33 thoughts on ““Help Us Stay In Our Country””

    1. Libya became what it did because of Obama/Clinton. Kadafi wasn’t a problem at the end, so there was no reason to get rid of him.

      Syria has a lot of different groups which means it shouldn’t be too hard to find some we could support.

      We just need to be decisive or give it to the Russians. They really want the port more than anything else. It’s halfway measures that will harm us.

      1. I do not disagree with you. The whole Color Revolution/Arab Spring bullshit was Obama’s doing since he’s Brzezinski’s protege.

        IMHO there is like no reason to care about Syria let alone intervene in it militarily. It’s not like the Black Sea isn’t bottlenecked by Turkey already. Plus if they wanted to build a pipeline from Saudi Arabia to Turkey, you could easily do one through Iraq.

        There’s just so much pointless bullshit involved. It’s a stupid war, for stupid reasons, in a place that doesn’t matter.

        1. The war started because people calling for democracy were killed by the army of a dictator. That doesn’t sound like pointless bullshit to me. Interesting to hear that Syria doesn’t matter. I imagine your country was saved from tyranny by US forces. Does your country matter?

          1. Thanks, Bob-1. GZ – you really need to do some introspection. How would you feel about the person who said what you did if you had just been subjected to, and lost half your family in, a gas attack?

          2. The war started because people calling for democracy were killed by the army of a dictator. That doesn’t sound like pointless bullshit to me

            Bah. It was funded from the outside, most of the activists were transplants, and the “killings” only began after they started an armed revolt. It eventually turned into a civil war. You know how those work right?

            Interesting to hear that Syria doesn’t matter. I imagine your country was saved from tyranny by US forces. Does your country matter?

            I hope it doesn’t matter. If it mattered someone would try to get a piece of it. Plus unlike what you seem to think there were countries in Europe which were neutral during WW2. I still think the US did a noble thing in WW2 but no, my country actually didn’t benefit from it. Not directly at least.

          3. The point Bob is there is a reason for borders. As a general rule it’s up to the people of a country to decide how it’s run. The problem with that rule is at the extreme it means doing nothing during a genocide.

            Once Obama committed us in Syria we can’t just say, “Genocide is your problem.”

            If we can stabilize the situation like we did with Kadafi before Obama screwed that up, then we can leave Syria to resolve its own problems.

          4. Godzilla,

            Regarding the start of the Syrian Civil War: people make fun of wikipedia, but the following account of the beginning of the war is sourced:
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Civil_War#Protests.2C_civil_uprising.2C_and_defections_.28January.E2.80.93July_2011.29

            Your account is not sourced, and runs contrary to everything I’ve read in mainstream newspapers.

            “but no, my country actually didn’t benefit from it. Not directly at least.”

            What, you live in Switzerland? Spain or Portugal? Ireland? Andorra or Lichtenstein? I don’t know of any “neutral” country in WWII that didn’t directly benefit immensely from the US role in the liberation of Europe.

      2. “Kadafi wasn’t a problem at the end, so there was no reason to get rid of him.”

        I doubt there are many who would agree with me, but I disagree with that. I do not mourn Khadafy in the slightest. I would argue that Clinton/Obama botched the transition.

        At some point, all these strongmen have got to be eliminated, if there is ever to be a long term solution to the dysfunction of the Middle East. We have relied upon this strongman realpolitik for too long, and what has it bought us? An ever greater spiral of dysfunction.

        To paraphrase Lincoln, this world cannot endure half slave and half free. Eventually, the infection will overcome the host. It must be eradicated.

        1. It’s not our job to get rid of strongmen. We can give support to those in a country that oppose them, but it’s their job.

          1. Isn’t that more or less what we did in Libya?

            But, there has to be follow through. That’s where they failed in Libya.

          2. Yes, Bart, that’s exactly what Obama did in Libya and for no good reason. There never was any prospect of a good transition with Obama. Kadafi was under control. Strong men serve a purpose. If kept restrained as Kadafi was, they can lead to a peaceful transition to a better govt. Tribalism and multi-factions are a step backward.

