The President’s PinPrick Speech

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Just a quick roundup of just some of the reactions that I’ve come across in my web surf this morning….

From the President’s 15 minute speech:

Because these weapons can kill on a mass scale, with no distinction between soldier and infant, the civilized world has spent a century working to ban them.

Matt Miller:

Then there are the children. Of course what Assad did is heinous. But there’s something selective in the president’s outrage. Assad has killed tens of thousands of people. He’s killed many more children with knives, bullets and bombs than with gas. Perversely, he may keep right on killing more children even as some phalanx of inspectors is shipped in to verify that this untrustworthy last-ditch offer from Russia and Assad is “enforced.”

By what moral calculation will it be an achievement to stop Assad from gassing children while he remains free to kill them in countless other ways? By what moral calculation does a dictator get to gas the first 1400 victims without paying with his life, so long he promises not to do it again?

Ezra Klein:

Most Americans aren’t paying close attention to the civil war in Syria. They don’t know that more than 100,000 Syrians have died, and that chemical weapons account for less than 1 percent of those casualties. It’s borderline perverse to use descriptions of pain, suffering and death to justify an intervention that would leave the cause of more than 99 percent of these deaths untouched. As Time’s Michael Crowley tweeted, “The images of children crippled by conventional bombs were sickening, too.”

To put it simply, if it is “the images of children writhing in pain and going still on a cold hospital floor” that motivate our intervention in Syria, why should we care whether the children were attacked with gas or steel?

Michael Cohen:

Obama claimed, for example, that US “troops would again face the prospect of chemical warfare on the battlefield,” if nothing was done about Assad’s actions. He said, “it could be easier for terrorist organizations to obtain these weapons and to use them to attack civilians”; and he claimed “al-Qaida will only draw strength in a more chaotic Syria if people there see the world doing nothing to prevent innocent civilians from being gassed to death.”

But none of these arguments makes much logical sense. Countries don’t use chemical weapons against the US because: a) most don’t have them; b) they are rather ineffective as a war-fighting tool; and c) countries rightfully fear the repercussions of using banned weapon against the United States for reasons that should be obvious to a president who said the American military doesn’t do “pinpricks”. Responding or not responding to Syria’s use of chemical weapons likely won’t change that calculus.

In addition, the desire of nihilistic terrorist organizations to obtain weapons of mass destruction will be little affected by the world’s reaction to Assad’s behavior. Groups like al-Qaida sought such deadly tools before the Syrian civil war, and they will seek them after. Indeed, the reference to al-Qaida in Obama’s speech was nothing but a domestic dog-whistle, intended to scare Americans about the price of inaction. It glosses over the fact that an attack against the Syrian regime would inevitably hinder its war-making abilities – and make it more likely that radical jihadist groups would gain the upper hand in the Syrian civil war.

Obama’s speech was filled with just these sorts of contradictions. On the one hand, he argued that “if fighting spills beyond Syria’s borders, these weapons could threaten allies like Turkey, Jordan and Israel”, but then said later that “neither Assad nor his allies have any interest in escalation that would lead to his demise. And our ally, Israel, can defend itself with overwhelming force.” Well, which is it?

He said that “as the ban against these weapons erodes, other tyrants will have no reason to think twice about acquiring poison gas and using them.” But he also pointed out that 189 countries have signed up to the Chemical Weapons Convention, which suggests that the broad consensus against the future use of chemical weapons is perhaps stronger than Obama is suggesting.

This was somewhat par for the course in a speech where Obama, in one breath, declared America is an “exceptional” nation and, in the next, promised the US would act with humility. What was perhaps most troubling about Obama’s presentation is the questions that were left unanswered.

What if Assad goes back to gassing his people with chemical weapons? Will the US further escalate? Why are the horrors of children killed by chemical weapons qualitatively different from the horrors of children killed by artillery or machine guns?

Finally, what is the justification for condemning one violation of international law (the use of chemical weapons) with the violation of another (fighting a war in Syria without a UN security council mandate)? Does this set a troubling precedent for conflicts down the road?

To be sure, there are reasonable answers to these questions, but in failing even to try to answer them, and instead, raising red-herring issues and making dubious claims – such as, attacking Syria will “make our own children safer over the long run” – Obama offered the American people a confusing and ultimately misleading rationale for military action.

