Because of C-Plus Augustus’s savage stupidity, and because of the running one-year Gulf Of Tonkin Incident that he used to justify inflicting that stupidity on the world, a great number of Americans are understandably dubious about the prospect of military action based on the underlying geopolitical grounds of “We Have The Proof, But We Can’t Show It To You.” Again, I think this is a pretty good thing. However, it seems to have unsettled not only some of our more bellicose politicians, but also some of the people who cheered them on to glory a decade ago. (Amid the liberal-hawk Rationalization Carnival last week, more than a few people suggested that it would be wrong to treat the pronouncements of the intelligence community with the skepticism a logical mind might perceive as being completely appropriate to recent historical precedent.) Yesterday, for example, Rep. Mike Rogers, a rising star in Republican national-security circles, which means he is someone to keep an eye on while simultaneously holding onto your wallet, said this about Syria:

There’s mounting evidence that over the last two years the Assad regime has used “at least a small quantity” of chemical weapons against rebel forces in Syria’s raging civil war, House Intelligence Committee chair Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said today on “Face the Nation,” adding that the time is now for U.S. intervention. … Rogers said the fact that President Bashar al-Assad has ordered scud missile attacks on civilians “in and of itself should prompt action.” The “wholesale slaughter” of Syrian rebels and civilians, he said, “is now spilling up to the doorstep of Israel.”

More: The Iraq Syndrome