Apparently Assad can’t kill fast enough to stop the opposition in Syria. Despite the murder of more than 100 of “his” people on Sunday, the Syrian dictator doubled down yesterday, with security forces raiding mosques, bombing crowds that had gathered to protest his rule during the holy month of Ramadan, and killing another two dozen Syrians.
Meanwhile, back in the capital of the free world, the Obama administration appears to be stirring ever so slightly from its policy of indifference. Today, SecState Hillary Clinton is meeting with members of the Syrian opposition after having refused to do so for the last few months. The administration has also again promised to take a good, hard look at new sanctions, after promising last month to take a good, hard look at new sanctions and doing nothing.
Most notably, we will have an opportunity to ourselves take a good, hard look at the administration’s non-policy with tomorrow’s confirmation hearing for U.S. ambassador to Syria Robert Ford. (Ford was recess appointed last year after senators objected to the administration’s attempted warm up with Damascus.) Ford, who is caught between a Congress that is demanding the United States do more and an administration that prefers to do less, is the man in the middle. He has done more than his boss, Clinton, and traveled to Hama in early July to stand with the opposition. But presumably he was also the man who informed both the president and Clinton’s view that Assad could be a “reformer,” as the president so memorably suggested.
When I follow what is happening in Egypt (the new government will impose a Sharia to rival that of the Dark Ages – even to the point of requiring female tourists to be fully covered!) I am not sure we understand enough about some of these utterly closed societies to be able to take the proper side.
Sad to say, many people are dying and are going to die.
But we should learn our lesson.
When the secular Egyptians and the Coptics stood with the Muslim Brotherhood in Tarhir they were soon betrayed.
Coptic churches are now being burned to the ground, very young Christian girls are now being kidnapped, forcibly married to Muslim males and forced to ”convert” into Islam.
Christian men are now being murdered.
Their homes and businesses are now being confiscated.
Syria’s leader was implicated in the assassination of Lebanon’s leader (years ago).
Yeah, he’s brutal.
His loyal opponents?
What do we know about them?
Should we believe their own PR?
Hamas and Fatah and Palestinian Authority all sell their PR images to the West.
We are not that gullible, are we?
Remember before the so-called ”Arab Spring?”
The opposition to Assad were ISLAMISTS!