This week U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power tore into Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Russia, and Iran for the humanitarian disaster in Aleppo, saying “Are you truly incapable of shame? Is there literally nothing that can shame you? Is there no act of barbarism against civilians, no execution of a child that gets under your skin?" The months long bombing of the city has killed scores of civilians, including women and children, though let’s be honest here. The United States’ Syrian policy has been a disaster. What have we done to stop the massacres besides these shoddy ceasefire agreements that continuously break down? Is the world watching Aleppo? No. Not really—thanks to the Obama administration and the Democratic Party probably wanting to keep it out of the limelight since it’s one of the biggest failures of this White House. Also, it’s the source of division on what to do about the matter within the Democratic Party. Kim Ghattas wrote about this thorn in the Left’s side for Foreign Policy in August.
On Wednesday, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough criticized these remarks as being “damning words” for the Obama administration on this issue (via Free Beacon):
“Those were damning, damning words, but they were damning words of the Obama administration,” Scarborough said. “How Samantha Power, with all due respect, a woman that I respect, but how she sits there and says those words working for an administration that has been mute on this issue or backed down when they actually finally did show some spine, it’s unspeakable.”“These pictures are not just the legacy of Putin and Assad, these pictures are the legacy of the United States and their president,” Scarborough continued while video of the destruction in Aleppo played on air.
The Morning Joe host later said that French President Francois Hollande wanted to take more aggressive measures regarding airstrikes and we balked at that course of action.
The Islamic State is in Syria as well. Who do we go after? Ever since the Russians have become involved the goal of removing Assad from power has gone out the window. We continue to state this is one of our goals, but it’s not going to happen. We knew it wasn’t going to happen. Yes, we condemned Russian airstrikes that were said to be targeting civilians and hospitals, but that’s all we’ve done since the Syrian Civil War has become bloodier. We don’t like what Russia is doing, we don’t like Assad, we don’t like ISIS, but we’ve done nothing. I think almost everyone knows that Russia won’t accept Assad leaving, so where do we go from here? So far, it’s been sitting on our hands. Did we arm Syrian rebel militias? Yes. Those armed by the Pentagon are fighting those armed by Langley. Remember the Syrian program to rebels? Well, the $500 million we spent for 5,000 troops only produced five soldiers.
So, have we tried in Syria? Yeah—but it’s been an unmitigated embarrassment.
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