This is baffling:

Even though I possess the authority to order military strikes, I believed it was right, in the absence of a direct or imminent threat to our security, to take this debate to Congress. I believe our democracy is stronger when the President acts with the support of Congress. And I believe that America acts more effectively abroad when we stand together.

This is especially true after a decade that put more and more war-making power in the hands of the President, and more and more burdens on the shoulders of our troops, while sidelining the people’s representatives from the critical decisions about when we use force.

It has Matthew Waxman scratching his head:

My first question is to what he’s referring to here, or which part of the past decade. President Bush undoubtedly held very broad views of war powers, but the two major wars embarked up during his presidency, in Afghanistan and Iraq, were clearly congressionally authorized, and Congress has played a significant role in pushing their wind-down. The 2011 Libya intervention, by contrast, was not congressionally authorized, and the Obama administration adopted the view that the War Powers Resolution did not apply to the operations there (which, unlike the contemplated Syria operations, aimed to help bring down a regime). The Obama administration has also resisted the idea that Congress should re-examine the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, which has been interpreted to apply in geographically broad ways that may or may not have been intended by Congress at the time it was adopted.

My second question is why, if he believes it’s problematic that more and more war-making power has been put in the hands of the President to the exclusion of Congress, President Obama also adopts the position that he possesses unilateral constitutional authority to act in this case.

Marc Thiessen:

Put aside the fact that Congress explicitly authorized the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, while Obama did not seek congressional authorization before launching his war in Libya — or that dozens of nations joined us in Iraq and Afghanistan, while in Syria we have . . . France.

Marc Thiessen again:

While imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, it takes a special kind of chutzpah to plagiarize your predecessor while attacking him at the same time.

goodluck

Moreover, we know the Assad regime was responsible.

We do?! Hat tip: Nan G on this Fact Check:

THE FACTS: The Obama administration has not laid out proof Assad was behind the attack.

The administration has cited satellite imagery and communications intercepts, backed by social media and intelligence reports from sources in Syria, as the basis for blaming the Assad government. But the only evidence the administration has made public is a collection of videos it has verified of the victims. The videos do not demonstrate who launched the attacks.

Administration officials have not shared the satellite imagery they say shows rockets and artillery fire leaving government-held areas and landing in 12 rebel-held neighborhoods outside Damascus where chemical attacks were reported. Nor have they shared transcripts of the Syrian officials allegedly warning units to ready gas masks or discussing how to handle U.N. investigators after it happened.

The White House has declined to explain where it came up with the figure of at least 1,429 dead, including 400 children — a figure far higher than estimates by nongovernmental agencies such as the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has counted only victims identified by name, with a current total of 502. In his remarks, Obama more generally accused Assad’s forces of gassing to death “over 1,000 people, including hundreds of children.”

MataHarley has also expressed her doubts as to who is responsible for the cw attacks.

1: Everything the Media is missing in Syria and

2: The newest one I just posted by History of the Iraq War author (I have his book too), Yossef Bodansky…

… I guess you could say I not only have doubts as to Assad’s perpetration of CW deployment, but I’m far more convinced each day that passes that this is the doing of the more nefarious characters in the opposition.

On the difficulties of running inspections…

Max Boot:

how will the destruction of the Syrian chemical arsenal work anyway?

The language coming from the Syrians and Russians suggests that Syria’s arsenal will not be moved out of the country. Rather, UN inspectors are somehow supposed to take control of tons of chemical agents in the middle of a war zone. It is unclear what then follows–will the inspectors somehow have to incinerate tons of these agents safely or will they simply camp out around the chemical-weapons sites indefinitely?

How this works, in practice, is almost impossible to imagine. Western intelligence agencies do not even know where all of Assad’s chemical-weapons stockpiles are located. Remember how much trouble UN inspectors had in verifying Saddam Hussein’s compliance with UN resolutions in the 1990s? The difficulties will increase ten-fold in Syria where the chemical-weapons arsenal is scattered across a large, dangerous battlefield. Saddam, it turns out, didn’t really have WMD; Assad does, and they won’t be easy to find.

