Monday, May 06, 2013

Is Obama Assad's Defense Lawyer?

Here's Barack Obama after being forced to concede that Syrian tyrant Bashar al-Assad probably used chemical weapons against people in Syria:

“And what we now have is evidence that chemical weapons have been used inside of Syria, but we don't know how they were used, when they were used, who used them.  We don't have a chain of custody that establishes what exactly happened. ” [Press conference, 4/30/13, WH transcript.]

That sounds like objections Assad's defense lawyer would make, if Assad were on trial.

Obama isn't talking about “red lines” anymore. Now it's “game changers.” Specifically, IF he could REALLY REALLY prove Assad did it, and did it A LOT, why, then he'd reexamine his options.

Furthermore, "For the Syrian government to utilize chemical weapons on its people crosses a line that will change my calculus and how the United States approaches these issues," Obama said April 26th.

Uh-oh, his calculus might change! And that's not all...

"I've meant what I said."

So watch out, Assad!

Of course, it isn't irrational for Obama to try and avoid getting sucked into Syria. The problem is he was bluffing about that “red line,” and Assad is calling him on it.

And of course, the U.S. is constantly being exposed as insincere when its fine rhetoric about human rights and freedom and democracy and blah blah runs smack up against the reality of its actions, actions that reveal that it is just another power mad, greedy empire, ruled by ruthless, selfish politicians (who in the case of the U.S., do the bidding of an elite class of super-rich people).

More fundamentally, in a normal human world, people wouldn't be living under tyrants like Assad. There wouldn't be horrible torture-murder regimes like that. And if there were, other nations would fight to free the people oppressed under those regimes, especially when they rebel against their oppressors.

That all sounds so utopian, doesn't it? The fact that it does starkly reveals how how far we are from existing on a human level in this world.

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