Why Did Obama Choose Syria?

[Ares]

The US intervened 11 times over the last century in foreign civil wars: Korea (1950’s); Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and the Dominican Republic (1960’s); Lebanon (1980’s); the Yugoslav Wars/Kosovo, Haiti, Somalia and Iraq (1990’s); and Libya (2011)

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2013/08-2/20130903_syria_0.png

The success of these interventions, difficult as they are to assess, is mixed at best with Korea and Kosovo as examples of where positive outcomes occurred (in Haiti, a descent into complete chaos was perhaps prevented). Some turned out worse, given what followed.

As JPMorgan's Michael Cembalest notes, on a purely humanitarian basis, Syria’s tragedy is exceeded by many conflicts that the US abstained from participating in. So when thinking about civil wars and how the US defines its national interest, one has to ask why Syria would qualify for direct intervention while others conflicts did not.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-09-03/why-did-obama-choose-syria

[Libertarian_Guard]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RC1Mepk_Sw

General Wesley Clark:
Because I had been through the Pentagon right after 9/11. About ten days after 9/11, I went through the Pentagon and I saw Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. I went downstairs just to say hello to some of the people on the Joint Staff who used to work for me, and one of the generals called me in. He said, "Sir, you've got to come in and talk to me a second." I said, "Well, you're too busy." He said, "No, no." He says, "We've made the decision we're going to war with Iraq." This was on or about the 20th of September. I said, "We're going to war with Iraq? Why?" He said, "I don't know." He said, "I guess they don't know what else to do." So I said, "Well, did they find some information connecting Saddam to al-Qaeda?" He said, "No, no." He says, "There's nothing new that way. They just made the decision to go to war with Iraq." He said, "I guess it's like we don't know what to do about terrorists, but we've got a good military and we can take down governments." And he said, "I guess if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail."

So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan. I said, "Are we still going to war with Iraq?" And he said, "Oh, it's worse than that." He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And he said, "I just got this down from upstairs" -- meaning the Secretary of Defense's office -- "today." And he said, "This is a memo that describes how we're going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran." I said, "Is it classified?" He said, "Yes, sir." I said, "Well, don't show it to me." And I saw him a year or so ago, and I said, "You remember that?" He said, "Sir, I didn't show you that memo! I didn't show it to you!"

[ximmy]

obama doesn't choose anything. he is told...
Monkey see monkey do

http://www.sciencecodex.com/aggregated-images/3819_web.jpg