They're trying really hard to sell another war to us, aren't they?

Well, too bad no one here is buying.

Assad would'nt, but the thousands of Taliban that have streamed into Syria from Iraq would. "Activists report", WHAT activisits, and whatever happened to verification, The US has recon planes that can read someones ID Card from 15 miles in the the air, and we can't spot any of the supposed 200 dead? In addition, much of the "massacres" being reported are sheer fabrication by people that know how to play the media like a fish on a string. Whenever a reporter shows up at the sight, they are shown a few "bodies" all wrapped up from a distance and told the rest were buried according to Muslim law. What crap. Our government in collusion with NATO is trying to destabiize the entire Middle East in order to take advangtage of oil resources and shift focus away from internal problems. How many people were dying before "Arab Springs" in Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Yemen before we got behind these so-called "rebel" groups, and what would our POTUS do if thousands of people descended on the White House with AK-47's, burning buildings, and demanding an over-throw of the Federal Government. We ALL know the answer to that one. People like "Travis" justs don't get it. It's NOT about democracy in Egypt or anywhere else; it's about fundamentalist Islam versus the West, Western neo-colonialism, and geopolitical expansion of the world's super-powers to secure oil for the next 100 years.

Are you saying that MSNBC should not report on massacres when they happen or that they are making things up? This is news! Not propaganda. At the time of the Iraq invasion, there were no massacres. The country was stable and there was no reason to believe Saddam was a threat; that war was fueled by propaganda. Syria, is a different story, there ARE ongoing massacres and Assad is an active threat to his own people and to neighboring countries like Turkey. No one is saying that the US should jump into the middle of this civil war, but wouldn't it be wrong to pretend that its not happening and to just ignore it?

More news from the "activists", who are willing to talk to us. As opposed to the "terrorists", who aren't.

Iran will push Assad as far as he can go... the last thing Iran wants is a democratic Syria. I predict this war will spill into Iran... Sunni vs Shiite. The killing has just begun.

Even propaganda have limits. These are going to ridiculous levels just as during before Iraqi wars.

British should kick out that Syrian Observatory. The criminals wanted in Syria should be packed to some Sunni Muslim nations like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or UAE.

As bigoted Sunni rebels are supported by Sunni Islamic extemists like al-Qaida, MB and others it is difficult to say who has done them.

Followers of Islamic cult, especially Sunni Saudi inspired Islamic radicals and militants (al-Qaida, Salaffi, Wahhabi, MB and other label ones), are fast marching backwards to their seventh century desert tribal days of rapings, lootings, killings and genocides of non-Muslims and Muslims as in Syria, Pakistan and other nations.

Let these people give us accounts of those killed in Darfur, Sudan, Nigeria and other places.

Wow you are dillusional dude like really, I can tell there is a few Assad supporters in here too. You should go fight on the front line you propaganda spewing pieces of s**t, the whole world knows it is happening to deny it means your are as dumb as a bag of smashed a@@holes. Forget what Russia and China says stop the slaughter now. To those that do not want to get involved I wouldnt even spit on you never mind look at you.

I hope this happens to your family and we will see how fast you whine and cry in the opposite direction, sometimes I am disgusted to be part of the human race and these comments in here confirm that this is one of those times, self serving losers.

The claim that Syria is starting to move their "undeclared chemical weapons" out of storage is the icing on the propaganda cake. Will one of us, Israel, the US or one of our proxies, initiate a chemical attack to spark the outrage in an attempt to justify another war for Israel? The neocon plan has always been to take out Israel's perceived enemies, one at a time. After Syria, it will be Iran.

No more wars for Israel.

I have nothign but respect for these fighters. Although I do think that it is not our fight and we should not get involved militarily and directly, it important that we voice our support for these fighters.

This guy has pretty good article on Syria and Middle East. he talks about Syria and as well as Middle East.

Korn : Assad made it clear that he is not stepping down, this mean more innocent life will be killed, if Assad cares really about human been he would of stepped down long ago! people like Assad and especially with all that power he owns plus the support of Russia and China, of course he is unstoppable now

@RalphH

Israel doesn't want wars. They could have exterminated nearly all of the middle-east already if that was their goal, especially with our help. Not to mention the muslims have been persecuting Jews since they existed.

Modern countries don't have chemical weapons as per the Geneva Convention. And I don't believe they would risk the very bad PR associated with even having them. Syria DOES have chemical weapons, because they got them from Iraq. Not everything is a conspiracy. Other countries can in fact be screwed up, not just ours.

Now having said that, I DO believe our government is corrupt, and does in fact want control. But they want to control money, that's it. Wars are fought when countries are desperate for money(World War 1&2), like this country is right now. If anything, THIS country is USING Israel.

The truth usually lies between face value and the tin foil hat.

yes, propaganda.

Soon, no doubt, there will be some military intervention in Syria under the NATO flag but mostly with US presence. Another useless 'war' we don't need nor can afford.

In terms of what this country should probably do, is keep our soldiers out of muslim civil wars. They do not like us, they do not want our help, and as soon as we give them our help they betray us. Afghanistan is a prime example, their soldiers and police are constantly backstabbing our soldiers.

Korn ~You sound like your just another one of that porcus Assad's paederastic catamytes.

