Can We Afford Another "Trust Me" Engagement/Strike/War?

[DC Tom]

At least you know where putin stands on an issue....

 

Oh, I'm sure in six months Putin will deny he ever committed to that and insist he was just stating an international truism, and would never do anything without the Duma's approval...

[B-Man]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[B-Man]

Why Don't Liberal Syria Intervention Critics Talk About Libya

by Byron York

 

Many Democrats against U.S. intervention in Syria cite the American experience in Iraq as a basis for their opposition to a military strike against the Assad regime. "The Iraq thing is why people have so much trepidation about going into Syria," James Carville explained on Fox News Wednesday. "I think what really is freaking people out is the incompetence of the Bush administration in Iraq." Many other Democrats have said the same thing in less pithy fashion.

 

Some Republicans scoff, but the critics have at least a little bit of a point. The Iraq war took disastrous turns that were unforeseen by the Bush administration, resulting in entirely unnecessary calamities for U.S. forces. But on the other hand, there are huge differences between Iraq and Syria.

 

As it happens, there is a comparison much more fitting than Iraq for the contemplated action in Syria. It is the Obama administration's intervention in the Libyan civil war. The Libyan action was a small-scale entry into an ugly Middle Eastern civil war, touted as an effort to relieve a "humanitarian crisis" and ensure that dictator Moammar Gaddafi not murder thousands of his own citizens.

 

The intervention was limited and small-scale, done with the imprimatur of NATO but mostly with American firepower. It was conducted on behalf of rebels about whom U.S. officials knew relatively little, particularly on the key question of whether they were legitimate freedom fighters or violent Islamists.

 

Some of the same people who are today assuring the American public that Syrian rebels are legitimate were in 2011 assuring the public that the Libyan rebels were legitimate. The most prominent of those is, of course, Republican Sen. John McCain, who met with Libyan rebels during that crisis and has met with Syrian rebels in recent times.

 

{snip}

 

The Libyan intervention stopped Gaddafi. But his dictatorship ended in just another brutal, extrajudicial killing, as rebels bloodied and tortured Gaddafi before killing him and putting his body on display in a meat locker in Misurata. It was not an end that democracy-promoting U.S. officials should have been proud of, but top Obama administration figures were, anyway. "We came, we saw, he died," then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said upon learning of Gaddafi's death.

 

More importantly, the rebels did not prove to be the natural democrats some intervention advocates believed. After the U.S. intervention, the country struggled and failed to set up a working government. Today, power is wielded mainly by a group of militias left over from the revolution. The presence of terrorists was shown dramatically by the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi -- the same city where McCain praised the freedom fighters -- that left four Americans dead, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens. To show how little governmental authority there is in the land, the U.S. diplomats relied not on Libyan officials but on a militia, the Feb. 17 Martyrs Brigade, for security. Of course, the militia didn't protect the Americans when the Benghazi attack came.

 

And Libya, by all accounts, is now a mess. The U.S. intervention was a success in the sense that it deposed Gaddafi and left no American dead or wounded. But it left behind a chaotic power vacuum in an increasingly unstable region, plus the disastrous legacy of Benghazi. Now, Syria is a much bigger place, with more arms and more infrastructure and more chaos if things go terribly wrong.

 

Perhaps lawmakers contemplating U.S. intervention in Syria might be better off remembering Libya than focusing on Iraq.

 

http://washingtonexa...article/2535371

 

 

 

On the other hand, Iraq makes a better "story"

 

[run dat back]

Sure. "Strikes" are low-risk, high-reward. Lob a few cruise missiles, accomplish nothing, but you get to pretend you're actually accomplishing something.

 

We need to sit this one out for the time being. The rest of the world does not seem too concerned about the chemical weapons attack, not enough to do anything about it. We should pay attention. Assad is hinting at retaliation - we've already provided enough propaganda for Al Qaeda, we don't need even more recruits signing up.

[/dev/null]

Charlie Rose scores an interview with Assad

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-3460_162-57601881/charlie-rose-interviews-syrian-president-bashar-assad/

[B-Man]

A Fundamental Absence of Seriousness

By Victor Davis Hanson

 

We are told hypocrisies are Obama’s problem: Republicans who are usually pro-war don’t support this war only because of Obama; Democrats who are usually anti-war can’t support this war for Obama without being shown up as sudden pro-war hypocrites.

 

Some of that may be true, but the real reason is in the Oval Office, and it concerns a lack of purpose and commitment that has scared off 70 percent of the American people.

 

The problem Obama and his team have in convincing voters and the Congress to support his preemptory bombing of Syria is that few believe this administration is really serious about its foreign policy — and they do not see the sloppy idea of killing a few hundred or thousand people and destroying some stuff in Syria as essential to restoring American credibility in the Middle East, boxing in Iran, and creating a Third Way in Syria.

 

Instead, Syria over the last year has sort of been like the employer mandate, one moment absolutely essential to the survival of the country, the next a bit problematic, and so, well, let’s just forget about it for the time being.

 

If Obama does not bomb Syria next week, in two weeks we will hear the usual recriminations between golf outings — the same old, same old blame Congress, Bush, etc. Then, in three weeks, he will be back to the next empty pontification and make-no-mistake-about-it sermon, and he will have a new war to wage on the home front against all sorts of dastardly domestic opponents before resetting abroad. Sometimes the administration’s unserious attitude is apparent in the trivial (e.g., Obama and Reggie Love playing serial hands of cards during the bin Laden raid, Obama vanishing during the long night of the Benghazi disaster, David Axelrod sneering of the Syria vote that the congressional dog is hitting the car).

[Tiberius]

Obama is channeling his inner Churchill and the surrender monkeys are all cowering because Putin doesn't approve

[TakeYouToTasker]

Obama is channeling his inner Churchill and the surrender monkeys are all cowering because Putin doesn't approve

...

[TheMadCap]

Obama is channeling his inner Churchill and the surrender monkeys are all cowering because Putin doesn't approve

 

what the holy hell are you talking about? You think he's actually standing up to Putin?

[KD in CA]

Obama is channeling his inner Churchill and the surrender monkeys are all cowering because Putin doesn't approve

 

 

Now that is funny. Bravo Hogboy.

[Azalin]

Obama is channeling his inner Churchill and the surrender monkeys are all cowering because Putin doesn't approve

if he's channeling an inner Churchill, it's Ward, not Winston.

[Tiberius]

Churchill on appeasement:

 

"There is no greater mistake than to suppose that platitudes, smooth words, and timid policies offer a path to safety."

"How many wars have been averted by patience and good will?"

"An appeaser is one who feeds the crocodile hoping it will eat him last."

"Victory will never be found by taking the line of least resistance."

"I never worry about action, but only about inaction."

[B-Man]

These words by Sir Winston are certainly more apprpriate to our current administration.

 

 

 

 

“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”

 

“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing has happened.”

 

“If this is a blessing, it is certainly very well disguised.”

 

.“When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber.”

 

 

.

[Tiberius]

These words by Sir Winston are certainly more apprpriate to our current administration.

 

 

 

 

“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”

 

“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing has happened.”

 

“If this is a blessing, it is certainly very well disguised.”

 

.“When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber.”

 

 

.

You are a parrot

[Chef Jim]

You are a parrot