Ball State students, faculty discuss situation in Syria

A U.S. military strike against Syria is looking less likely, and that’s fine with some future soldiers and veterans on Ball State’s campus.

“I’m completely against, and most of those in the ROTC are completely against, any kind of boots on the ground for Syria, just based on the last ten years of war with Iraq and the last 12 or so in Afghanistan,” said Wesley Jones, a cadet battalion commander.

Jones, a senior sociology major, said current ROTC cadets who will likely commission in the next four years could be serving in Syria if military action is taken.

“With air strikes, and things of that nature, it’s still an act of war,” he said. “Look what the Japanese did to America [in Pearl Harbor], they didn’t put any boots on the ground, it was just an airstrike to our Navy, so if we were to do an airstrike on any of their armed forces, it would be an act of war and retaliation would be expected, absolutely.”

Last week President Barack Obama suspended the Senate’s vote on authorizing force against Syria after accepting Russia’s negotiation to eliminate the chemical weapons. According to the Associated Press, Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States will closely monitor the plan while continuing to be a military threat for Bashar al-Assad’s government.

Jessica Robinson, the vice president of the student veteran organization, said “boots on the ground” should be avoided at all costs for America.

Robinson, a masters clinical mental health counseling major, was a sergeant in the Army National Guard and deployed to Baghdad from 2008 to 2009.

“Being a veteran allows me to imagine what invading Syria will be like,” she said. “It’s not going to be a short invasion. It will unfold, probably, like Iraq did. We will go in and hunt the terrorist, control the area, and then spend years trying to rebuild what we destroyed during the invasion.

“What happened in Syria is heartbreaking and my heart goes out to all the victims and the family but I just don’t see the need to send Americans into a country who will replace the terrorist they lose in war with more terrorists. “

Although he said he is completely against sending any troops to Syria, Jones said he understands his role is a policy enforcer, not a policy maker.

“Once you are there, there is nothing you can do about it politically, so what you do, is you do your best for the man standing next to you,” Jones said.

Robinson said starting this war is not worth the lives that would be on the line.

“Terrorism has been around for a long time and will be around forever when you have more than one country struggling for power. I understand that joining the military means defending your country and defending freedom but I did not sign up to defend another country. I know this may sound harsh, but I lost friends in Iraq and Afghanistan and I don’t want to see any more American lives lost because we don’t agree with how another country is governing.”

Daniel Reagan, a political science professor, said if America were to isolate itself from events in the Middle East, America could lose some of its reputation as a world leader.

“I think it’s an area of the world where there is a lot of American interest on our play, so oil comes to mind of course,” he said. “And actually, while the U.S. gets some Middle Eastern oil, a lot of our other allies in Western Europe and elsewhere get a large percentage of their oil from the Middle East. If the United States - wants to be a world leader, with leadership comes responsibility.”

Reagan said this is one of the issues policy makers are considering while deciding what to do.

“Most of these decisions, the right thing to do isn’t real clear, so what the president decides is… ‘Which do I think is the least bad option,’” he said.

Congress has not yet voted on authorizing force against Syria, and is facing opposition from within,w as well as from the public, according to the Associated Press.

Reagan said the president’s decision to consult with Congress before declaring war is unusual, since recently presidents have been more willing to engage in military action without Congress, but not unprecedented. He said some critics have been worried that the bipartisan gridlock will slow down the process too much.

“A lot of things in politics are time sensitive, especially in international affairs and especially when it comes to the decision to deploy military force or not,” Reagan said. “What we hear from the experts in chemical weapons is that it can’t go real fast in terms of locating, identifying and removing chemical weapons, that there is just a time lag there.

“On the political side… I think, certainly from the American point of view, faster is better. So we will have to see if the political time table can be made compatible with the technical time table, for locating and removing chemical weapons.”