The only way that Syria might fulfill its obligation to disarm is if it faces a credible threat of military action. Will Russia agree to a Chapter VII resolution at the United Nations that would authorize military action to compel Syrian compliance? Doubtful, but possible. Even if the UN does authorize action, what are the odds that Obama will act given the bipartisan resistance in Congress to any strikes? The House and possibly the Senate as well were already set to reject the authorization for the use of force. This “deal” is being peddled as a way to avoid a vote altogether. But if the U.S. is not seen as willing to strike Syria, what incentive does Assad have to comply with the terms of any disarmament deal? The most likely scenario is that Assad will agree to something in principle and then fudge on the implementation, knowing that Washington will have lost interest by that point.

The best thing that can be said in favor of the Russian deal is that it does offer an alternative to the immediate humiliation of Congress repudiating the president and refusing to authorize Syrian action.

Chemical Disarmament Hard Even in Peacetime:

Spread far and wide across Syria, the chemical weapons complex of the fractured state includes factories, bunkers, storage depots and thousands of munitions, all of which would have to be inspected and secured under a diplomatic initiative that President Obama says he is willing to explore.

But monitoring and securing unconventional weapons have proved challenging in places like Iraq, North Korea and Iran — even in peacetime. Syria is bound up in the third year of a bloody civil war, with many of the facilities squarely in battlefields.

“I’m very concerned about the fine print,” said Amy E. Smithson, an expert on chemical weapons at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California. “It’s a gargantuan task for the inspectors to mothball production, install padlocks, inventory the bulk agent as well as the munitions. Then a lot of it has to be destroyed — in a war zone.”

