Assad is evil. To stop him from using poison gas, Obama drew a red line in the sand, and said we would attack if he used it. Well, he used it and Congress voted to not attack. In their mind the attack would only bring chaos without resolution. That sounds reasonable to me.
We have very little power in the Middle East and most of our efforts have been abysmal failures that cost billions of dollars and thousands of lives.
In the September 23, 2013 issue of Time, Joe Klein made a very good point. When Israel took out the Syrian nuclear reactor, they did it without advance bluster and didn’t even claim credit for it afterward.
Vince Flynn, the creator of CIA agent Mitch Rapp, has the answer. When our country’s in trouble, Mitch can infiltrate anywhere he wants (he speaks fluent Arabic) and kill the bad guys. He could have single-handedly solved the problem. But, since Mitch refused to leave the safety of the printed page, it was up to President Obama to come up with a viable plan.
What happened was that the president’s openness, which is always welcome in a psychiatrist’s office, was not so helpful on the world stage. It’s humiliating to confront a bully and then have to back down.
To have the most powerful military in the world at your disposal, and yet be unable to fix a decades old problem embedded in the fabric of middle eastern culture, has to be terribly frustrating. If we knock out Assad, what brand of fanaticism will take his place? How interesting that the Saudi’s, another right-wing religious monarchy, was calling for an attack on Assad, but they didn’t lift a Sunni finger…
We’re dealing with murderers and fanatics and there has to be a better way to deal with them then by waiting, in view of the entire world, for congress to openly vote on what to do. The logic is ridiculously illogical.
Art Smukler, MD - Books & Thoughts 
I agree that Mitch Rapp would be a great asset to the USA, but until he comes along, we should definitely stay out of the middle east. First of all, in Syria (among other areas), we don’t even know who the “good guys” are (if there are ANY good guys). Are there really any storehouses of poison gas? This sounds so similar to the “weapons of mass destruction” that we heard about. Let’s not forget…these are backward Arab countries. Nobody is selling them gas supplies and I don’t think they have the smarts to make them up in a jug either. And I hope nobody brings up the argument that this compares to the Nazi treatment of the Jews, since there is no parallel here at all. Another point that has been made and deserves repeating is that this is just one human tragedy out of countless tragedies around the globe. What about the atrocities that go on every day in Africa?
Hopefully, Putin’s suggestion to basically let the UN handle it will suffice and one can only wonder why Obama couldn’t think of that first. I guess he is so worried about screwing the country with his so-called healthcare “reform” (not really healthcare as much as health insurance reform!!) that he doesn’t have time to actually think through the consequences of his international actions.
Maybe someday the Republicans will realize that they can no longer patronize the fringes of the party (Tea Party, religious fanatics, etc) and find a decent candidate. But if they continue as they have been doing, then they will never win and we will continue to have more Obama-like candidates.
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Thanks! So much logic that no one with any political power will heed. It is SO frustrating that our elected officials behave in ways that just can’t compare with former leaders who really seemed to know how to lead. On the other hand, maybe we’re just older and possibly wiser.
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Yes, but not all of our former leaders were or are so wise. I believe Clinton has done great things since leaving office, but Carter was an ass as president and has become worse since then, and the worst anti-Israel , even worse than Gibson. Reagan, OTOH, was not fully appreciated when he was in office, but his accomplishments were indeed many.
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Excellent. ed
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