Obama and Clinton condemn Assad. Assad condemns the US for condemning him. Really, what else was expected? And still they die whil Obama dithers
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/08/19/bloomberg1376-LQ81D01A1I4H01-3UCMJ86N4F4U087RIKG7MPDOCE.DTL
BLUF
It is more expedient and safer for Obama and Clinton to build a stronger international outcry against Assad than to actually do anything. By safer I mean that his ratings will take a straight line drop if he gets us into another messy spot right now. Libya is still going on and Obama cannot take the pressure of getting into another war, particularly after having lambasted Bush for doing that. I also do not believe that Obama will do anything until the Organization of Islamic Countries tells the UN to get America into the game.
BACKGROUND
Syrian troops have continued their assault on the Syrian people. In events that are frighteningly similar to those of 1993 in Bugojno where Croats were rounded up and held captive at the Iskra Soccer Club before being tortured and executed, Syrians are undergoing a mass arrest and detention that is most likely to end in mass murder.
The people being rounded up and held in the stadium in Latakia were simply trying to escape the onslaught from the government forces. Many people have been killed trying to run away. Perhaps now that a Palestinian camp in Latakia has been shelled and evacuated the Arab Street (read Gutter) will rail against Assad. Why not? Israel gets slammed for defending themselves against Palestinian rockets, why not Assad getting a slap on the wrist for shelling a Palestinian refugee camp?
The White House said the US was working with other countries to pressure Assad to end the "outright murder of his own people." This statement has come from Jay Carney, but still no real action. Carney says that Obama is talking with other countries about what to do. "The Syrian people deserve a peaceful transition to democracy; they deserve a government that doesn't torture them, arrest them and kill them. And we are looking, together with a broad array of international partners, to increase pressure on President Assad"
Obama is going on a three day bus tour that has already cost more than $2.2 million dollars. Assad is using naval bombardment, snipers, and tanks against his own citizenry. Where is the outrage? Where is the disgust? Edmund Burke said that when good men do nothing, evil triumphs.
I can, to a point, understand the reluctance of the UN and its lackeys to not get involved in or say anything about Syria. The UN is already bleeding out in Sudan and have been for years. The UN suffered assault after assault along the Ethiopia/Eritrea border. They proved utterly useless in Bosnia in protecting citizens with “gun free” and UN safe zones like Prijedor and Srebrenica. So, why get into it with Assad? Why do anything without the permission of the OIC (the largets voting bloc in the UN)? Why go to Syria when there is no shelling, sniping, or bombardment of rural areas and cities in Burma?
Burma? Really, UN? I thought that sub continent Asian country ceased to exist and has for years been called Myanmar. I know the UN is going to just waste time and dither while people are slaughtered, raped, murdered en masse globally. These crimes are being committed daily by their own member states while we, the people of the US, pay them with our tax dollars.
So, Obama and Clinton feel that it is better for all if Assad hears more and more nations say that he has to go. Fine; what happens if, in six months, all the countries in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia say that Assad has to go. Will he? Will he just step down to accept a trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity? Omar al-Bashir and Khadafy are both under warrant for war crimes such as slaughtering their own people.
In my opinion it is easier and more expedient for Obama to say little and do nothing about Assad. Obama’s ratings plummeted as the Libya intervention lingered, and lingers, on. Assad will continue, unfettered, unchecked, until he has completely cleansed his country of anyone who would dare say that he was not a kind and benevolent leader.
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