Syria/U.S. News - What John McCain Doesn’t Know

After reading this, it just made me realize even more that the US government has no clue what they are doing in regards to foreign countries.




Syria

What John McCain Doesn’t Know


By Joe Klein

Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/30/what-john-mccain-doesnt-know/#ixzz2VjyCIWYa
Senator McCain made a well-publicized trip to Syria and may have posed with extremist kidnappers.

I don’t blame McCain for this. It’s hard to advance a trip into rebel territory. A few years ago, McCain made a well-publicized walk through a Baghdad market, didn’t get shot at, and pronounced major progress in Iraq afterward. A few weeks later, I made the same walk but actually spoke to the shopkeepers—all of whom were supporters of Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shi’ite militia leader.

The point is: We just don’t know these places well enough to go over and draw grand conclusions about policy. In a way, McCain’s trip is a perfect metaphor for the problem of involving ourselves with the Syrian rebels. We may be siding with the greater evil. We may be throwing fuel on a fire that could consume the region. Our track record when it comes to such things is dismal.

It is frustrating to watch Syria unravel, especially for those of us who have great affection for the Syrian people. (Damascus is one of my favorite cities in the region.) It is possible that our involvement might tamp down the slaughter—but far more likely that it will be seen as another neo-colonial intervention that will only make things worse. (Israel, on the other hand, has a direct national interest in making sure that Assad and, especially, Hizballah, don’t receive weapons from Russia or Iran that will change the balance of power in the region.)

We may be heading for a regional Sunni-Shi’a confrontation. It could last a decade or more. We should be prepared to involve ourselves diplomatically in an aggressive fashion. We should be ready with humanitarian assistance when necessary. But we must be very, very careful–as President Obama has been–about military involvement of any sort.

DD
Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/30/what-john-mccain-doesnt-know/#ixzz2VjxJUZK8

they had an hour special on cnn last night about libya and it goes for thec rest of the mid east.they overthur the dictator and still unrest because these dictators keep the people poor and uneducated and the sedcts keep fighting even though the dictator is gone. this very well can apply to iraq

Yes it very well can. Keep in mind in reading these articles, it is very easy for these talking head types to sit back and say they should be doing this or that, but in the end, they are just talking heads hyping whatever point of view they are paid to hype. They do not have all the facts, and they get paid the same whether or not they are correct. Heck, no one will remember what they said three months from now anyway, so they can just parrot the current prattle whatever that supports their agenda happens to be.