{"id":12949,"date":"2013-09-10T08:30:13","date_gmt":"2013-09-10T15:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/?p=12949"},"modified":"2013-09-10T10:01:57","modified_gmt":"2013-09-10T17:01:57","slug":"threading-the-needle-of-conflicted-conflict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/2013\/09\/10\/threading-the-needle-of-conflicted-conflict\/","title":{"rendered":"threading the needle of conflicted conflict"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>T<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bendbulletin.com\/article\/20130910\/NEWS0107\/309100371\/\">he contradictions of selling a limited strike in Syria to a war weary American public<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>See what Kerry tells us&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><em>Reacting to comments by Kerry that any attack on Syria would be \u00e2\u20ac\u0153unbelievably small,&#8221; Obama said any attack would not be felt like a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153pinprick&#8221; in Syria.<br \/>\n<\/em><em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The U.S. does not do pinpricks,&#8221; he said in the NBC interview.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Wait for it&#8230; wait for it&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Our military is the greatest the world has ever known. And when we take even limited strikes, it has an impact on a country like Syria.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This is one of those statements that needs to go with a stated &#8220;comma sniff&#8221; &#8212; &#8220;America is the Greatest country on Earth comma Sniff&#8221;&#8230; &#8220;America is the Best Hope for Mankind comma sniff&#8221; &#8212; the problem comes in the talk up of the military &#8230; in a post 9\/11 World, when our political figures made this comma sniff comment about &#8220;our military&#8221;, they did so with the full backing of the American public. \u00c2\u00a0In a Post-Iraq War nation, and when trying to thread a needle about what the plan is for in Syria &#8212; arguing that it is something small but major &#8212; it becomes disorienting.<\/p>\n<p>Oddly, the case that Obama is making here is about the same as the anti-war figures &#8212; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thenation.com\/blogs\/tom-tomorrow#axzz2XRmD8JMN\">see Tom Tomorrow here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Well, actually, we know what Assad&#8217;s capabilities are and, you know, Mr. Assad&#8217;s are significant compared to a bunch of opposition leaders, many of whom are not professional fighters,&#8221; the president said Monday evening. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They&#8217;re significant relative to over 400 children that were gassed. They&#8217;re not significant relative to the U.S. military.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>A real rag-tag band of misfits, the Syrian Opposition Forces are.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.newrepublic.com\/article\/114642\/new-pew-poll-republican-support-striking-syria-collapses\">A relevant partisan break-down chart<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The contradictions of selling a limited strike in Syria to a war weary American public. See what Kerry tells us&#8230; Reacting to comments by Kerry that any attack on Syria would be \u00e2\u20ac\u0153unbelievably small,&#8221; Obama said any attack would not be felt like a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153pinprick&#8221; in Syria. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The U.S. does not do pinpricks,&#8221; he said [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12949"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12949\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12951,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12949\/revisions\/12951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}