Republican Senate candidate Steve Lonegan is speaking out against a U.S. strike in Syria. He told NJ Today Managing Editor Mike Schneider that taking military action in Syria would be a big mistake and cause additional chaos and deaths. He also said he wants to focus his campaign against Cory Booker on issues affecting the state and country.
Lonegan opposes a strike against Syria. “I think it’s a big mistake for us to go into Syria without a strategic plan and without a specific military outcome and a plan to achieve that outcome. To simply go into Syria for what they call a punitive measure or punitive bombing to show the rest of the world that we’re not happy with [Syrian President Bashar al] Assad is actually more destructive than doing nothing,” he said.
While Lonegan said the use of chemical weapons is “horrible” and the world should be prepared to investigate the action thoroughly and take appropriate action at the right time, he doesn’t think the actions being discussed are the right way to go.
He explained that there are three options to deal with Syria. The first is destroying the current regime and establishing a new government, which he said would be all-out war that will have devastating consequences to the population of Syria, cost troops’ lives and cost taxpayers money. The second option is going in and attempting to take out Assad’s ability to use chemical weapons. Lonegan said that would take highly precise use of rocketry and tactical assault and could have devastating results if done incorrectly.
“The third thing is what Bob Menendez is talking about, and that’s a punitive measure, where they’re just gonna show the rest of the world that we’re gonna punish Assad. What that means is we go in, we lob some tomahawk missiles in, we create additional chaos. That means more death, more destruction and in many ways empowering the Al-Qaeda based rebels to be even more destructive,” Lonegan said.
Mor Cyril Aphrem Karim, archbishop of the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch, and many Syrian refugees are very concerned that punitive measures will empower the rebels to be more aggressive in harming and killing Christians in Syria, according to Lonegan.
Lonegan said the U.S. isn’t the only country involved in this situation and that the rest of the world needs to take part as well and not leave it all to fall on the shoulders of the American taxpayers. “We should move in there, conduct a complete and thorough investigation — and I doubt that can be done in a few days — and then take the necessary action in terms of reprimanding, removing Assad perhaps, but through peaceful ways, by working with other countries. Not simply by lobbing bombs into Syria,” he said.
According to Lonegan, the U.S. would only take punitive measures even if it’s proven with certainty that the Assad regime is responsible for use of chemical weapons. And he said that will just create more chaos.
In the Senate race, the latest FDU PublicMind poll has Lonegan receiving 22 percent of the respondents’ support while Cory Booker took 50 percent. Lonegan criticized the poll, calling it irresponsible. “It’s a push-button poll amongst who they get to pick up the telephone. It’s a complete nonsense poll. It’s not a real poll,” he said.
There has been a bit of a controversy surrounding Lonegan’s remarks about Booker, which some have deemed homophobic. Lonegan denies that he was making a remark connected to homosexuality, but said he wants to focus on the issues in his campaign. “I want to focus on the issues that our nation’s confronting right now. Those issues are a potential war in Syria that we should not engage in. The fact that we have economic issues concern me deeply. Right now in this country we have an economy being bolstered up by the Federal Reserve Bank printing currency at an unbelievable rate,” he said. “We have the Obama health care bill.”
Lonegan said he doesn’t understand why the issue of Booker’s sexuality has made news. “This is all diversion from the real issues, Mike. The issue here isn’t whether Cory Booker’s gay or straight. The fact is that Cory Booker’s too liberal for New Jersey. And we can’t afford to have him bring his failed policies that are destroying Newark to the federal level. That’s the issue that matters to me,” he said.
According to Lonegan, Booker is using diversionary tactics. “He’d rather move the issue to a campaign over his Hollywood lifestyle and about him. I want it to be about the issues,” Lonegan said.