Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Putin does to Obama what Obama does to all the rest of us

Trying to follow the Syria thing. Brief outline:

A year ago, Obama,  AKA The Comrade, announced that he wouldn't involve the USA in Syria unless Syria used chemical weapons -- which have been banned internationally since WWI.

A week or so ago, videos and all kinds of stuff -- including a UN inspection -- indicated that Syrian dictator Assad has used chemical weapons on those fighting a civil war against his regime. NOTE: Among the forces aligned against Assad are groups from al-Qaeda and al Nusra (or something like that), whose aims are similar to al-Qaeda.

So the Comrade announced that he was going to bomb Syria to punish Assad for using chemical weapons. This was to be a small and surgical strike, and would not involve the US sending in ground forces or anything like that. And the USA otherwise would stay out of Syria's civil war.

Yeah, it's hard to not laugh. Like the US could just fire a couple hundred missiles from ships at sea (that we could do), and then just sail away (not bloody likely). I mean, the Japanese just dropped a few bombs on Pearl Harbor and then flew away. But as I recall, that wasn't the end of the conflict.

Personally, me and 63% of other Americans, going by the latest polls, don't want to do anything about Syria. Yeah, gee, it's a shame Assad is a murderous psychopath, but me and 63% of other Americans just can't see doing anything that would help al-Qaeda and al Nusra. We're just so unforgiving. Just because they blow up my buildings, kill 3,000 civilians, and cling to the concept of "pushing Israel into the sea" with the relentless bloody-mindedness of a pit bull attached to a mailman's ankle -- I and 63% of other Americans, just don't want to support al-Qaeda or al Nusra in any way.

Of course, there's Egypt and Libya, too, where the US feebly "led from behind" to topple murderous psychopaths in power -- only to see them replaced by different murderous psychopaths who, in addition to being power-mad, also want to destroy the USA and Israel.

So anyway, poor Comrade with his size 10 or thereabouts golf shoe in his mouth, threatening to bomb Syria and myself and 63% of the US population saying, "Hey, buster, I don't think so." We've got our own red line.

Even congress recognized the difference in opinion between the White House and the general population -- something they seem to find very difficult to do. They threatened to impeach the Comrade if he tried any such thing on an "authority" that is clearly not granted to him by the Constitution or even the War Powers Act. So the Comrade, with a sheepish smile, said he'd go ahead and allow Congress to vote on it (allow????) in order to make sure the country is solidly behind him. Which me and 63% of the population is not.

So Secretary of State "Give 'em Hell" John Kerry spouts off to somebody yesterday that the only way the US would call off the strike on Syria is if Syria gave up its chemical weapons -- which they wouldn't, he said.

 Bodybuilder and sportsman Vladimir Putin, the prime minister? president? of Russia, stepped up and said, "Why not ask Syria to give up its chemical weapons and get a multinational force -- apparently the UN -- take possession of Syria's chemical weapons and destroy them?"

Sounds like a plan. Except I do believe the US and others had made similar proposals in the UN Security Council, and Russia had always vetoed them. But now Putin says Russia will support them.

The UN Security Council was supposed to meet today to vote on this. About an hour before the meeting was to take place, the Russians submitted their proposal, which said, yeah, the UN or someone would clean out Syria's inventory of chemical weapons, when the US promises not to strike Syria.

While I might go along with that last bit in this situation, it also represents the USA abandoning a sovereign right. And I can't go along with that. And no country in its right mind would go along with that.

So Putin just did to Obama what Obama has been doing to the USA since he took office. That is, suggest what seems to be a reasonable proposal, and then attach it to provisions and covenants that no one in their right mind would agree to.

And the end result? If the USA refuses Putin's proposal, Obama looks like a bloodthirsty warmonger unwilling to compromise, and Putin looks like a dejected hero.

The Comrade has done this over and over again to his political opponents -- forcing them to reject things like incredibly stupid budgets and regulations that violate the Constitution. So the Republicans and anyone else who values political freedom must say no, must obstruct. And so the Comrade paints them as "they don't care about the poor," "they don't care about the environment." Etc. etc.

Looks like Vladimir Putin has quite a sense of irony. And apparently he's read Rules for Radicals.

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