Obama's weapons-for-peace program
They looked like two dejected schoolboys in front of the headmaster by the end of the two-hour Putin-Obama summit at the sidelines of the Group of Eight meeting in Northern Ireland. But as astonishing as the sound of silence was the fact that, on Syria, the former KGB guy was trying to save the "leading from behind" dude from himself.
President Barack Obama coined the monster euphemism that they had "different perspectives" on Syria. He said, deceptively, "We want to try to resolve the issue through political means if possible, so we will instruct our teams to continue to work on the potential of a Geneva follow-up."
If Obama was really trying to solve Syria "through political means" he would not have pre-emptively bombed the Geneva II talks with his "weapons-for-peace" program, as in weaponizing only the "good" Syrian "rebels" and only with a few "non-lethal" toys (that's the bottom line of Washington's spin). "If possible" in this case does translate into "impossible". As for the Geneva II talks, they don't rate anything better than "potential" because Obama knows the myriad, squabbling factions of the Syrian opposition will boycott it.
Sometimes it sounded like Putin wanted to put Obama out of his misery (as in "Assad must go" but I have no clue how to make him obey me). He was visibly trying to impress to Obama that expanding the proxy war in Syria would make the current - horrible - status quo look like a walk in the park.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MID-01-180613.html
Edit: A quote from the article:
I do find it amusing that Pentagon-speak equates "kinetic" with "dynamic", "fluid", "expedient" or something like that in order to sound cool and dissemble the fact that we are running the show.
John2
(2,730 posts)the President, it is not too late to admit a mistake. Dump the rightwing Policies. Dump the neocons and get different advisors in your Administration allying with those rightwingers. You can do it, because you are the President. You don't have to run again,and you don't have to answer to any ex President. Put your own stamp on what you want to accomplish.
Tell your advisors, what you want, not what they want. And if they don't do it, accept their resignations. Tell Netanyahu what you want, and if he refuses, don't help him. You can address Congress, just like Bush did on the direction of U.S. Foreign Policy. Just like Nixon went to China, you can go to Iran, North Korea or even Syria, to talk directly to our adversaries. The intermediaries are not the peopl;e elected to set Foreign Policy. You are the President not them. They just work for you. What I'm really saying is, dump the rightwing Republican neocon Policies, and tell people like John McCain to stop intefering or bring charges of treason to that idiot. It would be hard to bring charges of Treason against the President of the United States, but very easy against members of Congress.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)I just wish that I was the President, because I would love a confrontation with this Congress. If they impeach me so be it, but the Bully Pulpit is mine. If they want to pressure this country into illegal Wars, then it will be over a Presidential veto. That stunt pulled by the Senate, I would veto the hell out of it and dared them to override it. They would definately know my name then and who they are messing with. If they want leadership, then I'll show it to them, they may not like it though!
bemildred
(90,061 posts)Go to the people and attack the Congress or they will clean your clock. They might clean your clock anyway, but at least put up a fight, you ARE the President.