The government of the United States no longer has credibility with the people of the United States, and rightfully so. We have been deceived in the past.

Some of us remember the Gulf of Tonkin incident, manufactured by the United States to justify bombing North Vietnam. And, most of us remember the “weapons of mass destruction” that were not in Iraq. The government had lied to us again.

Now the president wants to bomb Syria. Allegedly, Syrian leader Assad has used chemical weapons on a Syrian village, killing a thousand people.

The president spoke of his moral outrage. Now, recall that a few months ago the Egyptian army seized the elected president, Mohammed Morsi, and imprisoned him. Crowds in sympathy with the president went to the streets to protest the military takeover. A thousand of the demonstrators were murdered.

Obama threatened to decrease the aid to the Egyptian military. Obama did not threaten to bomb Egypt.

So, we have to ask the question: Assuming Assad did use the chemical weapons, why are a thousand dead Syrians, killed by poison gas, any more of a moral outrage than a thousand Egyptians slaughtered by rifle fire?

President Obama applauded the French for supporting our impending attack, but in his trademark manner of dissembling by omission, he failed to mention that the British, our closest ally, declined to participate in an attack on Syria.

Obama, and his pet, Secretary of State John Kerry, spoke with passion about making an example of a regime that would defy international law and treaties by using chemical warfare.

And yet, when Saddam Hussein attacked Iran and used chemical weapons there was no moral outrage. A million people were killed in that war, but we did nothing to stop Saddam. We aided and encouraged him because Iran was our enemy (perhaps because the United States and Britain had overthrown the democratically elected head of Iran and installed the Shah).

Obama and Kerry spoke as if America had the moral high ground. And yet, they conveniently did not mention that America had used Agent Orange, white phosphorus and napalm against the Vietnamese.

How can one believe our leaders? Remember when Kerry returned from serving in Vietnam and testified against the war before the U.S. Senate?

He said, “We are asking Americans to think about that (dying because the president did not want to be the first president who was in office when America lost a war) because how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”

To paraphrase an old idiom, “power corrupts; power has absolutely corrupted Secretary Kerry.”

So, Obama was up against it today. No one believes him anymore, and the people are not willing to enter a third war.

So, in a deft political move, he passes the buck to Congress. This is brilliant. If they say “no,” he is off the hook. He can say, “I must defer to the representatives of the people.” Then, he saves face when he does not bomb.

If Congress agrees with the president, and, attacking Syria turns out to be another disaster, he can say, “Hey, Congress debated and decided and agreed to the policy. In the democratic process, mistakes can be made.”

It seems that instead of “hope and change” we got the same old mendacity and hypocrisy.

Nelson Strasser lives in Lakeport, Calif.