“What I’m saying is, ‘Beware of this deal,’ ” Dr. Smithson added. “It’s deceptively attractive.”

~~~

experts said, large numbers of foreign troops would almost certainly be needed to safeguard inspectors working in the midst of the civil war.

“We’re talking boots on the ground,” said one former United Nations weapons inspector from Iraq, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he still works in the field on contracts and did not want to hurt his chances of future employment. “We’re not talking about just putting someone at the gate. You have to have layers of security.”

Destruction and deactivation of those weapons could then take years.

The Obama administration is skeptical about whether this approach might work. A senior administration official called securing chemical arms in a war zone “just the first nightmare of making this work.”

A Pentagon study concluded that doing so would take more than 75,000 troops. That rough estimate has been questioned, but the official said it gave “a sense of the magnitude of the task.”

Another riddle centers on arms movement. As President Bashar al-Assad of Syria has lost territory, or has feared that rebels could seize the lethal stockpile, he has consolidated his chemical weapons, administration officials say. Thus the old estimate that intelligence agencies offered — of 42 separate chemical sites — may no longer hold true.

“We only know a good deal about 19 of them,” said another senior official who has been briefed on the intelligence. Thus, doubts could fester on whether Mr. Assad had turned over his entire arsenal.

Specialists in ordnance disposal and demilitarization say any effort to account for Syria’s chemical weapons would require huge investments of resources and time, and the likely assumption of battlefield risk. The United Nations already has 110 chemical inspectors stretched thin around the globe, and their ranks would have to swell.

“I suspect some casualties would be unavoidable,” said Stephen Johnson, a former British Army chemical warfare expert who served two tours of duty in the Iraqi desert. “The question you have to ask is whether the benefits would be worth that kind of pain.”

These are not, experts noted, theoretical issues that may arise, but hard realities.

“Whichever country would be sent in there to try to get the accountability and do the security, and maybe eventually get to the destruction — they will be a target for someone, for one group or another,” the former United Nations weapons inspector said. “Because no matter who you are, you get mortared somewhere by one of the parties.”

Peter Feaver:

With Obama’s address to the nation still to come, the game was not over, but the betting money had swung decisively in the other direction.

At that precise moment, a stray comment by Secretary of State John Kerry — a comment no more significant or meaningful than the more fulsome discussions Obama reportedly had with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G-20 summit — catalyzed an abrupt Russian reversal. It apparently catalyzed more than that, since Syria appears to have conceded that it possesses chemical weapons, something they were denying when a strike looked imminent.

How could a threat, which when credibly imminent was producing defiance suddenly produce a breakthrough when it seemed least credible? Why would Putin and Syria’s Bashar al-Assad “buy” a non-strike when they were about to get it for free?

One possible answer, offered to me by Joshua Rovner of Southern Methodist University in a private debate among academic security specialists, points to the twin role of reassurance and compellence (threat) in coercive diplomacy. As I have explained before, for coercion to work, you have to simultaneously threaten bad outcomes if the target defies you and promise good outcomes if the target acquiesces. Coercion can fail if the target doubts either side of that calculus. Perhaps, my friend speculates, Kerry’s stray comment provided the needed reassurance that was hitherto lacking.

That may be part of it, but the facts better fit another explanation: Putin and Assad pounced on the stray comment because they knew that on Monday Obama was what in business is known as a motivated buyer. Obama needed a way out from the political defeat that he was facing, so he was willing to pay as high a price as he ever was to avoid the embarrassment.

What is the price? As Middle East expert Michael Doran of the Brookings Institution explains, the most tangible result of the last 48 hours is that Obama is now a partner with Putin and Assad. Putin and Assad have bought not merely an indefinite delay in airstrikes (something they were getting anyway), but also explicit partnership with Obama and tacit rejection of the “Assad must go” plank of Obama’s Syria policy. Note that despite all of the moving rhetoric in Obama’s address about the horror of what the Assad regime did, Obama pointedly did not repeat his long-standing assertion that “Assad must go.”

Got any good links to other articles in wake of the President’s confusing case for Syria last night? Drop ’em in the comments section.

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Resignation or impeachment-only two options

How this works, in practice, is almost impossible to imagine. Western intelligence agencies do not even know where all of Assad’s chemical-weapons stockpiles are located.

Not all, perhaps, but many. The locations of Syria’s chemical precursor production facilities have been known for a long time. The location of Syria’s sarin and VX gas production facilities are also known. This is not new information. Here’s a map, published yesterday in The Telegraph. Military surveillance satellites will no doubt have produced highly detailed images of the locations, and likely will have been attentive to any efforts to relocate facilities and materials.