        2. I disagree. I think a democratic regime comes naturally with time and that it can’t be imposed from outside. It needs a galvanizing core set of people to even have a chance to work. I can understand punitive actions in case the dictator starts wars abroad. Heck I can even understand an intervention in the case of genocide. But trying to install a democracy for democracy’s sake is kinda pointless.

          What do you think was better on Egypt? The generals or the Muslim Brotherhood? Algeria is another country which is basically controlled by the military and the alternatives would be much worse. Heck, even Turkey, the EU imposed free elections on Turkey so the military wouldn’t be in control there anymore, and the result was Erdogan. Do you think that was an improvement? And he isn’t even the worst thing that could have happened there. Quite often it leads to a cargo cult democracy which eventually violently collapses if left to its own devices.

          The least bad regimes in Muslim nations are all basically monarchies (Morocco, Jordan). The sole exception was probably Lebanon but we know how that turned out. It didn’t last against external forces.

          Which leads me back to the first point. The galvanizing core set of people. I knew there was going to be trouble in Afghanistan when Al-Qaeda killed Massoud. He had enough clout to actually made a regime like that work. Who was going to lead Libya or Syria? From what I heard, there’s already a new strongman poised to lead Libya but it sure took a lot of bloodshed to get to this point and it isn’t even over yet.

          1. My joke about Rand’s website is that “it is always WWII around here”, but when you say ” I think a democratic regime comes naturally with time and that it can’t be imposed from outside”, I have to ask about what you think happened in Japan and Germany after WWII?

          3. The people of Japan and Germany were never fractured like we see in many countries today. We could never have imposed democracy on them from without if they weren’t ready for it within.

          4. OK, now I’m concerned 😉

            No, actually, I am gratified that we see eye to eye on this issue. I empathize with the people who have to live under tyranny. I can only imagine how horrible it would be to live in a nation like that, and I cannot casually dismiss it from my conscience.

        3. Bart,
          Senators McCain and Graham agree with you. (I agree with you too, for once, but that might give you cause for concern.)
          I think people are forgetting the original reason we intervened in Libya.

          1. I doubt there is cause for concern. I think I’m pretty consistent. I felt the same way about Saddam. How did you feel about that?

          2. Bart, I was in favor of the 2003 invasion for the same reasons George Bush, Bill Clinton, and Hillary Clinton were in favor of it.

  4. If Syria were just a civil war we’d have no national interest in it. But with the Russians involved, it’s not. It’s a proxy war.

    Russia has 2 threats: nuclear and naval. The naval threat was a genie in a bottle. That’s what Crimea and Syria are about. That’s why Turkey is important to them. That naval threat will grow until they are emboldened. We can’t afford to show any weakness. We have to show resolve. We’ve already failed to stand on the Monroe Doctrine.

    1. “But with the Russians involved, it’s not. It’s a proxy war.”

      Why would we want a proxy war with Russia, when the West is being attacked by the very people we’re helping by attacking Assad?

      1. Because it only takes one side to fight a war. We are at war with Russia until we can make them a friend.

      2. I agree go your other point. We should not be supporting those fighting Assad that are no better or even worse. I’d be backing the Kurds.

        1. I also agree that the Kurds deserve support. The problem is a lot of them want their own nation and the countries in the region, like Turkey, Iraq, and Iran are dead set against it. Supporting anything more than autonomy for them is to risk losing any alliances the US has in the region and, even worse, these countries could actually unite against the US. Still I don’t know why the Western countries don’t at least support the Kurds with more small arms, APCs, and fuel for self-defense.

          2. …to risk losing any alliances the US has…

            It took Obama to bring Israel and Saudi Arabia together.

            We don’t need to worry about making allies. We just need to do the right thing and let our allies find us.

  5. So this same guy was on CNN less than a week ago, interviewed by the very same talking head, with a very similar plea to Trump and shaking his fist at Obama/Clinton, and she brings him back for today’s sound bite? I smell a rat.

    1. Ya’ gotta’ fill up the airtime somehow. It might be difficult to find refugees willing to go on the air. I doubt I would stick my neck out. This guy is very brave, and is to be commended.

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