Oh No! Is This Going To Be Libya All Over Again???

Obama: Assad is slaughtering his people, must quit



August 18, 2011
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama says the time has come for Syrian President Bashar Assad to resign for the sake of his brutally repressed people.

In a stinging written statement, Obama said Assad has overseen a vicious onslaught of his people as they protest for freedoms. He said the Syrian people will decide their country's future but Assad is standing in their way and must go.
Obama said Assad's calls for reform ring hollow while he is "imprisoning, torturing and slaughtering his own people."
This was Obama's first explicit call for Assad to step down. His administration was also slapping new sanctions on Syria.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was to speak about the government's tougher stance later Thursday.
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The massacres in Syria are practically a mirror image of what happened in Libya. Because Ghaddafi was killing his own citizens, Obama unleashed our military against Libya. Let's have confidence that Obama tries diplomacy before instituting military action against Syria (although his track record so far is abysmal). I don't like to play "what ifs", but what would your opinion be should Obama institute military action against Syria?

 

BO had better be careful or they'll strip him of that Nobel Peace prize!

 

You got the right idea, but the wrong country. Try Uganda. Really!

Obama sending troops to aid Africa anti-insurgency

WASHINGTON (AP) — Intervening in a volatile and brutal crisis, President Barack Obama said Friday he has dispatched 100 U.S. troops to central Africa to support a years-long fight against a guerrilla group accused of horrific atrocities. Obama said they were sent to advise, not engage in combat, unless forced to defend themselves.
In a letter to Congress, Obama said the troops will act as advisers in a long-running battle against the Lord's Resistance Army, considered one of Africa's most ruthless rebel groups, and help to hunt down its notorious leader, Joseph Kony.
The first of the troops arrived in Uganda on Wednesday, the White House said, and others will be sent to South Sudan, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
While the size of the U.S. footprint is small, Obama's announcement represents a highly unusual intervention for the United States. Although some American troops are based in Djibouti and small groups of soldiers have been deployed to Somalia, the U.S. traditionally has been reluctant to commit forces to help African nations put down insurgencies.
It demonstrates the Obama administration's escalating attention to and fears about security risks in Africa, including terror networks, piracy and unstable nations. The move was intended to show some engagement to lessen the impact of one of the worst protracted wars in Africa.
Obama declared his decision to send troops as in keeping with the national security interests of the United States. The White House announced it in a low-key fashion, releasing the Obama notification and justification of the troop deployment that the president sent to congressional leaders.
Pentagon officials said the bulk of the deployment will be of special operations troops, who will provide security and combat training to African units. The move raises the profile of U.S. involvement on the continent — and represents an apparent victory for administration officials who have argued for more robust intervention in humanitarian crises.
The change in policy could reflect the long-standing concerns of a number of high-ranking Obama advisers left scarred by the U.S. failure in the 1990s to intervene to stop the genocide in Rwanda and the belated action to finally halt the violence in Bosnia. For a current parallel, the Lord's Resistance Army's 24-year campaign of rebellion, rape and murder represents one of the world's worst human rights crises today.
Coming off the administration's successful, if limited, intervention in Libya, the Uganda deployment represents a continued effort by Obama to use military force for humanitarian protection in areas where atrocities are occurring. Sending 100 troops may not be significant in terms of military numbers, but the composition of the force gives the United States a new counterterrorism foothold in a region of the world with terrorist networks, pirates and unstable nations.

http://news.yahoo.com/obama-sending-troops-aid-africa-anti-insurgency-183816681.html

 

Oh no.......!!!!!!!

 

How come that song from Team America: World Police keeps popping into my head... Americaaaaaaah! !@%# Yeah!

 

Funny how the opinion of Assad has changed since the Arab Spring. It wasn't that long ago that he was considered a figurehead, a puppet, bowing to the military.

