Ah see it's not so simple as Sunni vs. Shia. The Ba'athists are actually Alawites a sect of shia Islam the conservative Sunnis (like the Muslim Brotherhood et. al.) consider heretical, but other shia with different ethnic backgrounds haven't fared especially well under the Assad Alawis... in short, Syria is a gigantic clusterfuck of religious and ethnic groups that was perhaps intentionally put together by the Sykes-Picot agreement to help French and British colonial interests (like British Petroleum) keep the locals at each other's throats so they could exploit the area's mineral resources without having to face a unified opposition. This is precisely why we should stay the fuck out and let these people sort it out themselves. If we intervene and tip the scales, or create a stalemate, the conflict isn't going to go away, it's just going to fester and simmer for another hundred years and erupt again when we finally extricate ourselves. There is no end-game and no winning condition for a war here.
I should admit that I'm against attacking Syria. Regardless of that position, I think President Obama's strategy so far seems ill-planned and off the cuff. He has regularly insulted the Brits, and now they've turned their backs on us. President Bush was mocked for bringing in "only" 50+ countries, yet we're going alone. In a foreign relation crisis, what a President must project is certainty, steadiness and fortitude. Sadly, this President has demonstrated none of those qualities. What we are seeing is the consequences of "leading from behind". In case anyone wondered what a world looked like with an America in retreat, we're getting a good look.
What should the world look like if we projected our power because of our own unilateral values? Banana republics. Iran under the Shah. I'm not seeing the reason to intervene in most places, if not all.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs...r-syrian-dictator-bashar-al-assad_690885.html Kerry praised Assad later in 2011 as being a "very generous" man. "Well, I personally believe that -- I mean, this is my belief, okay? But President Assad has been very generous with me in terms of the discussions we have had. And when I last went to -- the last several trips to Syria -- I asked President Assad to do certain things to build the relationship with the United States and sort of show the good faith that would help us to move the process forward," said Kerry at a think tank.
That might be relevant if the issue were Obama. Since he won't be running for any more elections, the issue is Syria alone.
4 1/2 years into the Bush presidency, Katrina hit, so Cheney continued his mysterious 5-year vacation, while Condie went shoe shopping at Saks 5th Avenue after playing tennis... http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/09/02/143992/-LET-ME-GET-THIS-STRAIGHT
80% of Americans wanted him to do it this way, even before he did it http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/...ent-want-congressional-approval-on-syria?lite But you just keep on politicizing it, because, that's what makes Republicans want to live...
A nice article taking the fourth estate to task over it's unabashed bias in this debate over whether or not to go to war ... and no, I don't think this is a liberal media bias, it's more of a bias toward emotionalism and speaks to just how far we're removed from the days of Kronkite and Murrow. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics...a-debate-neither-neutral-nor-balanced/279256/ [...]
I still see it as Obama failed to build a coalition of anyone but France and the only "out" is to get Congress to vote against it. He can puff out his chest and make warmonger sounds for appearances' sake, and in the end say that at least he tried. He's left former Democratic Party presidential nominee John Kerry twisting in the wind, though. If only we had elected him in 2004, we'd have won Iraq and Afghanistan a long time ago! When Hillary pounded the war drum for action in Libya, there was no talk of getting a congressional vote. She said, "the humanity! We're obligated to stop genocide!" And those were the reasons we went. 100,000 deaths in Syria, with or without the use of gas, was humanitarian reason enough. If Libya is any sort of precedent, we should have been in Syria a long time ago. And those excerpts from the Post and Times are so incredibly biased. He's not doing anything risky or daring congress to do anything but call his bluff.
One doesn't have to intervene to project power. In fact, intervention is a demonstration of the failure to properly project power.
Yeah, that's sort of why I posted those excerpts. I was trying to demonstrate just how much of a lapdog the press has become for the D.C. elites (on both sides of the aisle). This is why you get David Gregory indignantly asking Glen Greenwald if he should be charged with a felony for releasing the Snowden material.
Going to congress where he hopes it gets voted down is not a gutsy call. It's politically smart. He gets his cake and eats it too.
Our current President is nothing but politically smart, no matter how much damage to the country those "smarts" inflict.
Slightly OT. It's Libya, but it's looking at the future in Syria if we intervene. Hillary '16 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...as-but-into-lawlessness-and-ruin-8797041.html Special report: We all thought Libya had moved on – it has, but into lawlessness and ruin Libya has plunged unnoticed into its worst political and economic crisis since the defeat of Gaddafi A little under two years ago, Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, urged British businessmen to begin “packing their suitcases” and to fly to Libya to share in the reconstruction of the country and exploit an anticipated boom in natural resources. Yet now Libya has almost entirely stopped producing oil as the government loses control of much of the country to militia fighters. Mutinying security men have taken over oil ports on the Mediterranean and are seeking to sell crude oil on the black market. Ali Zeidan, Libya’s Prime Minister, has threatened to “bomb from the air and the sea” any oil tanker trying to pick up the illicit oil from the oil terminal guards, who are mostly former rebels who overthrew Muammar Gaddafi and have been on strike over low pay and alleged government corruption since July. As world attention focused on the coup in Egypt and the poison gas attack in Syria over the past two months, Libya has plunged unnoticed into its worst political and economic crisis since the defeat of Gaddafi two years ago. Government authority is disintegrating in all parts of the country putting in doubt claims by American, British and French politicians that Nato’s military action in Libya in 2011 was an outstanding example of a successful foreign military intervention which should be repeated in Syria.
Obama says he didn't set red line on Syria. He also says it's not his credibility on the line, but Amurrrica's, Congress', and the world's. How can anybody believe a word this guy utters? No red line [video=youtube;n6ePJXR216c]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6ePJXR216c[/video] Red line in 2012 [video=youtube;avQKLRGRhPU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avQKLRGRhPU[/video]
More on Obama's bald-faced lie today. This is just baffling. Does he think that people aren't going to call him on his bullshit? What a coward of a man. He's now putting this on everybody else except his dumb ass.
