Unserious about Syria

The latest from the protest front in Syria is that the government of Bashir Assad is using snipers to kill random people attending funerals of those who were killed during the protests on Friday. I think that needs to be repeated: the government of Syria is trying to terrorize its citizens into submission by carrying out random killings at funerals!

When Gaddafi used aircraft against Libyan protests, the Western governments took action. The US, UK and France wanted to protect the protesters from their own government. Now that argument haunts the West. Can it be that just because Libya has oil that Western Europe uses, there is a higher standard for its leader? Can it be that the geniuses in the US State Department and the White House did not think what would happen once they used the "protect the population" reasoning for intervening in Libya. For the last two and a half years, we have been told over and over how smart Obama is. His advisors are all brilliant and he is a genius according to the media. Well now these same "geniuses" are basically impotent in Libya and ridiculous with regard to Syria. If demonstrators were killed in clashes with police in Syria, it might be possible for the USA to ignore it. When the Assad government carries out a national terror campaign against its own populace with random killings at funerals, it cannot be ignored if the USA meant what it said with regard to Libya.

The truth is that the downfall of Assad would be a much bigger plus for the USA than the departure of Gaddafi. Gaddafi is crazy and has caused much trouble over the years. Syria under Assad, however, has been the prime source of infiltrators into Iraq to fight American troops, the prime source of weapons for the terrorists of Hezbollah and Hamas, the perpetrator of assassinations in Lebanon that have subverted that country's independence, and the only predominantly Sunni ally of Iran in the Arab world. Even chaos in Syria is an improvement over Assad and the Baathists. Indeed, it is hard to imagine an outcome in Syria worse than the continuation of the Assad rule.

So what has Washington done so far? Obama did say that the attacks on those protesting must stop. Not too effective so far! The US has not even withdrawn its ambassador from the murderous regime in Damascus. Hillary is still calling Assad a reformer. In short, the only real answer is that USA has done nothing. It is a disgrace.