Posted on 08/22/2014 7:58:34 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
What a difference a year makes. Around this time last year, the West was gearing up for military action against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who was accused of carrying out chemical weapons attacks on his own people. That intervention never came to pass, not least because domestic public opinion in countries such as Britain and the United States was opposed to further entanglements in the Middle East.
Now, the U.S. is contemplating extending airstrikes on Islamic State militants operating in Iraq in Syria — fighters belonging to a terrorist organization that is leading the war against Assad. The Islamic State's territorial gains in Iraq and continued repression and slaughter of religious minorities there and in Syria have rightly triggered global condemnation. "I am no apologist for the Assad regime," Ryan Crocker, a former U.S. ambassador to Syria, told NPR. "But in terms of our security, [the Islamic State] is by far the greatest threat."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
We should go with that.
Should Assad be mean to Islamists, well that's a Good Thing.
On Syria? Probably..
Problem is, Obammy would have provided weapons to those who became IS.
That’s awkward considering Obama declare Assad must go a few years ago. Makes him look washy washy.
Opposition to ISIS doesn’t mean we have to support Assad. I don’t get this.
I think he already has. From Benghazi through Turkey.
Assad was his trading partner. I doubt his support was idealogical.
Fixed
Mutually Informed Parallel Action is one way it's called, not exactly an alliance. Or maybe those are just fancy words for cooperation. An alliance is an alliance.
Was Putin right about Syria?
of course he was
Ass-head, keeping his foot on the necks of islamofilth....same as Saddam, Kadoffy, the Shah, Mubarak etc.
They served a purpose, the president acted stupidly and took them out. Now we need some new ones.
The losers (at the hand of their own President or ISIS:
“Syria’s war has killed more than 162,000 people, and forced nearly half the population to flee their homes.”
The winner because people are dying anyway:
Al-Assad
http://www.businessinsider.com/assad-is-the-big-winner-of-the-iraq-crisis-2014-6
Without my glasses on I read that as "a Good Thug," which is probably close to the truth.
The Assad regime has been brutal to dissenters for decades, but also held the country together, made no move to eliminate Christians, who were and may still be 25% of the Damascus population. For a Middle Eastern country, Syria basically worked as long as the dictatorship remained in power.
I thought Putin was right about Syria a year ago. Now he's revealed himself as a Thugs Thug…the old KGB devil he always was….
It's hard to evaluate dictatorships. If the people are not persecuted for their religions and are fairly prosperous, as they were in Syria, that form of government may be a reasonably OK; if the people suffer, as they do in Cuba, it's horrible.
At some point we Americans have to accept the fact that Putin is not only MUCH SMARTER than our President when it comes to world events, he is also MUCH SMARTER than the Republicans...who either have NO CLUE as to what’s out there, or are scared to say anything because their consultants (most of them gay, by the way) tell them to avoid “becoming the issue”.
If we had listed to Russia the past 20 years, neither Bosnia, Kosovo, Libya, Egypt, or Syria would have had to deal with Islamic radicals, and the world would be a MUCH BETTER place.
Putin was absolutely right. We were about to become ISIS air force. However after Egypt and Libya, the idiocy of our middle east policy was so “transparent” the American (and British) people rose up and said “No freakin way”.
Yup. We've been cyber-screaming about it here since it began.
Taxes Last Previous Highest Lowest
Corporate Tax Rate 20.00 20.00 24.00 20.00 percent
Personal Income Tax Rate 13.00 13.00 13.00 13.00 percent
Sales Tax Rate 18.00 18.00 18.00 18.00 Percent
Social Security Rate 30.00 34.00 35.60 26.00 percent
Social Security Rate For Companies 30.00 34.00 35.60 26.00 percent
Social Security Rate For Employees 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 percent
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.