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For U.S., Syria is truly a problem from hell
CNN News ^ | August 27, 2013 | by Peter Bergen

Posted on 08/27/2013 10:32:59 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer

"Despite graphic media coverage, American policymakers, journalists and citizens are extremely slow to muster the imagination needed to reckon with evil. Ahead of the killings, they assume rational actors will not inflict seemingly gratuitous violence. They trust in good-faith negotiations and traditional diplomacy. Once the killings start, they assume that civilians who keep their head down will be left alone. They urge cease-fires and donate humanitarian aid."

This is an almost perfect description of how the United States has acted over the past two years as it has tried to come up with some kind of policy to end the Assad regime's brutal war on its own people in Syria.

The author who wrote the scathingly critical history of how the United States has generally dithered in the face of genocide and mass killings went on to win a 2003 Pulitzer Prize for her book "A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide."

A decade after winning the Pulitzer, that author is now the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Her name, of course, is Samantha Power, and she is a longtime, close aide to President Barack Obama.

(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: arabspring; bho44; bhomiddleeast; iran; leadingfrombehind; lebanon; randsconcerntrolls; samanthapower; soskerry; syria; syriachemicalattack; syriainvasion; syriawar; turkey
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1 posted on 08/27/2013 10:32:59 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Syria is not our problem 0bama is.


2 posted on 08/27/2013 10:36:19 AM PDT by TigersEye ("No man left behind" is more than an Army Ranger credo it's the character of America.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Syria is not our problem.


3 posted on 08/27/2013 10:36:25 AM PDT by DonaldC (A nation cannot stand in the absence of religious principle.)
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To: TigersEye
Obama and a few others....



This Message Not Approved by the NSA



4 posted on 08/27/2013 10:37:55 AM PDT by MeshugeMikey (Block Captain..Tyranny Response Team / al-Kilab Division)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Muslims killing Muslims is not a problem.


5 posted on 08/27/2013 10:39:03 AM PDT by Professional Engineer (I am not cynical. /s)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
"Her name, of course, is Samantha Power,"

Ms. Power doesn't seem to care a bit, however, about the genocide being practiced upon the Christians in the middle east.

6 posted on 08/27/2013 10:39:17 AM PDT by circlecity
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To: MeshugeMikey

If they keep pushing they certainly will.


7 posted on 08/27/2013 10:39:24 AM PDT by TigersEye ("No man left behind" is more than an Army Ranger credo it's the character of America.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
"Despite graphic media coverage, American policymakers, journalists and citizens are extremely slow to muster the imagination needed to reckon with evil. Ahead of the killings, they assume rational actors will not inflict seemingly gratuitous violence. They trust in good-faith negotiations and traditional diplomacy. Once the killings start, they assume that civilians who keep their head down will be left alone. They urge cease-fires and donate humanitarian aid."

This is about the US, Obama and his emboldened thugs, isn't it?

8 posted on 08/27/2013 10:39:33 AM PDT by Truth29
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Most people are their own worst enemies. Most people make their own problems. Of course some people are truly struck by random bad luck — but while Obama may have a hell of a problem on his hands right now, he has no one to blame but himself.


9 posted on 08/27/2013 10:39:46 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy (21st century. I'm not a fan.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

The author who wrote the scathingly critical history of how the United States has generally dithered in the face of genocide and mass killings went on to win a 2003 Pulitzer Prize for her book “A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide.”

Ah, so intervention is hip again. How convenient for obama.


10 posted on 08/27/2013 10:40:33 AM PDT by Augustinian monk ("BUSHES WITHOUT BORDERS")
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
More than one step is needed.

First, get rid of the AlQaida/Brotherhood lot.

Next, get together with Russia and get rid of Assad.

Good things take time.

11 posted on 08/27/2013 10:40:48 AM PDT by stboz
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To: TigersEye

were they not in positions of POWER...they COULD be the most popular comedy team in HISTORY


12 posted on 08/27/2013 10:41:34 AM PDT by MeshugeMikey (Block Captain..Tyranny Response Team / al-Kilab Division)
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To: TigersEye
Syria is not our problem 0bama is.

Bingo!

13 posted on 08/27/2013 10:44:19 AM PDT by Bon mots
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To: DonaldC

This isn’t going to end well; war rarely does.

I understand the Syrian government is horrible, and it makes me sick to think it’s gassing its own people including children.

However, as others have said, the devil you know sometimes is better than the devil you don’t, and the bottom line is we have no clue who the rebels are although some of them clearly are the terrorists who are our enemies.

