I keep thinking, when, not if. And what will happen to the heavy missiles and chemical weapons. I presume the Israelis have a plan.
Some of the latest headlines:
- Now we’re getting tough – Obama Administration Seeks to Remove Syria From Human Rights Committee.
- ‘Syrian military official defects with soldiers’: “A Syrian military official has defected in protest at a government crackdown on months of demonstrations against President Bashar Assad’s rule, footage on Al Jazeera English’s website showed on Saturday. Flanked by soldiers brandishing rifles, a man named by Al Jazeera as Colonel Afeef Mahmoud Suleiman read out a statement saying they were defecting after witnessing acts of violence by the army on protesters.”
- Syrian defectors call for international help: “Unlike in an uprising in Libya that eventually swept Moammar Gaddafi from power, she added, where large parts of the armed forces defected en masse and fled to the opposition stronghold of Benghazi, there is no safe area for Syrian soldiers easily to escape to.”
- Syria holds funeral service for victims of Damascus bombing: “Thousands of government supporters turned out Saturday for the funeral service for victims of a bombing in the Syrian capital, waving flags and holding up pictures of President Bashar Assad, state media reported…. Authorities said 26 people were killed, including 15 who have not been identified, and 63 were injured in Friday’s attack.”
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Will Obama “lead from behind” again and drag NATO into another fiasco where they demonstrate their status as “paper tigers?” France and the UK were running out of smart munitions after a couple of weeks.
Israeli plans are important but so are Iranian plans. What will they do? They have Hamas and Hezbollah armed to the teeth while the UN stood by in Lebanon and did nothing to prevent the return of Hezbollah to their former bases.
And whoever takes over in Syria after Assad will almost certainly be worse than al-Assad.
This will almost certainly be be in interesting ride. I wonder if Obama will screw it up a totally new way or just repeat all the same old mistakes…
“I wonder if Obama will screw it up a totally new way or just repeat all the same old mistakes…”
Haha. WarEagle, I think his playbook is one sentence long: “Give a speech and wait for the course of human events to fall in line.”
Speech placebo as panacea.
P.S. USC Trojans #1 in 2013. Take that to the bank.
Aren’t the USC Trojans still on probation for another season or two or three? And remember, if it isn’t SEC it isn’t football!
Nope, probation has ended. And QB Matt Barkley has decided to postpone his pro career, and return for his senior year to win the Heisman Trophy and lead the Trojans to #1.
His little sister is in our daughter’s sorority and our daughter has chatted with him a few times. The important lowdown: “He’s not very interesting. He’s not even that cute in person”
She just doesn’t like jocks … sadly, even the ones that will be worth tens of millions in the near future 🙁
Sorry, Professor … back to Syria …
One of my objections to our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan was the way the military was stretched. (Of course, I wonder why we are involved in Libya and Uganda, but, wait, that isn’t digression, is it? Where else are we engaged in military operations?)
Clearly, events in Syria are further proof of why we need to reduce our military forces, as per President 0bama’s direction. Not!
WarEagle12 makes a good point: Who will be picking up the pieces? Perhaps the Palestinian refugees could be sent to Syria? Surely Syria would be better than living in a refugee camp?
“One of my objections to our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan was the way the military was stretched.”
While I agree the military was stretched, it did not have to be so. The plan was always to put an Iraqi face on events as soon as possible. http://www.waranddecision.com/misconceptions/misconception-6
Kenneth R. Timmerman, in Shadow Warriors, says the UDOD had a plan for the invasion and the aftermath, which was, in part, based upon the US 1998 Iraq Liberation legislation. You really need to read the book to find out what I mean, but a small segment is included below:
“On May 5, 2003. General Garner announced in Baghdad that he expected to hand over the reins of Iraq’s day to day adminstration to an interim Iraqi government “within ten days.” Indeed that had been the plan from day one.” (p84)
Then
“Bremer says he was on his way to work at the Pentagon when Garner’s announcement led the 6 A.M. newscast. He was so stunned that he almost drove off the George Washington Parkway. “I knew it would take carefull work to disabuse both the Iraqi and American proponents of this reckless fantasy,” he wrote in his account of his time as the American viceroy of Baghdad.”(Timmerman P84)
[This was before anyone had decided to move off plan and appoint a viceroy]
The rest is history. Bremer moved in as viceroy, the UN declared the US as the occupying power (The State Department had earlier recommended a multi-year occupation and that is what we ended up with).
If Shadow Warriors is factual, both the State Department and CIA had differing plans for Iraq. Both were different from the War plan.
http://www.kentimmerman.com/shadow-warriors.htm
I will not comment in military operations – however Bremer was a civilian administrator.
He held a pen & unleashed a vicious wave of terror that cost tens of thousands of lives & brought shame onto the USA.
I think he is a war criminal.
Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hamas in Gaza,Hezbollah in Lebanon, Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, and soon, coming to a theatre near you HAMAS in the West Bank and the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan.
Pretty soon Obama will have Netanyahu and his conservatives right where he wants them. A quick no confidence motion when the world blames Netanyahu for all of the above, followed by the coronation of Ehud Barak and Tzipi Livni. Then peace will flow over the earth, especially Palestine.
I’m pretty sure that when Assad learns of Obama’s plan to have Syria’s name taken off one UN list and maybe even placed on a different UN list… well, let’s just say he’ll be on the WH red phone begging for orders. The UN! They police the world, of course. Plus, Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize, you know.
Assad is doing his best to prevent the next step in the “Tutsi slaughter Hutu slaughter Tutsi” cycle, and in the process is accelerating its progress.