Obama claims Putin's war in Syria is sign of weakness

[uhnope]

Source: DAILY MAIL

President Barack Obama said in a national interview partially broadcast Friday that Russian leader Vladimir Putin's recent entry into the civil war in Syria is a sign of weakness, not strength, and rejected any suggestion that the Russian president is challenging America's leadership.

Speaking to CBS's '60 Minutes' reporter Steve Kroft for a segment that was previewed on 'CBS This Morning,' Obama said Russian fighter planes and cruise missile strikes in Syria are intended only to prop up Syrian President Bashar al-Assad - Putin's only ally in the area.
...
In the '60 Minutes' interview, Obama said Russia has a longstanding business relationship in weapons with Assad, and Putin is desperate to maintain support and military bases they use in Syria with Assad's permission.
...
'His client, Mr. Assad, was crumbling and it was insufficient to keep sending them arms and money, and he has to put in his own planes and his own pilots,' Obama said.

'Iran and Assad make up Mr. Putin's coalition at the moment. The rest of the world makes up ours. And so I don't think people are fooled by the current strategy.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3266580/Obama-claims-Putin-s-war-Syria-sign-weakness-abandons-training-rebels-fight-Assad-ISIS.html

[uawchild]

1. The Iranian Project: Why Assad Has Turned to Moscow for Help

I posted a thread about this previously in the wrong forum that might be worth mentioning again. It's about an interesting take that Assad was actually afraid of Iran establishing a "state-within-a-state" in Syria. Let me find the link...

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/syria-leader-assad-seeks-russian-protection-from-ally-iran-a-1056263.html

[doc03]

2. Who's weakness Obama or Putin? n/t

[Igel]

3. China's involved.

Clearly, a sign of weakness.

[840high]

4. lol

[Yupster]

5. I just keep thinking of the movie "Mars Attacks"

with Putin up in the spaceship in his underwear looking at a Playboy laughing his head off at the US President (Jack Nicholson) as he tries to rationalize the attacks.

[salib]

6. Going to war is always a sign of weakness.

Always.

Sieve, meet colander. Both are leaky.

[uawchild]

7. Living in constant illogical fear is a sign of weakness

We hear it all the time, we need to beef up our military, enlarge the army, build more ships. Global terrorists, a militarily resurgent Russia and Chinese air bases on man-made islands are all coming to get us. So we must prepare, take more money away from social programs, buy more weapons.

And how unprepared are we to warrant this barrage of fear mongering by our media outlets?
Well, we only spend as much money on defense as the next NINE nations in the world combined. This is why I personally don't buy into all the fear mongering and constant war hype:



"The U.S. outpaces all other nations in military expenditures. World military spending totaled more than $1.7 trillion in 2013. The U.S. accounted for 37 percent of the total.

U.S. military expenditures are roughly the size of the next nine largest military budgets around the world, combined.

U.S. military spending dwarfs the budget of the #2 country – China. For every dollar China spends on its military, the U.S. pends $3.60."

https://www.nationalpriorities.org/campaigns/us-military-spending-vs-world/