it is funny (ironic) how obama is up in arms over the children of Syria that were killed but he has nothing to say about the hundreds of children killed in Chicago or the four babies that were killed in the last two months by stray bullets in New Orleans. Is there a difference? yes of course there is. There is no political advantage to going after the ills at home.

Just for fun and the sheer spite of it, let the first chemical weapons dump to be inspected and inventoried for WMD that which was transferred from Iraq. It would be the supreme egg in the face moment for Obama, Democrats and specifically liberals. It would be a moment they wouldn’t be able to live down. It would be the infamy of shame.

Come on Assad, you know you want to… That’s your hook to follow through on making the deal stick.

Greg says “hit the production facilities, we know where they are”… okay, and the collateral damage is okay right? Then we’ll hit the delivery systems… wait, they are mobile, so without boots on the ground to laze the targets for the inbound weapons, it’s a mostly miss; again the collateral damage is okay with you Greg? Obama had repeatedly said he isn’t interested in a regime change in Syria, so hitting Assad is out. Tell us again how this is all going to be effective in a civil war we have no business stepping into, where there’s no threat to our country.

And DScott…. that’s an excellent idea!

This guy is nothing but a gas bag:
Here is the thing; Ft. Hood soldiers are receiving orders as we speak going into Egypt; other receiving orders going to Syria!
WTF?
Did McCain not state that ‘boots on the ground’ calls for impeachment? Why are we sending our soldiers into these hell holes and, for what? We need answers!

RU-486 is as ‘Chemical Warfare’ as you can get but no tears or fears for the life shuddering to death in the stainless steel pan or flushed into the sewer. Nobel, inventor of the chemical: ethylene glycol dinitrate, may have never forseen its use in modern warfare much less strapped with nails to the terrified youth brainwashed into submission to the perverted cause of a hate filled caliph.

The NYTimes points out:
Chemical Disarmament Hard Even in Peacetime.
Yes, even here in the good old USA, that’s been true.
We had an agreement that all our chemical weapons would be destroyed by 2012!
Guess what?
We still have tons of the stuff.
Obama slowed the pace of destruction probably because he had other priorities to have gov’t workers doing.
So, here we are, off the pace we needed to keep up with some international agreement we made before Obama.
He cannot blame Bush for this.
Well, he can, it will just be hollow.

The Washington Times points out that Obama didn’t prove Assad approved the chemical attack.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/sep/11/us-cant-prove-bashar-assad-approved-chemical-attac/
That’s because Obama has no proof, not because things changed so he didn’t have to.

Had things not changed and Obama would have an entire nation waiting for his evidence, Obama would have been up a creek.
In that sense, Putin saved him.
But Putin made Obama look like a fool in the process.

U.S. intelligence has yet to uncover evidence that Syrian President Bashar Assad directly ordered the chemical attacks last month on civilians in a suburb of Damascus, though the consensus inside U.S. agencies and Congress is that members of Mr. Assad’s inner circle likely gave the command, officials tell The Washington Times.

Those officials spoke only on the condition of anonymity because they were discussing intelligence matters.

[T]he lack of specific intelligence about who ordered the Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack is the main reason why top Obama administration officials — including the president himself — have in recent days carefully assigned blame to “Assad’s regime” rather than the Syrian leader personally.

Just like Obama, parsing the words so as not to be outright lying, just partial truth that acts to deceive….the Islamic term is Kitman.

Putin in NYT:

“Syria is not witnessing a battle for democracy, but an armed conflict between government and opposition in a multireligious country. There are few champions of democracy in Syria. But there are more than enough Qaeda fighters and extremists of all stripes battling the government. The United States State Department has designated Al Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, fighting with the opposition, as terrorist organizations. This internal conflict, fueled by foreign weapons supplied to the opposition, is one of the bloodiest in the world.”

An accusation from the thug, ….. ouch!

And then an insult, . . .

” I carefully studied his address to the nation on Tuesday. And I would rather disagree withwith a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States’ policy is “what makes America different. It’s what makes us exceptional.” It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.”

We need some Serious talent at that negotiating table.

@James Raider:
No doubt Putin is trolling Obama with great skill. I have an issue with this part of his op-ed though:

We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal

Hearing a Russian invoke the Lord is great, but God created us all equal as individuals, not nations. I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t see people lining up to get into Russia. There aren’t thousands of people risking their lives to get into Russia everyday. With all of our problems and all of our infighting, we are still the greatest nation on Earth, because we are free. At least for the moment.

It’s difficult to soar with the eagles when you are surrounded by turkeys. After listening to whoever that is who claims to be the leader of the free world, I have to wonder if even turkeys would be offended by being lumped into this crowd. Putin and the radical Muslims have got to be having a field day with this as the U.S. has become a laughing stock.