 

Humanitarian reasons. Transparent. These are things Republican presidents rarely, if ever, uttered when they sent troops to various countries around the World. Reagan specifically was determined to reign-in Central American countries that had any hint of anti-American thoughts. How about the drug war? How many of our troops have been sent to foreign countries to fight groups engaging in the drug-trade? Yes, Obama is included in that. So, what is your main complaint? That he uses the military to engage perceived threats? Like every other president has in the past? What if he didn't? What would you say if he was an Isolationist, and was determined to disengage America from World events? I'm pretty certain you'd be calling him weak and unfit for the presidency.

IMO, your complaints are more about having your cake and eating it too, but I'm sure some of it is a true desire to avoid war-like behavior.

Humanitarian reasons are not a symptom of war-like behavior, and there is at least the attempt at transparency here.

 

To answer the title of the thread; "Oh No! Is This Going To Be Libya All Over Again???":

No, it isn't. It is going to be like Syria. What that will eventually be is a guess, but highly unlikely since it doesn't resemble the events in Libya in any significant way.

 

You are talking to the wrong person here. You have not seen me say much pro or con to Obama's war. My main complaint has been twofold. BO keeps lying to us about when he is going to do what (leave Iraq, leave Afgan, build up/reduce troops, etc.) and that he was late entering Libya. However, I will say anyone who thinks sending troops with guns into a foreign country is "not a symptom of war-like behavior" either has his head in the sand of is blinded by the aura of his god.

 

Leave Ozzy out of it.

 

Where is the popular outcry against President Obama for military adventurism? And whatever happened to curtailing our military presence abroad. I thought that was a key election promise.

 

Obama Derangement Syndrome also causes memory loss. Some people would follow Obama just like some people followed Hitler. They're blinded by his rhetoric.

 

Actually, the Obama Doctrine is pointing the way to a future in which we have a minimal military footprint abroad. Instead, he sends advisors, technicians and of course the deadly Predator drone to make the point. Perhaps there is no outcry against Obama's alleged "military adventurism" because no such adventurism exists. Americans can see for themselves the positive outcome in Pakistan (killing bin Laden) and in Libya. Did Syria's Assad get the message?

 

Hold up. Advisers? Lending military assets? Wasn't that Vietnam started?

 

If Obama wanted a "minimal military footprint abroad", he'd send nuns instead of Navy SEALs (not to mention battleships, Predator drones, Stealth fighters and Tomahawk missiles). Also, he wouldn't be in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya or Central Africa. "Minimal military footprint abroad".. indeed! HA!

 

Also, I thought that Obama was about making friends abroad. Randomly telling national leaders "go or die" doesn't sound like a reasonable basis for a foreign policy.

 

Perhaps some people admire the President for his intelligence and his dedication to keeping Americans safe, for starters. His Obama Doctrine, decried by his detractors as "leading from behind," has proven astonishingly effective, while minimizing the involvement of American troops. The days of massive, costly and high-risk intervention are over for the time being. Small, quick and targeted may be the new watchwords for putting out conflicts overseas.

 

The number of military personnel involved in Libya was always small and will soon be near zero. You can't get a much smaller footprint than that, even from nuns! We'll soon be out of Iraq, so there goes that footprint. Afghanistan is so tied to a roiling Pakistan that disengaging seems unwise, although I expect our troop numbers will decrease steadily. Uganda will likely follow the Obama Doctrine pattern of small number, specialized functions and targeted action.

 

Victims of Obama Derangement Syndrome have the same "deer-in-the-headlights" look when they're speaking of Obama, too. I understand you like the guy for some unknown reason, but his experience as a Commander-in-Chief under attack conditions has never been tested. Sure, he could send bombers to a country or Navy SEALs in to zap someone, but so could any 12-year-old video game player.

 

That is not, of course, the basis for the President's foreign policy. NATO actions, led by the US and approved by the United Nations, are designed to keep the peace where possible, but are primarily designed to prevent these so-called "national leaders" from continuing to brutalize their own people. I think preventing mass murder is a laudable foreign policy goal.