Clinton Blasts Russia, China For Opposing Action On Syria

[Purveyor]

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) – Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton blasted Russia and China as "despicable" for opposing U.N. Security Council action on Syria, and more than 60 nations began planning a civilian peacekeeping mission to deploy after the Damascus regime halts a brutal crackdown on the opposition.

President Obama said Washington will keep pressuring Syrian President Bashar Assad to stop the "slaughter" of civilians, saying it was imperative that the world unite in condemning the Syrian military onslaught.

"It is time to stop the killing of Syrian citizens by their own government," Obama said after a conference by a group of nations known as the Friends of Syria concluded in Tunisia.

The move by the group is aimed at jolting Assad and his allies into accepting demands for a democratic transition, even as they are still unwilling to commit to military intervention to end the nearly year-old bloodshed.

MORE...

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/story/2012-02-24/syria-tunis-conference/53231034/1?csp=24&kjnd=m243d4MJDmEl%2BEIJeHvn4LY1lVTCveRQNyMZ9R6r%2BEq8hluqlAVL1EhDKwbpGOkF-001a4d1e-0ec3-44cf-b46c-a0c972e5072c_1NzD8hEhRg8TEvQzNbYF7IXmuliWIlSkvq0UHE0ww6K97WmV0HogsPvpug735qWD

[center rising]

1. Hillary is right

Russia and China are condoning the slaughter of innocents!!!

[Igel]

5. Yeah, but put very badly.

'How dare two prominent members of the international community defy the unanimous opinion of the international community--at least of those members that agree with us and are, therefore, the only 'real' members of the one and true international community."'

Up there with, "I don't care what you think, I define what the consensus is. When I want you to tell me your opinion, I'll be sure to let you know what it is."

I guess there are evolving standards of international behavior. Except that in this case evolution follows intelligent design and is guided by a hand that very much would like to remain unseen.

[Fool Count]

2. Hillary is lying. There is no "slaughter" of civilians. There is a fight for peaceful and secular

Syria against foreign funded and armed gangs of Salafist terrorists - the fight supported by
most Syrians. The orwellianly named "Friends of Syria" are in reality its worst enemies who
care nothing about suffering of Syrian people in pursuit of their bloodthirsty goal of regime
change at any cost. When two-bit monarchist dictatorships like Qatar and Saudi Arabia send
arms and troops into Syria in support of "freedom and democracy", it is easy to know on which
side the truth lies.

[joshcryer]

3. Marie Colvin and Remi Ochlik would disagree with you. Paul Convoy does disagree with you.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/24/remi-ochlik-dead-last-moments_n_1300043.html

[Fool Count]

7. I see no shame in disagreeing with "professional journalists", most of whom are no more

than mercenary propaganda employees for the elites. In fact, I have to question reason and
common sense of anyone who agrees with them, given their "stellar" historical record of
supporting most despicable lies and crimes that those shills have amassed.

[joshcryer]

12. You're not there.

So on what basis should anyone agree with you over people who are there, and have experienced the horrors that are occurring in Syria? What do they have to gain?

Their loss of life?

The fact is Syria does not allow reporters in to witness the massacres. You, therefore, have no basis with which to make your claims whatsoever, except as a propaganda arm of the Syrian government.

[joshcryer]

13. Orwell's quote becomes relevant again:

Just imagine how odious it must be to see a young 15-year old Spaniard brought back from the front lines on a stretcher, to see, poking out from under the blanket an anemic, bewildered face and to think that in London and Paris there are gentlemen dressed to the nines, blithely engaged in writing pamphlets to show this little lad is a covert fascist.

[AverageJoe90]

4. As much as I despise the fascist Salafis......

The Assads are no better. Two sides of the same dirty shit-stained coin, IMO.

[Fool Count]

6. The Assads are better. For decades they operated a secular regime which provided for the rights

and security of religious minorities in Syria and was infinitely more free and democratic than
their leading Qatari and Saudi salafist opponents are even now. They may not be the most
popular people in Brussels and Washington and they may not be the spotless liberals or
democrats, but to say that they are "no better" than the Salafists fanatical murderers they
are fighting is to ignore obvious realities and historical record.

[EX500rider]

10. Assads free & democratic? hahahahaha!

Last edited Sat Feb 25, 2012, 12:48 AM - Edit history (1)

Right, the Ba'athest totalitarian dictatorship? That one?

Syria's human rights situation is among the worst in the world, according to human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch.
The Syrian government's actions at Hama in 1982 have been described as possibly being "the single deadliest act by any Arab government against its own people in the modern Middle East".
And now they are at it again, randomly shelling a city and killing civilians in great numbers.

[Fool Count]

16. Baseless and grotesque demonization of a target is a cornerstone of every propaganda

campaign in run-up to every war. Am I supposed to buy that crap? Again? After hearing it so many
times already? How stupid do you think I am?

[EX500rider]

18. Right, Human Rights Watch, so full of shit...

Last edited Sat Feb 25, 2012, 12:49 AM - Edit history (1)

Are you under the mistaken impression that it is not a Ba'athest totalitarian dictatorship?

