The US has little credibility left: Syria won't change that
The US has little credibility left: Syria won't change that
Obama's argument for intervention is a hollow one: America's use of chemical weapons in Falluja makes that clear
Gary Younge
The Guardian, Sunday 8 September 2013 14.47 EDT
'I created Transjordan," Winston Churchill once boasted, "with a stroke of a pen one Sunday afternoon in Cairo." Take a look at what remains of Jordan 90 years later and you can see how. Straight borders drawn with a ruler carve indifferent frontiers through a complex region with the kind of callous colonial hubris that displayed scant regard for linguistic, ethnic or religious affiliation.
Much of the contemporary turmoil in the Middle East owes its origins to foreign powers drawing lines in the sand that were both arbitrary and consequential and guided more by their imperial standing than the interests of the region. The "red line" that president Barack Obama has set out as the trigger for US military intervention in Syria is no different.
He drew it unilaterally in August 2012 in response to a question about "whether [he envisioned] using US military" in Syria. "A red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilised. That would change my calculus. That would change my equation."
On 21 August there was a chemical weapons attack outside Damascus believed to have been carried out by the Syrian government. That changed both Obama's calculus and his memory. "I didn't set a red line," he claimed last week. I didn't draw it, he insisted, everybody did. "The world set a red line". ........................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/08/us-little-credibility-syria-chemical-weapons
= new reply since forum marked as read
this joint! It is so easy to slip into negativity when there is so much negative material we need to absorb. I've taken several long breaks from posting myself.
...he was ''for'' setting a red line, before he was ''not'' for setting a red line? And since the red line's already been set and crossed, we're now obligated to go and bomb the redlinees redlinors Syrians.
- And we only do this because everyone must realize that when we say we set a red line, or even if we deny we set a red line, you had better not cross it. Whether we said it or not.
K&R
Take it out.....
