Quote Originally Posted by carl View Post
Bill, if you mean by intervention I figure on US troops-absolutely not. I mean aid for the people we call moderates, actual realistic makes a difference aid. I also don't buy that if we do that it inevitably means US troops to follow. It may be moot though. That crew who is running things, at the very top, that crew, are so hopeless that we are on the verge of maybe deciding which group we should support, takfiri killers or Alawite killers. This is great. We're going to have a lot of credibility in the world with this one. We back Assad and we line up with Iran, the Quds force and Hez. That is going to play well in the rest of the world, and Israel. We back the takfiri killers and we line up with AQ, Taliban and the Pak Army/ISI (oh wait, we already dance to whatever tune the Pak Army/ISI plays, dead American soldiers notwithstanding). That is going to play well in the rest of the world too, and Israel. This kind of thing is unbelievable! But it is happening, to us, to my country and yours. Not to mention that CIA op in Benghazi that went bad and got an ambassador killed.

Tell those guys on high you interact with to get a backbone and open up their mouths and take their firing like men. Or resign with honor and open up their mouths. If they have the nerve to try, maybe something will change. Their pensions and careers can't be worth that much.
Carl,

Realpolitik isn't limited by principle, its scope is confined to pragmatism. I get your points loud and clear, but to some degree I think you overstate the case. It was pragmatic for us to back some dictators during the Cold War, and that didn't win us favor with the local populace in those countries. We provided military aid to those dictators so they could oppress their population in exchange for remaining aligned to the "free world." The Philippines comes to mind as an example, but the people there as a whole still admire America. How they have come to reconcile this history and still embrace us is beyond my understanding, but I'm glad they do, and I suspect this is true in other parts of the world. This doesn't undermine your morality argument, but it does call into question your assessment about how the people will feel about us years from now. Obama won't be in office forever, and they know several politicians wanted to help them. Also, we can't assume that we're not provided aid, maybe we actually can keep things on the low?

When you frame your arguments do you also consider that many countries aligned with Saudi are donating quite a bit of money and weapons (I suspect) to the Islamists and maybe the moderates if we have any influence at all? Not sure who Turkey is supporting, if anyone, but they don't love Assad. The point is we're not the only power in this multipolar world that is a player in Syria, so I'm not convinced, and admittedly I could be wrong, that our aid would be decisive.