Frankly, I would not put it past the so-called rebels to have done the gassing in the hopes of bringing U.S. military might to their aid against the government.

Finally, at the end of the day, regardless of how horrible events are over there, what is the national security interest of the United States to intervening in this tragic civil war where neither side has much of a moral claim to power?


14 posted on 08/27/2013 10:45:01 AM PDT by AtlasStalled
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

We’ve tried in the past to fix the problems in the Middle East, and we know how that worked. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Well, if we don’t, then at least our people won’t get killed. Let the apes solve their own problems.


15 posted on 08/27/2013 10:53:28 AM PDT by Steve_Seattle
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

If you attack Iran instead of Syria, your problem becomes more manageable.

You still get into a very difficult war, but then the war pivots around Iran’s willingness to proliferate NBC weapons to countries willing to deploy them.

It’s no longer a preemptive strike. Your causus belli becomes Iran crossing the line. You treat Assad like the puppet that he is, and you move on. Syria can’t fight the rebels and us at the same time. We don’t want to pick a winner in Syria, so we just make sure neither side can win and they end up destroying each other.

You attack the Iran - Hezbollah - Muslim Bros axis, and you enlist (publically at least) Russia’s help in finally uprooting a massively destabilizing force in the Middle East.

It leaves the Russians to clean up the Syrian problem (it’s their port to defend after all, and we don’t have any national interest there beside containment).

If the Russians protest Iran, it won’t be long before evidence of widespread WMD production hits the news and they can decide whether going nuclear for Iran is worth it (it isn’t).

It also gives us a hoot-in-hell’s chance of salvaging something out of Iraq.

If Obama gets sucked into Syria, he’s as stupid as everyone says he is, only this time it will be DEMOCRATS calling him stupid.

The other one leading from the rear on this? Clinton. Hear a peep out of her lately? Press cared to get her opinion on the situation, having JUST HAD THE SECSTATE JOB RECENTLY?

Everybody acknowledges Kerry is there because he’s incompetent, which is why nobody is listening to him.

You want to head fake people into believing you are going to invade Syria, go ahead, but my target would be Iran.

Sad how we pulled out all those conveniently placed military assets along the Iran/Iraq border recently. Would have been convenient to have left them there for situations like this.

Pissing off Israel and convincing them they couldn’t trust us was also a master stroke. Now you are looking at launching airstrikes from Saudi Arabia, maybe, and not Israel, or laughably, Egypt.

Warships alone aren’t going to cut the mustard here. When the smoke clears on this, anybody that’s left is going to look at how completely and utterly unqualified Obama was to lead the most powerful country on Earth, and they’ll conclude only God could have willed it, and only God could have set up something that would seem so improbable as recently as 2006.

He’s the perfect idiot, at the perfect place, misusing the perfect tools, at the perfect time.


16 posted on 08/27/2013 10:54:59 AM PDT by RinaseaofDs
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To: Augustinian monk
"Ah, so intervention is hip again. How convenient for Obama."

That kind of sums it up.
17 posted on 08/27/2013 10:55:32 AM PDT by Steve_Seattle
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To: AtlasStalled

This isn’t going to end well; war rarely does.

throw the plans out the window as soon as the first shot is fired. Assuming o nutcase does not get us in a shooting war with the Russians, what could end up happening here. First off, if the rebels win, who are they and what will they do. When they take retribution against the pro Assad people, will that be a decent outcome? How about if Syria and Iran attack Israel. What does o nut bag do then, complain to the UN as our forces are tied down and under strength now thanks to his leadership? Suppose the attacks do not alter the tragectory of the civil war and Assad ends up winning over the rebels, where does that leave the US in the eyes of the world and Syria - launching cruise missiles or bombing Syria is not the same as bombing a hapless Afghanistan or some backward African nation. I hope they have a good supply of asperins at hand. Meanwhile, o nut bag has now stacked his chips up and everyone is waiting for him to make his call, right into a pat hand.


18 posted on 08/27/2013 11:04:40 AM PDT by Mouton (The insurrection laws perpetuate what we have for a government now.)
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To: Mouton

You’re right. It’s one big stew with a lot of unknown variables and consequences, and I hate when our government just decides to start throwing bombs around like that’s worked so well for us in the region over the last decade.


19 posted on 08/27/2013 11:09:14 AM PDT by AtlasStalled
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

I don’t give a crap about these savages. Especially since they were dancing with glee, while our people were jumping out of the WTC on 911. Flame me if you must.


20 posted on 08/27/2013 11:17:27 AM PDT by duckman (I'm part of the group pulling the wagon!)
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