[Fool Count]

20. I'll take a "Ba'athest totalitarian dictatorship", whatever that is, over a fanatical Salafist

caliphate or a two-bit monarchist emirate (like those "friends of Syria" Qatar and Saudi Arabia)
any day. I am sure most Syrians will too. And, of course, Human Rights Watch is full of shit.
That, like, goes without saying.

[EX500rider]

22. ""Ba'athest totalitarian dictatorship", whatever that is"

Dictionaries are available on-line now to help you look up words.

[AverageJoe90]

26. No, they're not.

Remember the Hama massacre in 1982? As many as 40,000 people may have been killed over there thanks to Assad's father.
Really, they're better? I'm afraid not.

[Fool Count]

27. Yes, they are. Even if that vastly exaggerated number was correct, it would still be orders

of magnitude better than a least bloody result of jihadist Sunni takeover of Syria. It's like saying
that Taliban was better than Soviet occupied Afghanistan. Sure, in minds of some anti-soviet
ideologues it was. But on any objective balance and, most importantly, for the people of Afghanistan
it most certainly wasn't.

[AverageJoe90]

34. I would actually wholeheartedly agree with you re: Afghanistan.

But that's a different story. The government in that country was actually pretty decent. The Assads? Not even close.

[Odin2005]

21. How much did Assad pay you to say that?

[UnseenUndergrad]

24. Roughly the same rate as Qaddafi

Plus or minus the insanity fee paid by the latter, of course.

I recognize that the opposition in Syria is a lot more fragmented and isolated then the Cyrenicans, Berbers and Misratans in Libya. However, the rancid soup of Bush-era Islamophobia, Stalinist apologia and twisted Doublethink displayed on this thread is giving me hives.

[Odin2005]

25. There is a small clique on DU that I call the "West is evil" brigade.

They assume that anything any western country intervening in a non-western country has bad motives and yet assume that dictators like Mugabe and Assad are good people who are defending their people against the "evil capitalist running dogs".

I remember seeing the atrocities in Bosnia and Rwanda on TV as a little kid. It made me a confirmed Liberal Internationalist and I am disgusted at a gut level by the apologists of murderous thuggish dictators.

[Fool Count]

28. There is nothing more disgusting than impressionable Western TV viewers

clamoring in support of their oh-so-humanitarian governments' bombing brown people in far away
countries into a stone age from 30,000 feet. There is no more pathetic evil scum in the world than those
"Liberal Internationalist". There is a special place in hell for those despicable clowns.

[Odin2005]

29. You just proved my point.

Bye.

[Odin2005]

31. I was against the Iraq War. "Warmonger" my ass.

[UnseenUndergrad]

32. Here's a question

Last edited Sun Feb 26, 2012, 12:38 AM - Edit history (1)

I wonder if he or she objected to the liberation of South Vietnam from the Franco-puppet running dog regime of Nguyen Van Thieu?

Letting the French back in there was one of the worse mistakes the West made.

[Odin2005]

36. We could have had Ho Chi Minh on OUR side...

...but no, we decided to be paranoid and so he became a Stalinist, instead.

[Bad_Ronald]

35. They're a strange lot indeed.

And not just here at DU, but wherever they exist. Assad is a thug, plain & simple, and not some enlightened bulwark against "western imperialism" or predatory capitalism. How anyone can defend this egregious turd with a straight face and still consider themselves progressive is laughable.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't believe that anyone who is genuinely interested in the welfare of the Syrian people would be defending Assad, even in a roundabout way, or attempting to justify what's he's done. I share your disgust.

[Beacool]

33. There is no "slaughter" of civilians????????????

Then what the hell do you call all the civilians that have been killed, including many children and even foreign journalists?

Yeah, Assad is all for a democratic transition. That's why his family has been ruling Syria for 40 years.

[unkachuck]

8. to be sure....

....the situation is complex, but kudos to President Obama and Secretary Clinton for placing US support and policy with the Syrian people....

....I'm sure there are many diabolical forces and interests converging on Syria to do it harm....but in the year 2012, the world has no choice but to find it totally unacceptable when a government wantonly kills its own people....

[Fool Count]

9. "Killing its own people" is just a meaningless meme used every time when powers-that-be

feel the need to drum up public support for another imperialist war. There is an armed conflict
in Syria pitting a secular government against the islamist terrorist insurgents. How should the
government, supported by most Syrians accidently, should defend itself from armed rebels
supported by foreign powers without killing them? I am curious to know.

[EX500rider]

11. "Killing its own people" is just a meaningless meme!?!?!

Wow, that's cold.

I doubt the dead women and children of Homs feel that way about it.

[Fool Count]

15. The dead women and children of Homs can thank murderous terrorist thugs who have taken

control of their city and all those "friends of Syria" who support them.

[EX500rider]

17. No, they can thank the Syrian government for indiscriminate shelling. n/t

[Fool Count]

19. Yeah, and the murderous terrorist thugs and the foreign commandos operating in the city

are blameless, of course.

[EX500rider]

23. Well since "the murderous terrorist thugs and the foreign commandos"

(I think you mean the people of Homs) aren't shelling themselves I would have to blame the government for that.

[Sabayon65]

14. Actually I agree, somewhat

As bad is Assad is, America is essentially using the situation in Syria as a proxy war with Iran.