Besides the fact that if one listened closely, the speech was a perfect example of Orwellian Doublespeak, one really must wonder what it will take to get the American public to completely open it’s eyes to the lies, deceit and complete ineptness that is this administration.

enchanted #3: Great point and something I’ve been screaming about for a while now.

@Scott in Oklahoma, #5:

Greg says “hit the production facilities, we know where they are”…

No, he doesn’t. That’s what you claim he said.

The fact that locations are known relates to monitoring Syria’s compliance with any agreement to turn over chemical weapons—not with a choice of targets, should limited military intervention be pursued. The stated objective of military intervention would be to degrade Assad’s military capabilities. This would likely involve a choice of targets intended to disrupt communications, the transport of troops and supplies, etc. The right choice could produce negative results for the Assad regime greatly disproportionate to the actual scale of the attack, because it could tip the balance in favor of rebel factions. That’s what makes it a significant and credible threat.

Assad has now been placed in a position where he can’t use his chemical weapons without it instantly becoming the focus of world attention. To do so would confirm every accusation, making it difficult for even Russia to continue to defend him. Another large scale attack, and the world probably would react.

Keeping what he can’t use becomes a huge liability, because of the threat of military action from the United States. That turns his own chemical weapons into a danger to his own regime.

What Vladimir Putin realizes is that he can boost his own international stature by encouraging his ally to get rid of what has now become a liability.

Quite a good play on the part of the Obama administration, in my opinion.

cali
hi, you gave us a new action nobody heard about,
troops coming in SYRIA AND IRACK ON THE GROUND,
THAT IS SURPRISING IS IN IT, AND WHY,
DOES ANYONE KNOW THAT,
IT IS TOO NEW TO KNOW, THANK YOU FOR THE INFO,

Some people inside the Obama Administration are privately admitting that the 1429 people supposedly killed by chemical weapons probably includes a substantial number killed by conventional bombs.
OOPS!
Three congressional sources told Reuters that administration officials had indicated in private that some deaths might have been caused by conventional bombing.
This disclosure undermined support for President Barack Obama’s plan to strike Syria, they said.

One of the congressional sources said that administration officials in closed door briefings said they could not rule out that some victims included in the U.S. death toll were killed either by conventional explosive parts of rockets which carried poison gas or in the artillery barrage the United States says followed the gas attack.

A second source, who is sympathetic to White House policy, said caveats administration officials attached to the 1,429 death total were of sufficient magnitude to cause the source to avoid citing the figure.

A third source said that administration officials confronted pointed questions from members of Congress about the accuracy of the numbers and acknowledged that they “couldn’t be sure” about the cause of death for some people counted as victims of chemical poisoning.

French intelligence says deaths from the gas attacks could be as high as 1,500, but it reported confirmed deaths from video evidence of 281.

Estimates of gas attack deaths by British intelligence, the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and non-governmental group Doctors without Borders fall within a range of 322 to 355.

Some members of Congress asked to see raw intelligence gathered by U.S. agencies. But thus far, the administration has provided only reports summarizing intelligence.

IN RECENT DAYS, THE ADMINISTRATION HAS AVOIDED THE PRECISE FIGURES OF THE EARLY DAYS.

On September 9, White House National Security Advisor Susan Rice also rounded down the figures, saying that “more than 1400” were killed, including “more than 400 children.”

In his speech to the nation on Tuesday night, Obama said that Assad’s forces had “gassed to death over 1,000 people, including hundreds of children.”

A White House official called it a “stylistic thing”.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/12/us-syria-crisis-intelligence-idUSBRE98B1C220130912?irpc=932

@Greg:

Quite a good play on the part of the Obama administration, in my opinion.

Yep, totally brilliant. Few can doubt that this president is the greatest strategist to walk the planet. I am simply awed by him.

it’s very weird that no mention of the rebels killing with anything they can put their hands on,
hell they have some eating the liver of a fresh killed opponent,
and yet OBAMA WANT TO SENT MORE WEAPONS, WHICH WAS DONE UNDERGROUND BEFORE,
SO TO FIX THAT SOVEREIGN NATION, IS NOT TO SUPPORT THEIR ENEMIES AS A FIRST RULE,
AND WAIT FOR THAT NEXT PROCESS TO HAVE ASSAD LET GO HIS CHEMICALS,
NOW HE IS WILLING TO DO IT, GIVE HIM TIME TO ORGANIZE HIS PLAN TO FULL RESOLUTION,

@Greg: Obama played nothing. He was caught between a rock and a hard place because he shot his mouth off without thinking, getting himself into hot water. He probably wished he had never made the statement. He further embarrassed himself by trying to blame others for drawing the red line in the sand. In this country we are used to him blaming others. Now the world got their first dose. What is now at risk is that Obama and the U.S. will be diminished on the world stage and Putin will emerge as a new found leader on the world stage. If anything, Putin was the one who was playing someone.

