Just throwing this out.

We have a big problem with Syria. No way we can afford %50 million a day or what ever for some piss ant no fly zone. We cannot give major arms to the rebels because most of them are bad guys anyway. Putin and Iran back that criminal Assad, and that is not going to change. This war is spilling over into Lebanon, Jordan and is impacting Israel. The US cannot put in ground troops. As things are now the UN is not going to go in there Bosnia style.

It may be time for Obama to make the same decision Truman made to end WWII. But not with nukes, but drones and cruise missiles.

He could do the following:

1. Make an oval office speech saying there is to be a ceaasefire and access by UN peacekeepers within 72 hours OR ELSE. That deadline will come and go.

In short order drones and missiles hit the battle zones, they take out Assad and his generals, and if we hit a few Hezbollah targets....what the hell.

We also give Israel the green light to simultaneously hit Iran's nuke sites and major air bases.
Then we start talking about a peace process from this position of strength.

The consequences? Rioting in the Muslim world, the Iranian radicals hate us,the terrorists will plot against us. There might even be some terrorist attacks. Putin will be pissed as hell and rattle his sabres.

And if all this happens, what's new? We are already in this situation anyway. The difference is we take out some bad guys without risking any more US troops, and we change the whole dynamic. Further the bad guys might think Obama grew a pair and they will come to the table.

Thats what happened when Truman dropped the big ones on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and it iw worth consideration here and now.

Agreed.

As far as I can see, this would be an illegal war of aggression.

Probably. The difference being that the Iraq war was justified by the fiction that Saddam had WMD, and here Assad does have WMD, and is using them.
Besides, illegal wars of aggression have never stopped us before. Take, Panama, Dominican Republic, El Salvador Chile, Guatemala, Viet Nam, Grenada, Iraq...

It would make more sense to send Denis Rodman over there.
and by the way Obama could never be another Truman that is for sure.

Well, maybe Denis Rodman could seduce Assad's wife. As for Obama, keep in mind every time you underestimate him he pulls something off.

Sure like:Subj: Summation




Kinda sums it all up nicely......



Bob: Did you hear about the Obama administration scandal?

Jim: You mean the Mexican gun running?
Bob: No, the other one.

Jim: The State Dept. lying about Benghazi?
Bob: No, the other one.

Jim: The IRS targeting conservatives?
Bob: No, the other one.

Jim: The DOJ spying on the press?
Bob: No, the other one.

Jim: Sebelius shaking down health insurance executives?
Bob: No, the other one.

Jim: The NSA monitoring our phone calls, e-mails and everything else?
Bob: No, the other one

Jim: The State Dept. (new today) interfering with an IG investigation on dept. sexual misconduct?
Bob: â No, the other one.

Jim: HHS employees (also new today) being given insider information on Medicare Advantage?
Bob: No, the other one.

Jim: Clinton, the IRS, Clapper & Holder all lying to Congress?
Bob: No, the other one.

Jim: I give up!

yes, he can sure pull things out can't he?

Somebody could write a bestselling piece of fiction.

Dick Cheney and the boys need another rehab project for Haliburton.

Obama is no Truman. Never will be. The guy is a weakling and ineffective

Yes

OBAMA THE WONDER YEARS
By Michelle Obama

So true!

We should quit being so involved in Middle East. When I heard today that we were thinking of arming the Syrian rebels I thought of how we once helped another rebel, Osama Bin Laden. We all see how that worked out. World is a big place, I believe we should focus on our own problems here in America.

The Syrian civil war pits the Alawite minority, which supports fellow Alawite Assad, against the Shiite majority, which includes plenty of Islamic fundamentalist groups likely to be hostile to the US if they win. A saving grace is that Hezbollah, which even the Europeans finally admitted is a terrorist group, have taken Assad's side. That should provide some impetus for the UN to intervene with a peace-keeping force. That's going to be needed for a long time to keep the sides from killing each other. The priority is for humanitarian relief. America's role should be limited, lest we fall into another bottomless pit of Mideast factionalism.

Obama dropped the ball. He should have recognized right from the start that "Arab Spring" was a major opportunity for statesmanship and American influence. He could have enunciated an "Obama Doctrine"--the US welcomes democratic movements in the Arab and Middle Eastern nations, and will support regimes that are democratic, egalitarian, tolerant of religious minorities, and that reject terrorism. He could have let the Arab nations, the world--and his fellow Americans--know where we stood, and what we stood for. Instead, he sat back and dithered. He backed himself into a corner in Syria with his "cross the red line" comment about use of chemical weapons. Did that constitute a well-thought-out policy with an end-view of what Syria would look like after American intervention?

dt, there's an Obama/Truman analogy, but it's not a positive one:

After Japan surrendered in '45 and ended its occupation of Korea, the US and USSR divided the peninsula and set up puppet regimes. The US never thought South Korea was important, withdrew American troops in '48, and in January 1950, Secretary of State Dean Acheson told the National Press Club that the US "defense perimeter" in Asia didn't include South Korea. Six months later, North Korea, with Soviet (and later Chinese) support, invaded the South. Truman had no policy vis-a-vis South Korea, and the US was forced to fight that war virtually alone, with just a skimpy loincloth of UN diplomatic support. Result was a bloody stalemate.

