’t it? What about the 30 percent that say he doesn’t?]

[end reading]

Mike:  Thirty-nine percent of Republicans, almost 40 percent of Republicans say no congressional authorization required.  You can bomb indiscriminately anyone you want anywhere if we think it’s moral.  “Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons is . . . .”  The jury and the evidence is still out. No one – there has been no conclusive report ever cited that the Syrian government uses chemical weapons.  There are reports that say that chemical weapons have been used.   You’ve got to remember there’s a war going on there.  As Kevin Gutzman said on yesterday’s Constitution Hour, it’s probably a safe bet that both sides have in some instances used chemical weapons.  So what?  They’re using them on each other.  That’s not in the “national interest” or “vital interest” of the United States.  This is where I find the “we” just pathetically shocking.

The Syrian government is using chemical weapons.  All right.  We have treaties that say you can’t use chemical weapons.  There are treaties now that say you can’t use landmines, you can’t blow men’s legs off of their bodies.  Landmines are still out there, but you’re not supposed to make any new ones.  It was a horrible form of warfare that claimed the lives and limbs of tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people, soldiers during World War I and World War II.  So an agreement was made in Geneva: Can we please agree no more landmines?  A similar agreement has been made to not use chemical weapons.

I personally think this is much ado about nothing.  Why is one form of death preferable to another?  Why is choosing to kill someone with a .50 caliber bullet that goes through his heart and leaves a cavity the size of his heart preferable to being gassed?  [mocking] “Mitter Church, they’re suffering.”  Okay, what if the .50 caliber bullet misses the heart, goes through the belly, the abdomen?  He won’t die immediately.  He’ll bleed and suffer.  Heaven knows for how long.  Watch some of these war movies like Hacksaw Ridge.  Did you see how long those guys were up on the ridge with their legs and arms blown to smithereens and blown off yet didn’t die?  In other words, killing is killing.

We seem to have regimented or have segregated one form of killing and made it preferable to another.  What’s God’s commandment?  Thou shalt not murder.  Does he say thou shalt not chemical weapon murder?  No.  He’s very clear, thou shalt not murder.  When defense is necessary, there are instances where killing another human being has to be done.  There are just wars.  There are wars that are fought for just causes.

[reading]

Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons is:

Immoral and a direct threat to U.S. – 45 percent total.

[end reading]

Mike:  Explain the direct threat to the United States for me.  Maybe if the Canadians were gassing their people on the border of Niagara Falls, maybe.  Maybe if the Mexicans, if we had evidence that the cartels were using sarin gas strikes on Mexicans in the Chihuahua territory of Mexico, maybe.  Why is this a direct threat?

[reading]

Immoral but not a direct threat to U.S. – 42 percent total.

Not a concern either way – 7 percent.

[end reading]

Mike:  I have to ask the question: What about the immoral taking of life inside Planned Parenthood abortuariums?  What about that?  I wonder if you broke a poll down, what the numbers would be for that.  That doesn’t happen in Syria.  I’m sure it does.  It does happen in Austin.  It does happen in New York City.  It does happen in Los Angeles.  It does happen in Miami.  Unfortunately, it will happen today right across the lake from here in New Orleans.  What about that immorality?  We have selective morality.  The reason why we have selective morality is because ideas have consequences, and because we have inoculated ourselves, not by anything that we’ve done, inoculated ourselves by use of an elixir of our own creation.  It’s called Americanism.

Americanism says that the United States is so star-spangled amazing and awesome that even if we do something immoral, it’s less immoral than anything anyone else does.  You see?  Do you get that?  So when you get to the judgment day, the judgment seat and God goes: You did all these immoral things.  You go, [mocking] “Mitter God, please!  Mitter Peter, please!  You must understand, I was an American when I did that.  It wasn’t really wrong, per se.  I mean, it was kind of wrong, but it wasn’t nearly as wrong as what they do over in Syria or Russia or China.”

I started this off and kind of gave a little bit of a nod and a hat tip to solidarity, and why solidarity matters.  Now you may begin to start seeing why I started with solidarity and why I think it matters.  If you have solidarity, then what’s immoral in America is immoral in China.  Why?  Because God’s law covers the planet.  It doesn’t cover a nation or a people; it covers us all.  I think I read somewhere in a gospel some kind of command that was issued before the ascension: Go out and teach all men of all nations what I have taught you.  Maybe there’s a footnote there.  Yeah, but he didn’t mean all as in all, he meant all the cool people, not the Chinese, not the Syrians, not the Russians, not the Mexicans.

End Mike Church Show Transcript