Posted on 06/16/2016 8:20:41 PM PDT by Theoria
More than 50 State Department diplomats have signed an internal memo sharply critical of the Obama administration’s policy in Syria, urging the United States to carry out military strikes against the government of President Bashar al-Assad to stop its persistent violations of a cease-fire in the country’s five-year-old civil war.
The memo, a draft of which was provided to The New York Times by a State Department official, says American policy has been “overwhelmed” by the unrelenting violence in Syria. It calls for “a judicious use of stand-off and air weapons, which would undergird and drive a more focused and hard-nosed U.S.-led diplomatic process.”
Such a step would represent a radical shift in the administration’s approach to the civil war in Syria, and there is little evidence that President Obama has plans to change course. Mr. Obama has emphasized the military campaign against the Islamic State over efforts to dislodge Mr. Assad. Diplomatic efforts to end the conflict, led by Secretary of State John Kerry, have all but collapsed.
But the memo, filed in the State Department’s “dissent channel,” underscores the deep rifts and lingering frustration within the administration over how to deal with a war that has killed more than 400,000 people.
The State Department set up the channel during the Vietnam War as a way for employees who had disagreements with policies to register their protest with the secretary of state and other top officials, without fear of reprisal. While dissent cables are not that unusual, the number of signatures on this document, 51, is extremely large, if not unprecedented.
The names on the memo are almost all midlevel officials — many of them career diplomats — who have been involved in the administration’s Syria policy over the last five years, at home or abroad.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Great idea. Potentially kill Russian troops. Greeeaaat idea.
Don’t they know Obama already surrendered in that war
Like the Russian won’t care...
With their SA-300 batteries...
Most advanced SAMs in the world.
And FYI.
When was America given permission to even be in Syria by the legitimate and recognized government of Syria?
Nazis were sentenced to hang for waging aggressive war.
This is conspiracy to do the same.
Sure, and where is Congress on this one. Cruz? Paul?? lol
He's home free now, no new WARS or Escalations.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3439700/posts
OMG! Are these people freakin’ crazy? Do we really want to get into a shooting war with Russia?
State Department has long been a refuge of ‘America Lasters’
Why should we bother?
How many of these have ties to Saudi benefactors?
Sounds like HRC state dept. klingons preparing for ascension to the presidency.
Are these the totally flipping useless diplomats that have worked in the Middle East for years? STFU already!
Sure, let’s just hand Syria to Isis.
Putin >> dozens of diplomats.
They’re really itching to get rid of one of the last secular Arab leaders.
Trump is gonna clean out these worthless diplomatic hacks like bleach on mildew.
Hmmm....let’s see here.
1. We kill some Russian troops and trigger at best an “incident” with Russia, at worst World War 3. Bad idea.
2. So we are to take action against the internationally recognized sovereign government of Syria because they are breaking a cease-fire in a civil war in their own country. It seems to me that the people opposing them are rebels not recognized internationally as a legitimate government. So why do we have any right to interfere with a sovereign nation attempting to assert its authority over it’s own land?
3. Are they asking for a declaration of war against the internationally recognized government of Syria? Did Syria declare war on the United States? Did I miss that somehow? What act of war has Syria committed against the United States, its allies, or its citizens to justify a declaration of war?
4. Or, are these diplomats saying that we should exercise military force without a declaration of war? If I understand that scenario correctly, they are suggesting that we use our armed forces to attack the military assets of a sovereign nation on that nation’s soil without first declaring a state of war. That describes what the Japanese did on December 7, 1941.
5. Do they have the guaranteed payment by the Saudis, just like John F’in Kerry said the Saudis would when we went through this three years ago? Are we going to get a piece of the action in their pipeline, or do they just expect our men to die for their pipeline for nothing?
These “diplomats” all need to be recalled and sent to work at a landfill somewhere. They are no longer in the service of the United States.
If there’s the wrong enemy and the wrong ally in the world, we’ll pick em every time.
The State department has demonstrated that it cannot be trusted to make decisions affecting the lives of our armed forces.
Leave Assad alone. I’m with Trump on this one.
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