Point taken on Korea, TB.

Obama definitely dropped the ball on the whole Arab Spring. It was a golden opportunity for multilateralims, and because there was a vacuum, it was filled by the wrong people. I wonder how much of this might stick to Hillary in 2016.

They should've listened to MacArthur. (I wonder IF they did, if we'd be having all this trouble in Asia now).

Invade Tunesia, Libya, Egypt, or what???

In a Newsweek interview and during WWII, President Eisenhower said dropping the big ones on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was unnecessary, as Japan was ready to surrender. I'll take his word for it.

Supporting the rebels is a bad idea since they don't support freedom of religion, in other words, they are more of the same.

Syria doesn't have a Shiite majority. While friendly with Shiite majority of Iran, over 70% of Syrians are Sunnis, hence the civil (read religious) war that is going on. Alawite is a sec of Shitte.

All that said, aside from Syria being a safe haven for Iran to organize Hezbollah, Assad ran almost a secular government. I've been there twice, women could choose what to wear. There were women who wore hejab of their own accord and those who didn't and nobody made trouble for anyone. People could drink alcohol without reproach. I think if Sunnis come to power, just as Muslim brotherhood came to power in Egypt, things would get tough especially for the minorities. So that's pros and cons of Assad staying or going.



I'm not sure what this firm stand is. Taking sides in affairs of another country is neither wise, nor helpful when both sides are essentially fighting and trying to show they are doing this for the good of their own country and not for the benefit of a superpower whose record in meddling in Middle East has antagonized most locals. In fact right upon the US taking sides with one group, people would take a step back and check their choices of supporting that group. Obama did the best and wisest thing for our Green movement and I hope he stays away from this conflict in Syria. Arab spring was bound to happen, now, or later when the US would be way weaker to meddle in these countries affairs. People of this region are doomed to go through these mistakes on their own, otherwise they never can establish long lasting secular governments.

As Iraq and Syria are both suffering due to civil war, will the conflicts in both countries become more and more intertwined, or maybe become a single war? That is the question. To some extent they already are intertwined. They are part of the same wider Sunni-Shia struggle. And there is Lebanon boiling and there is civil unrest in Turkey. Egypt stays calm only as long as grain imports lasts.

Welcome to the new Middle East.

It can become a single war if this evolves into a Shia-Sunni conflict. That happening in my opinion atleast, depends upon which policy is successful in the middle east. One policy aims for a Shia-Sunni conflict because this will increase the areas of control of certain countries. The other rivaling policy aims for economic integration and relative stability and hence such a conflict deeply opposes its interest.

If this were Bush a lot of people here would be going crazy. Lol.

Obama just said that the NSA does not and will not listen in to anyone's phone calls, didn't he also say that if you wanted to keep your own health insurance that you could? Now we hear that millions of people will be tossed off of there work plans. This man has no credibility.

Obamacare is going to work. Can't wait to hear the whining of the haters ina a year or two once it has kicked in.

It has always been a Shia-Sunni conflict. A part of me says, "to hell with it, let them all kill each other."

Can't wait to here you're reaction when it becomes a problem. Obamacare is a step in the right direction but it is very flawed

Should have been a single payer. But I have seen Romneycare in Massachusetts, which is nearly the same thing andit works very well. Once the exchanges kick in rates are going to drop, and once the whole medical records get digitized health care costs will drop.

But instead of taking a page out of Truman's book, the so called leader of the free world, our so called commander in chief, has instead decided to sit down at the same table and negotiate with terorists!

I totally understand the intent of trying to put an end to a war, but you don't do so by caving in and negotiating with terrorists!

Obama is setting a very bad precedent by doing this. In my opinion it sends a message that is very dangerous and gives the appearance of weakness in that many terrorist groups will view it as such and think that they can now commit acts of terror or threaten acts of terror so that we will sit down and negotiate with them.

In my opinion this President is a disgrace not only the office, but to this country and every soldier that risks their life as well as those who have lost their lives to preserve our freedoms and who fight terrorists like the Taliban everyday.

I am ashamed to say that this man is the President of the country that I love.

The terrorists view this as a win, they are having the leader of the greatest, most powerful nation of the earth SIT DOWN WITH THEM. As if they were a sovereign nation with negotiating power. They brought the President of the US to the table, Bush would have NEVER sat down and acknowledged them. We are letting them know that they as long as they keep this up they can get whatever they want.