American veterans worry about war with Syria

The US veterans, who took part in the United States' military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, are now worried about the grave consequences of another meaningless war with Syria, researches said. Jack Camwell, the US Navy veteran, who served aboard the USS San Jacinto during a deployment to the Persian Gulf in 2005, is chagrined his country may soon strike against Syria’s government. Like many Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who shared their thoughts with Yahoo News , Camwell believes the prelude to possible action against Bashar al-Assad for alleged chemical weapons use on Damascus residents on Aug. 21 mirrors America’s rush to war against Iraq's Saddam Hussein a decade ago. “How many times must America go down this road?” Camwell asks. For veterans, woven into the Iraq-Syria similarities are other important questions: Could American boots hit Syrian soil? Given the nation’s already-hefty war tabs, how will it pay for this? Can Americans morally ignore what’s happening to innocent Syrians? How long would the military stay? Camwell, who began his naval career in 2002 as a cryptologist in military intelligence, says that America’s bulky presence in the Middle-East complicates strikes against Syria and fosters worry the US military is too stretched. Camwell writes in a first-person account, “America simply cannot take another conflict that involves boots on the ground. Even the greatest prize fighter needs time to heal between matches, and America should take this opportunity to convalesce. Someday, we may be in a better position, but today is not that day. “We need to sit this one out.” The US and other western countries have adopted the rhetoric of war against Syria over allegations that the Syrian government was behind a recent chemical attack near Damascus. The call for military strike intensified after the militants operating inside Syria and the foreign-backed Syrian opposition claimed on August 21 that hundreds had been killed in a government chemical attack on militant strongholds in the Damascus suburbs of Ain Tarma, Zamalka and Jobar. The Syrian government has strongly denied the claim, accusing the militants of the attack.