Remember that famous phrase he campaigned on - "change you can believe in"?


Apart from Medicare (which benefits certain Corporate interests as much as it helps the poor) what's changed?

Guantanamo is still open (and the inmates there have been on hunger strike for more than 100 days).

Drone attacks still killing civilians around the world.

Financial fraudsters still getting away with manipulating the markets.

Now to cap it all he's going to send U.S weaponry to the 'freedom fighters' in Syria, the ones who openly support Al-Qaeda, torture and kill just as much as the Asssad regime and plant car bombs that kill dozens of civilians in Damascus on a weekly basis.

He is nothing but a fraud and a charlatan and anybody on the 'left' still supporting him needs their head examined.

Anybody on the Left should bloody well support him or you'll let the maniacal, looneys of the US Right in to power.

To dismiss the healthcare reforms he managed to get through is to fundamentally misunderstand US politics.

As for Syria, what do you think the US should do?
There's only a few options -
1. Do nothing
2. Sanctions
3. No fly zone
4. Arm certain rebel groups
5. Air bombardment
6. Invasion

Which one is best?

War crimes IMO, backing terrorists against a head of state, whom, had previously done arms deals with the good ole us of a.

Long term goal is a puppet American government in the middle east. Note Iraq and Afghanistan and how peaceful those countries are...

You haven't mentioned the UN.

CNN are reporting that the rebels executed a 14-year-old boy in front of a crowd of people for 'insulting the prophet'. This is not a group of people we should be giving more weapons to.

I agree with large parts of both of the first two posts, by the way. Obama has been a huge disappointment, but the alternative is far worse.

Well they would come under the sanctions, no-fly zone, air bombardment and invasion options, but any of those options will only happen with the US being the instigators of those options as they're the only country with the capability to enforce those options.
But there is also the question of what should be done if the UN cannot act?

My point really was its very, very easy to criticise in these situations. Few people are actually willing to say what they would do in the US position. There are no passive actions in these cases, as doing nothing can have just as huge repercussions as doing something. See Rwanda.

There is the old saying "The United States of America does not have friends; it has interests." but I am blowed if I know how supporting fundamentalists rebels to overthrow Assad is in US interests.

Maybe the Russians with their support for Assad fear what is to come and don't want another fundamentalist led county in the region?

Of course this is talking as if Syria is a pawn in a big political game and ignoring the human suffering but I suppose they are.

As to what CNN are reporting as far as the combatants go, all that will do is IMO be a recruitment poster for Assad. I am sure not every Syrian is desperate for a strict Muslim state to be their future.

Whatever we end up doing, I can't think of a single argument in favour of arming Islamic fundamentalists. We're constantly being told that our civil liberties need to be gradually eroded to protect us from such people, to then start arming them because it suits our purpose is bonkers.

Got to have somewhere to store the thousands of innocent people they mistakenly take to be terrorists from their snooping activities.

What a petulant little comment, just because you got your backside handed to you - and can't actually come up with something even halfway coherent to say on that thread, so have dropped out there.

America - control violence by giving more people guns, that way everyone can 'defend themselves'

Syria has one of the most advanced air-ground defence systems outside of the western world. If you try and enforce a no fly zone you are going to lose aircrew.

The biggest Russian military base outside of Russia is in...you guessed it...Syria.

As a result of the above I see great difficulty, and no political will, in putting boots on the ground or air assets above.

I am still not sure why everyone is so fussed about drone strikes. I really don't see the difference between a ship / plane launching a missile that blows up a target 200 miles away (little / no risk to operator) and an unmanned drone being piloted from Nevada or RAF Waddington.

I think it's an ethical question.

In 'traditional' warfare, both sides risk as much, which could at least be hoped to make leaders think twice about committing troops etc to die. When it becomes this sort of warfare, you entirely lose that sort of equality (for want of a better phrase) and, with it comes a belief that it's rather easier to commit to killing 'others' than were your own people also at risk.

On the wider issue of Syria: giving arms to supporters of al_Queda?

Obama is now in his second term and has done nothing to change Israel's expansionist lebensraum policies and actions as they continue to slice-off more and more of the West Bank and continue to strangle Gaza.
I appreciate that he faces Republican opposition at home and he stands to lose a section of the voting public if he toughens-up against Netanyahu's apparently god-approved right to steal from, evict, kill and disenfranchise Palestinians ... but this is his second term, it's time to grow some cojones I reckon.

