Illegal war

The President is looking to strike Syria in the upcoming days, ostensibly as retribution for the deployment of chemical weapons against Al Qaeda terrorist rebels operating in his country, attacks that caused quite a few collateral deaths, including women and children.

He is willing to do it without British backing, and without the backing of the UN security council.There is no way for Obama to secure this permission, because the Russians have stated that they will veto any attempt to do so.

In many speeches and interviews leading up to his presidency, then-Senator Barack Obama regularly used the death toll resulting from America’s Middle East engagements as a campaign talking point. Back in 2007, then candidate Obama had this to say about President Bush going into Iraq without UN approval:

This president may occupy the White House, but for the last six years the position of leader of the free the world has remained open, and it's time to fill that role once more...The United States must build a 21st century military, in addition to showing wisdom in how we deploy it...

 The socialists of the world, and a subset of them, the US Democratic party, were absolutely critical of Bush invading Iraq, calling it "Bush's illegal war" because he did not get the permission of the UN to use force. In an Op Ed piece in the New York Times, Obama had this to say:

“I believed it was a grave mistake to allow ourselves to be distracted from the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban by invading a country that posed no imminent threat and had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. Since then, more than 4,000 Americans have died”

Senator Barack Obama, July 14, 2008

So when the cruise missiles are fired, this will become Obama's illegal war. At least in Bush's case, he will have gotten the permission of the US Congress. Obama's action will be unilateral. My prediction: the Democrats will be silent.

So the next time a person asks me about Obama or Bush, I will ask them about Bush's failure to secure UN permission, and how they feel about Obama doing the same. If the answer is "that's different" I will tell them to shut the fuck up, adults are talking.