Rep. Tom Cotton Wants An American War With Syria

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – Why are members of the war party out there stumping for war in Syria?  This is just perplexing and it’s so damn frustrating.  I have this member of Congress, Tom Cotton, who is on Meet the Half-Court Press yesterday.  “The United States should arm opposition fighters in Syria and create a no-fly zone over the war-torn nation,” Representative Tom Cotton (R-AR) said on NBC’s Meet the Press.  What interest do the people of Arkansas have in us arming rebels in Syria?  Check out today’s transcript for the rest…

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  Why are members of the war party out there stumping for war in Syria?  This is just perplexing and it’s so damn frustrating.  I have this member of Congress, Tom Cotton, who is on Meet the Half-Court Press yesterday.  “The United States should arm opposition fighters in Syria and create a no-fly zone over the war-torn nation,” Representative Tom Cotton (R-AR) said on NBC’s Meet the Press.  What interest do the people of Arkansas have in us arming rebels in Syria?  As a member of the House of Representin’, he is supposed to represent the political interests of the people of his district.  Remember, James Madison wrote a letter to Thomas Jefferson 21 October 1787 explaining the new constitution.  Jefferson and Adams were in France or England at the time.  They were not around when the Constitution was debated in Philadelphia.  Otherwise, they probably would have gone as delegates.

So Madison is sending correspondence to Jefferson and he tells him: This is the way this is going to work.  The new House of Representin’ will represent the people in their political capacity, and the new Senate will represent the state legislatures in theirs.  You had a bicameral representation there.  My question would be, for you people that are in Congressman Cotton’s district: What business do you have bombing or aiding and abetting rebels, or whatever you want to call them, in Syria?  Why is your representative, Representative Cotton, why is he out there talking about this stuff?  “We have to arm the opposition.  I think we also need to move toward imposing a no-fly zone.”  How do you do that?  We’re going to have to have Air Force over there, Navy, all manner of troop deployments.  Who’s going to command that?  Is Obama going to command that?  I suppose we could listen to it.

Mike Church Show Transcript: John McCain Thinks We Should “Crater The Runways” In Syria

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Representative Tom Cotton: . . . arming the reform-minded, pro-Western rebels. This is something that should have been done many months ago, something that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Martin Dempsey, CIA Director David Petraeus all proposed last year according to Wall Street Journal reporting and the president refused to do.  Right now you have the al-Musra front, which is affiliated with Al-Qaeda, which is on the ground and providing the best fighters, providing the most weapons, providing the most humanitarian assistance, radicalizing some elements of the opposition.  We have to arm the opposition.  I think we also need to move towards imposing a no-fly zone so Bashar al-Assad cannot continue to use helicopter gunships against civilians, and so the refugees he’s creating aren’t destabilizing our allies like George . . .

[end audio clip]

Mike:  I have a question.  What if Bashar al-Assad and the people of Syria didn’t like what they saw on the streets of Boston?  Should they then be able to, [mocking] “Look what’s going on over there in the United States, city called Boston.  Much calamity.  Too much firepower in streets.  Police have distinct advantage over citizen.”  Should they intervene?  What if they don’t like what’s going on in Texas?  Should they intervene?  The ridiculous statement that somehow we have some kind of responsibility — this is what drives this nationalism and this exceptionalism, fake patriotism, that somehow the United States and people that are represented in Cotton’s district have some kind of culpability for the safety and security of the rest of the planet.  For heaven’s sake, why?  [mocking] “Syria is going to turn into another hotbed for terrorism.”  It most certainly will turn into a hotbed for terrorism if you make it another Libya by removing the power structure.  Just butt out.  You even have the Obamabots at the New York Times stumping for this.  Bill Keller, a former editor at the New York Times — AG, did you ever see the piece where the guy from the Daily Show went and interviewed Keller?  He was holding up the New York Times and going: There’s nothing in this paper that actually happened today, is there?  Did you ever see that?

Mike Church Show Transcript: 78,000 U.S. Military Troops Are Stationed In South Korea And Japan

AG:  The “you’re reporting yesterday’s news”?

Mike:  Right.  That was Keller, the guy who wrote the editorial stumping for intervention in Syria in the New York Times today.  That’s who he visited, Bill Keller.

End Mike Church Show Transcript

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