So President Obama -- what now in Syria?

I have been writing about the slaughter of civilians by the Assad regime in Syria for about a year. Week after week the numbers of dead rise like a steady drip, drip, drip from a water faucet into a bucket. Well the bucket is overflowing now; over 10,000 people are dead. President Obama and the Obamacrats have done next to nothing about the killing; Obama has allowed multilateral diplomacy to proceed. I call it multilateral diplomacy, because it would seem judgmental were I to call it the usual BS from the United Nations. But that is what it really is.

Yesterday, the Assad regime supposedly put into place a cease fire brokered by the UN Secretary General himself. Of course, there was a one week period before the cease fire started and Assad forces used the time to bring heavy weapons into Syrian cities and otherwise to clamp down on protests. But yesterday the cease fire started and negotiations were to begin to discuss resovling the political disputes.

Today's news, however, tells us that five more folks have been killed in Syria. Four of them were people attending anti-Assad rallies; they were shot down by Assad forces. In other words, nothing has changed. There is no cease fire. Assad is still ready to kill civilians to cling to power and he is doing just that.

This means that Obama now has a choice. He can continue to ignore the slaughter. Most likely that is what he will do. After all, he is too busy worrying about his re-election to spend time dealing with thousands of dead Syrians and the deprivation of liberty in that country. Remember, the Syrians cannot vote in November, so why bother with them?

When I was young, it used to mean something to be an American. We were the ones who fought for liberty and against tyranny. We were the ones who helped the downtrodden around the world. We were the ones who prevented the enslavement of millions by Communism and Totalitarianism. Even when we did not get involved in actual fighting we always held the beacon of freedom and liberty high. Here is how John Kennedy put it in his innaugural address in 1961:


We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans—born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage—and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this Nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

This much we pledge—and more.


Obama supposedly is from the same Democrat tradition as Kennedy, but we all know that this is not true. Indeed, were Obama to state his philosophy today, I am afraid it would sound like this:


"We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution run by slave-owning rich white men. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans—born into a flawed society, fed false promises of freedom and equality, looted by the rich and always intervening in foreign lands to promote the interests of big corporations.

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we have no intention any longer of protecting liberty around the world. We will do what we must in order to get re-elected and have our party stay in power. But the days of Americans fighting and dying in the name of freedom and liberty are long since over. We will give lip service to good causes, but after that, you are on your own."