I’m sure the spin machine will do everything in their power to make this look like a well planned stroke of genius and there will be plenty who will blindly go along with it, but the reality is it ain’t so.

@another vet: He’s good at that shootin’ off at the mouth… I especially liked it when he said HIS credibility wasn’t going to suffer, but everyone else’s will… And yet, Greg and those like him still believe. I sometimes wonder just what Obama would have to do, to turn those hard core liberal’s support into understanding what many of us have seen for very long time.

@another vet, #20:

I find it difficult to believe that Assad has expressed willingness to give up his chemical weapons in the middle of an armed insurrection, and that Vladimir Putin has publicly encouraged him to do so, entirely as a result of Obama’s ineptitude. A logical series of moves has brought the situation to this point.

I’ve never understood how republicans can feel so comfortable promoting the idea that the guy who beat them in the last two elections and has politically outmaneuvered them on so many domestic policy issues is, in fact, a total incompetent. Such a conclusion would carry a certain implication regarding their own capabilities.

@Greg: Let me help you to understand Greg… we conservatives have recognized Obama’s hatred for our country from long before he made it into the White House. We weren’t outmaneuvered, the liberals bought into his line of crap. It was easy for him to win, all he had to do was buy your votes with promises of free stuff, never mind that it was stolen from those of us who actually produce and make income.

Go ahead and name the domestic programs and policy’s, instituted by the Obama Regime that have actually worked and made a positive impact on the citizens of this country. Can you name even one?

Did you support the other wars we have been involved in since our entry into the Korean War?

@Scott in Oklahoma, #23:

And I recognized that there’s a far right lunatic fringe at around the age of 12, when a friend of my father’s gave him some reading material put out by the John Birch Society.

The radicalization of the republican party is one of the reasons so many people in the political center now see no choice but to vote for democrats.

Greg
you mean the INDOCTRINATION OF THE DEMOCRATS,
OF COURSE, that’s it, and it continue,
you would not be in this situation ,if a CONSERVATIVE would be in power,
nothing like it would have happen, and the debt ceiling would be much lower,
how many millions every day to hold those ship in that SEA, 400 MILLIONS AND COUNTING,
YOU NEED SMART PEOPLE IN POWER TO PRESERVE AMERICA STANDING IN THE WORLD,
NOT TO HELP THE AL QAEDA AND FRIENDS TO DEMOTE A LEADER OF A COUNTRY,
WHO NEVER ATTACK YOU,

So Greg, just because you refused to answer my questions doesn’t make them go away…

@Greg: As of now he failed to strike Assad for crossing his red line, failed to win support of the American people, failed to get Congressional approval, failed to get UN approval, failed to get a coalition other than France. What is the one common denominator? Fail. Using your standards a high school student who fails math, fails English, fails science, fails history, and fails PE should be allowed to graduate with high honors. The other thread where Obama supporters were trying to invoke the Holocaust in this was the most desperate sign yet to support his failures. Anyone believing he planned it this way needs help. Sorry to say Putin made him look inept.

@Scott in Oklahoma: He will always have his blind followers. I was once asked if I thought the something like the Holocaust could happen in the U.S. My response was ‘yes”. I based it on the worship of this President by his supporters and their desire to dominate others.

@Greg:

The radicalization of the republican party is one of the reasons so many people in the political center now see no choice but to vote for democrats.

Time to put the money where the mouth is and prove your statement. You can start by providing factual evidence that the Democrats control: the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House of Representatives, the majority of governorships, and the majority of state legislators. Anything short of total control of each one of these representative bodies is pure partisan fantasy.

@Scott in Oklahoma:

Let me help you to understand Greg… we conservatives have recognized Obama’s hatred for our country from long before he made it into the White House.

Scott, so you don’t think too hard in the future about this stuff, here’s a handy little tool for you:
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/09/one-simple-premise-root-every-obama-conspiracy/69395/

no matter how we call it,
if the mindset of a leader belong to another source than the COUNTRY he is leading,
always transpire for many to see, and it begin with suspicion and doubts ,
followed by light proofs here and there and the certainty appear at the end like a light is turned on,
and those many who heard of the doubts and discarded it as impossibility or even insanity fabrication for a dark purpose, then also get the reflection of the truth and keep silent to keep their jobs providing them with their needs, it become a group of elected who are not there to serve the interest of the PEOPLE,
but a group of them elected fraudulently to serve their own selfish interest,
SEE THE so called phoney scandals as the answer by a leader to cover it and cover all the rest, along with his own failures and selfish goal to pursue his own plan, regardless of the highest plan which
exist in this AMERICA SINCE SOME CENTURIES AGO, AND RESPECTED BY PREVIOUS LEADERS
as best as they humanly could to apply the law to today’s need, and even if they had some faults
It was never because their love for AMERICA had blemish, AND NEVER WITH THE MINDSET TO CRUSH AMERICA PROUD CITIZENS AS WE SEE NOW VERY CLEAR,