Are Obama and Kerry passing it? Gee, in the olden days, of Boooosh, having dozens of countries with us, but not France, was “going it alone.” Now, apparently France, and no one else (other than Turkey), is the World United.
And yes, I am back from Alaska, though we didn’t make it to Seward — the weather was too crummy — but we did take a walk in Kincaid Park in Anchorage, and saw a bull moose fifty feet off the trail. But we have relatives visiting for the weekend, so posting will remain spotty.
The French as the one “solid ally”, and begging Russia for help.
What could possibly go wrong?
Welcome back.
FAIL:
we thought perhaps a shared evidentiary base could convince Russia or Iran — itself a victim of Saddam Hussein’s monstrous chemical weapons attacks in 1987-1988 — to cast loose a regime that was gassing it’s people
Obama must be thinking how nice it would be to have 150,000 battle hardened troops with air support assets, tanks, and MRAPs magically appear in a country neighboring Syria, like Iraq, to secure those WMDs.
Did Obama fail the test by running his mouth about red lines or much earlier when he couldn’t negotiate a status of forces agreement with Iraq because he thought ground troops would never be needed again in the ME?
Syria is just the latest example of how Obama can’t think two steps ahead of where he is at. He needs to apply the same devious cunning and hatred and distrust for his enemies that he used to win the election to his foreign policy.
A friend of mine had a strategy for that dark day when the Soviet Union launches a nuclear attack.
“If I were President, I would surrender immediately. Then, when they were least expecting it, I would launch everything I had.”
Do you suppose that the current flailing about is a Sun-Tzu-esque military deception? That Congress will vote down the Authorization? And that when the Assad people are making merry that the U.S. is toothless, that the President, in defiance of Congress in seemingly after withdrawing his attack plan, lets Assad have it with a full-bore strike?
And instead of being impeached, the President becomes immensely popular, even among Conservatives, for his audacity and leadership?
Nah . . .
A few problems with that scenario;
First, he had the opportunity to hit by surprise, only to throw it away by making this a public issue. He could have hit first and then made his case, if that was the strategy. Instead, he’s now given Syria loads of time to prepare and disperse – and at least some of those measure wouldn’t be undone, even if Syria were to believe the strike was called off.
Secondly, in defying a congressional “no” vote, he’s probably acting unconstitutionally, and has certainly violated the War Powers Act, a signature Democratic piece of legislation. (and it wouldn’t be the first time).
Thirdly, what could a “full bore strike” actually accomplish? We can’t hit the WMD’s; doing so would cause a release, taking out tons of civilians. What else can we do? Cripple the regime? Sure… but then the regime comes apart, meaning that the rebels (including their largest ground force, the Al Nursa front, who are Al Qaeda allies) are going to likely get some of the WMD’s? That’ll happen even if we go in on the ground – we can’t be everywhere, nor know where all the weapons are. So, what does “Success” look like, actually?
IMHO, what Obama really needs to do is learn the first rule of holes.
That would be pretty funny if it happened and while you are joking, you do bring up a good point. Obama needs to find a creative way out of this mess. He shouldn’t feel obligated to follow any course of action being offered in the media. The are more choices, even if he doesn’t know what they are.
Since Paul is now practicing sarcasm and bob (not to embarrass Paul by using him in the same sentence) refuses to tell us his opinion’s of Obama least they be critical and he be called racists!; I guess I’ll be serious.
The first problem I have with this “chemical weapons attack” is the timing. Its my first problem, because it was one of the first things I read about the event. Think negative thoughts of al-Assad if you will (and I do), but as the UN weapon inspector says, “It wouldn’t be clever” to carry out such an attack with them in country. I do think al-Assad is clever.
So I have two questions: Was this really a chemical weapons attack? And if so, who carried it out?
I accept that both questions have supposedly been discussed and brought out in the past few weeks. However, I think the evidence isn’t very clear, and in fact some of the evidence is pure hearsay. I’ve seen the pictures of the supposed victims, and I’ve read some testimony be people caring for the victims. But in what I read, it seems the UN experts (who I don’t hold a lot of faith) don’t seem certain of an attack. A chemical substance does seem to be used, but that’s primarily based on testimony. There are dead bodies, but the numbers are erroneous. That doesn’t mean an attack didn’t happen, and it does suggest one did, but the magnitude and just how the attack occurred seems completely fuzzy.
This fuzziness hides the motive, which is usually an important aspect in determining blame. As many sources have noted, there seems absolutely no need for al-Assad to use chemical weapons to defeat his opposition. His loyal forces are quite successful with tanks, and no one with power to stop him seems to care about it. In fact, Syria was in the running to be on the UN’s Human Rights council. So despite claims, “only the Syrian government has chemical weapons”; I don’t see ipso facto that the government carried out the attack.
So Obama says the NSA has evidence of recordings. Ok. If that’s the case, shouldn’t that evidence be made available to the American people prior to going to war? I know we should protect sources, but if we are seriously contemplating firing missiles into a nation; then we should have a serious review of the evidence. Particularly since there is no clear and present danger of Syria attacking the US anytime soon.
All of this bothers me before we even enter into the discussion of what authority the President or Congress has to act.
So why isn’t the President making his case very clear by providing supporting evidence, rather than just claiming it exists? His efforts make it simple for al-Assad to do what he did by going on CBS and claiming Obama doesn’t have evidence. If you don’t show it, how can you prove it exists?
I worry about going to war on hearsay, and I think the right strategy is investigating and finding hard evidence.
Obama learned the wrong lessons from the whole “Birth Certificate” debacle. When you say you have evidence, you present it. You don’t play coy with it and continue to claim to have it until you’re pushed so far that you have no credibility left when you release it.
In fact, it seems that all Obama learned was that he can run his mouth with impunity because his credibility doesn’t matter to enough people to make a difference.
Of course, it also appears that there was never any lesson given on how ill-advised it is to play credibility games with a genocidal maniac, either…