It was OK to kill 100k Syrians with guns and rockets for 2 years. Then about a year ago Obama claimed a red line had been crossed and there would be hell to pay for a certain Syrian dictator named Bashar al-Assad (not that there’s any shortage of dictators we’re all chummy with all over the world, now and past) and now he’s all resentful and pissed off and trying to act macho and shit because the American people, the US Congress, the Brits, NATO, the UN and everybody else tells him to back off and stop being a hypocrite, and Putin thinks he’s a girly man. He’s been such a wuss for so long I suspect he’s overcompensating.
We were quite happy to look the other way while upwards of a million Tutsis were massacred by Hutus in Rwanda back in the 90s. We’re still pretending we’re not aware of what’s going on in Somalia or Kongo. But they didn’t use gas or guns, just machetes, so international law probably wasn’t even violated. But now we have the Patriot Act and the Dept. of Homeland Security and the NSA that are so busy spying on its own citizens it’s even doubtful we have the the power to punish Syria with an already thinly spread imperialistic military. Anything and everything we do can and will be justified in the name of national security. I’m just thinking out loud here.
I wonder if a dead Arab cares if he was killed with poison gas, a bullet, a machete or a poorly aimed drone.
No matter how you spin it, what England, France, the US and other western powers dicked around with in the Middle East and south-west Asia, Central- and South America and Africa over the course of the last century, had unintended consequences that are now coming home to haunt us. Yes, I said it, we are not without blame in the political clusterfuck that is going on right now.
Like most 2nd term presidents Obama is more concerned with his “legacy” than getting shit done. I bet he’s going through designs for his Presidential Library as we speak.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m disappointed with his performance and don’t think he is a particularly good president, but he’s not exceptionally bad either. Generic, perhaps, except for him being black? He would make a good Ken doll. I voted for him twice and don’t regret it. But I was naive in thinking electing the first black president would make America a better place. I was wrong. It only brought the scum that had been hibernating for 40-or-so years out from under their rocks, more vile, hateful and belligerent than ever. But that’s a topic that deserves its own post.