Not only are Israels actions contrary to UN rulings, they are the very core of what extreme Islamic groups are retaliating against.

Agreed.



The best way to do war, throughout the ages, has been to attack with minimal possible risk to your own side.

Drones are just a natural evolution of this. And, I don't really understand the 'ethics' of a fair fight when it is a life or death situation.

Why risk 30/40/50 men when you can hit something from a platform that sits many thousand feet in the air and is virtually undetectable to those who you are setting out to target.

I think we should stay the hell out of it! It's a battle between a secular dictator who has the support of all the minorities and the Sunni majority who mainly appear to be Islamic fundamentalists.

We should leave it to the U.N as Minty says.

We've been here before.
If the US wants to get involved, they'll get involved, regardless of the UN.
I would imagine under the last administration, Dubya/Dick/Condy, then they may well have contrived to have been involved long before now.

But also the UN isn't going to get involved without the US. The US is the only nation with the capability to get involved.

And staying the hell out of it isn't necessarily a good option, as I said see Rwanda. Inaction can have just as wide consequences as action.
As I said there are no passive options, the option to stay the hell out of it is also the option that says we don't care what happens there.

I'm not saying the US response of arming rebels is the best one, I think they've been emboldened by Libya where arming and supporting the rebels worked. But all I'm saying is that every option has consequences, including choosing not to act, especially if chemical weapons are being used in what seems to descending into sectarian violence.

Aside from an unexpectedly harsh stance on human rights Obama's turned out to be pretty much what was initially advertised - a centre-right conservative pro-Wall Street President relying heavily on the same advisers and infrastructure which served the Clinton administration.

I suspect he would have preferred to institute a greater number of positive social reforms during his presidency but given the terminal nature of the US economy (which has needed all his attention just to maintain life-support) he was always behind the eight-ball.

I'm less concerned by Obama's (admittedly reprehensible) activities than the perfect storm which will break upon us when the economy ultimately implodes and the GOP realises the quickest route to power is to go further to the right of the last Republican president.

The US has been on the knife-edge of fascism for some time now. Perhaps Obama's overarching legacy will be in holding on for so long.

I think people are less "fussed" by the merits of manned or unmanned aeroplanes than their use to conduct extra-judicial assassinations in sovereign states we aren't at war with.

According to the [iIndy[/i front page this morning, Iran is set to send 4,000 troops to help Assad.

That'll be fun.

The West getting involved in Persia, as was, created a whole set of problems. Letting Israel get away with its behaviour has also caused problems.

Indeed. But would those problems have been created anyway? Or other problems like possible war between Iran & Iraq? Or further crackdowns on Kurds or on Shia populations?
Don't get me wrong I'm not defending the war in Iraq, especially the way it was conducted, but there is a tendency amongst some on the left and in some media outlets to pretend that if only we just left alone everything would be alright.
I'm very much of the persuasion that we have a duty to help those less fortunate than ourselves at all levels, from contributing to a decent welfare state, to giving to charities, to helping people in other countries either through aid or even militarily when necessary. We're one of the most powerful and one of the richest nations on earth and I find it difficult to just sit back and watch people kill each other when we have the capability to do something about it.
I'm not ascribing any of that to you or anyone else on here by the way, merely a frustration at the sometimes short-sighted views like those who say "get our boys out of Afghanistan". We should stay until the job is done or not have gone in the first place if we didnt have the balls to see it through.

On Israel, I agree entirely. Israel is the single biggest cause of anti-western sentiment by a country mile. And sadly this generally leads to both religious and political extremism in the region.
If the Israel problem could be overcome I'm convinced moderate views and eventual democracy would come to the region.

It's possible to dream up any number of apocalyptic future scenarios for the region. That said, it's worth recalling that Kurds, Sunni and Shia Muslims and even Jews have lived, for the most part, in peace alongside each other for centuries.

Let's not allow potential conflicts to outweigh the threat posed by current ones.



Anyone who has lived knows only too well that happens. But this shouldn't encourage us to drop our pants and let rip on people below.



I think it was Chinua Achebe who highlighted the relationship between first world states ideologically committed to helping the "less fortunate" and the accumulation of fortune.

It's a comforting thought - despatching our brave warriors to distant quarters in order to protect the helpless. But wars are not fought for such reasons. War is a racket. Always has been. Always will be. Whilst I'm sure many (most) of those involved genuinely believe they are fighting for something noble - let us not be so childishly naive in thinking altruism trumped avarice in the decision to commit.