I prefer he play checkers. At least things aren't all black and white on that boards. Black and red is a better metaphor here.

That said, I hope whatever is said, whatever happens, leads to the least amount of death and suffering for everyone.

time for a heimlich maneuver....

6 in 10 Americans oppose airstrikes, according to the poll, with similar majorities saying they fear military action could enmesh the United States in another long engagement in the Middle East and would increase the terrorist threat to Americans.

But the antipathy to foreign engagement extends beyond the current crisis. Sixty-two percent of the people polled said the United States should not take a leading role in trying to solve foreign conflicts, while only 34 percent said it should. In April 2003, a month after American troops marched into Iraq, 48 percent favored a leading role, while 43 percent opposed it.

When asked whether the United States should intervene to turn dictatorships into democracies, 72 percent said no while only 15 percent said yes. That is the highest level of opposition in a decade of polling on this question. At the start of the Iraq war, 48 percent favored staying out and 29 percent favored getting involved.

Do you think the U.S. should or should not take the leading role among all other countries in the world in trying to solve international conflicts?

Should: 34% --- Should not: 62%

Should the U.S. try to change a dictatorship to a democracy where it can, or should the U.S. stay out of other countries affairs?

Change where it can: 15% --- Stay out: 72%

Do you think the obama administration has clearly explained what the U.S.'s goals are in Syria, or haven't they done that?

Have: 14% --- Have not: 79%

Even though he has the authority to order the strike himself, he took the debate to Congress.

Obama and Kerry are trying to get that across to us: that Obama has the power to strike with or without Congressional approval.

I'm not sure. One of the people who might dispute that is Mr. Obama in 2007 when he said,

"The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.'

link

Now, that he is in power.... he sees things a little differently...

Either the deployment and use of chemical weaponry in modern-day armed conflicts is something that's worth resolutely opposing when it's within our capacity to do so -- or it's not our concern.

Similarly, either the deliberate targeting and wanton slaughter of unarmed noncombatants in Syria (and elsewhere, too, for that matter) with WMD is something that's worth trying to halt when it's within our capacity to do so -- or it's none of our business.

I don't support the use of military force simply for the sake of "sending a message" to President Assad, because I don't see what that sort of aimless exercise would accomplish.

But at the same time, I'm under no illusions that this current diplomatic initiative to resolve this crisis would have somehow magically materialized without a very real threat on our part to use force against the Assad regime. That's what got us to the bargaining table.

We all have a vested interest in preventing the deployment, use and proliferation of chemical weapons. And yes, the Assad regime is responsible for the atrocity in Ghouta, so critics should please stop insulting people's intelligence by insisting that there's no evidence linking government forces to the attack. Yes, there is.

I find it sad that some people are refusing to acknowledge the obvious -- or worse still, insist that what happened in Syria was somehow a "false flag op" staged by the rebels to draw us into the conflict. If another attack on civilians happens again, I'll find such ignorance to be reprehensible.

That's all I'm going to say on the matter, and I'm not going to engage in any more discussion about it in this thread. If you want to take issue with what I've said, then we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Obama's indefinite delay of a Congressional vote on Syria puts his presidency into limbo; hard to see him doing much else for a while.

Get involved!

"Americans For Whatever Barack Obama Wants" have launched a kickstarter campaign, to fund  World War III!

America is dead a$$ broke, so our goal is to raise 1.6 Trillion Dollars on behalf of the US Government. That's where you come in! Even a small donation will make all the difference.

World War II is a very important, very progressive war that Obama tells me is very important, so it must be!

When I first saw the president speak in 2008 - in a youtube clip posted to my facebook page - I knew he was going to be right all the time, so I support World War III! And IV. And any new war the president may want to start!

Thanks to Obama's and Kerry"s deft handling we were facing a "Munich moment" but we will now have peace in our time.

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

Chemical weapons are the "crisis" now in Syria, but longer term its the intervention of Iran and Hezbollah, which may be better stopped with political actions like sanctions.

Still better than a military strike in both the short run and the long run.

This time it's Syria, last time it was Iraq. Obama chose to accept the entire Pentagon of the Bush era: its wars and war crimes
[...snip...]

John Kerry's farce and Barack Obama's pirouettes are temporary. Russia's peace deal over chemical weapons will, in time, be treated with the contempt that all militarists reserve for diplomacy. With al-Qaida now among its allies, and US-armed coupmasters secure in Cairo, the US intends to crush the last independent states in the Middle East: Syria first, then Iran. "This operation [in Syria]," said the former French foreign minister Roland Dumas in June, "goes way back. It was prepared, pre-conceived and planned."

[...snip...]

In 1970 the Senate reported: "The US has dumped on Vietnam a quantity of toxic chemical (dioxin) amounting to six pounds per head of population." This was Operation Hades, later renamed the friendlier Operation Ranch Hand - the source of what Vietnamese doctors call a "cycle of foetal catastrophe". I have seen generations of children with their familiar, monstrous deformities. John Kerry, with his own blood-soaked war record, will remember them. I have seen them in Iraq too, where the US used depleted uranium and white phosphorus, as did the Israelis in Gaza. No Obama "red line" for them. No showdown psychodrama for them.

The sterile repetitive debate about whether "we" should "take action" against selected dictators (ie cheer on the US and its acolytes in yet another aerial killing spree) is part of our brainwashing. Richard Falk, professor emeritus of international law and UN special rapporteur on Palestine, describes it as "a self-righteous, one-way, legal/moral screen [with] positive images of western values and innocence portrayed as threatened, validating a campaign of unrestricted political violence". This "is so widely accepted as to be virtually unchallengeable".

It is the biggest lie: the product of "liberal realists" in Anglo-American politics, scholarship and media who ordain themselves as the world's crisis managers, rather than the cause of a crisis. Stripping humanity from the study of nations and congealing it with jargon that serves western power designs, they mark "failed", "rogue" or "evil" states for "humanitarian intervention".