Maxeemas said "Korn : Assad made it clear that he is not stepping down, this mean more innocent life will be killed, if Assad cares really about human been he would of stepped down long ago! people like Assad and especially with all that power he owns plus the support of Russia and China, of course he is unstoppable now"

While I agree with you on humanitarian grounds, what I am saying is that what is reported here on MSNBC has to be inaccurate. If Assad is really killing the people as MSNBC would like us to believe, then why kill more people during peace negotiations? The whole purpose of the peace talk plans is for him to retain power at some sort of mutual agreement. Yet, all of a sudden, so conveniently to buttress American media's argument that Assad is an evil dictatorship, people get killed. Obviously, the information given here has to have some inaccuracies. Remember Ashley Banfield? She was disciplined by MSNBC for warning of the media coverage of being too jingoistic. What does that tell you? This whole thing about Assad killing its own people just like how other nations always seem to have "government that kill their own people" is something that the US has been doing for years. MSNBC is clearly misrepresenting the news in some fashion.

JRTO77,

ralph always trolls Israel. He lives for it.

In fact when I saw the headlines about 200 killed by Syria I thought to myself, "hmmm, 20 to 1 RalphH is already there puting on his tin foil hat of hate...Lets see what his angle of entry will be..."

Chemical weapons ehh? OK. Good one...Maybe he got a dose of BZ in 'Nam or de clap when the gov'ment was messin' with de sziffillis.

Bets are on that Syria will fall into the hands of Ralph's best friends: the Islamists. Our state dept is happy there's no Oil involved so they can stay out unless popular demand puts them there or BHO needs a last moment campaign boost to show "he cares". Otherwise they don't want another Egypt, Libya, Tunisia to sigh, "oh well!", over....

or do they????oooo^oooo

You are right Ixor. I don't want another war for Israel. The Iraq war will cost in excess of 3.5 trillion dollars. It was planned and sold by Zionists, using headlines such as the ones today about chemical weapons. They usually quote some unnamed diplomat or official. That way, no one is responcible for being caught in the lie.

It is encouraging that more and more people on the forums are refusing to swallow the propaganda put forth in the Zionist media. People are wising up. We can always count on you to keep up the war mongering.

The above comments of which only a few are based in reality, mostly based in the minds of people with their personal propaganda to peddle, are a good illustration of why on-line news networks are either dropping comments or requiring a traceable comment (like via Facebook). How long before MSNBC goes that way and stops being a source of hate speech? [This will really set some people off, eh?]

Korn : please! where have you been this whole time? Assad father killed thousands of innocent protesters before.. because they object him and like father like son. The same sh i t Assad father did.. the same s h i t the new son Assad is doing now, he learned it from his dad. Assad does not want any one objecting him and will take a whole town, city, state if he has tooooooooo Capich?

Didnt they show Assad Army with tanks blowing missile at civilans building! who does that? someone coward like him for sure!

please god help bashar alsad to get rid of these fanatic evil terror muslim brotherhood, the worst terror evil hater christains, god send them to hill

"what I am saying is that what is reported here on MSNBC has to be inaccurate. If Assad is really killing the people as MSNBC would like us to believe, then why kill more people during peace negotiations? The whole purpose of the peace talk plans is for him to retain power at some sort of mutual agreement."

And the whole purpose of him killing the rebelling citizens is for him to retain power under his terms. This really isn't a complicated concept: no matter what the international community decides, it can't help him actually get his country under control. Only two things can do that: his stepping down, or his killing enough rebels that his citizenry - out of fear - once again allow him to rule over them. He has chosen time and time again to refuse the former, and unless you're seriously claiming that every report about his regime's atrocities has been a mere "inaccuracy", he is clearly working toward the latter. If you're going to claim that MSNBC is simply lying to build a case for a war that the US has already said it doesn't want to fight, then whatever; you've already buried yourself deep into your conspiracy mindset and I'm certainly not going to try to dig you out. But there's no rational reason to dismiss these news reports outright.

"whole thing about Assad killing its own people just like how other nations always seem to have "government that kill their own people" is something that the US has been doing for years."

Yeah, see, the thing is, MOST, if not all, governments kill their own people at some point, for one reason or another. It's one of the tragic and (in my opinion) infuriating aspects of centralizing executive power. So there's no reason to think those reports are false unless additional evidence suggests they are; there are vast gray areas between governments just doing what they do to function and actual massacres/genocides. And no matter what kind of scale you're using, 10,000+ dead is definitely massacre level.

SF Accountant, if you think 15,000 is a massive scale, think of the millions Americans killed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Honduras, Guetamala, Indonesia, Vietnam, Serbia, Yugoslavia, etc etc etc. Everyone of those countries had govts that "killed their own people" according to the US govt. Check out the pentagon papers that was released in the early 1970s. Fast forward today and look at the Wikileaks files. It gets quite interesting.

Maxeemas, I truly think that you are a humanitarian and mean what you say, but mainstream media may of clouded your thinking. My background is in history, and I look at these things all the time. True, the middle east is not my specialty, it's actually US and East Asia, but the policies that the US conducts is ALWAYS the same. The message is that the govt from foreign countries are ALWAYS killing their own people, and the US must intervene. First off, the US has killed many of its own people and people abroad. The US govt has killed Native Americans and had forced sterilizations on black people. They have also killed millions abroad. Iraq is just one country that I'm pretty sure you non history people can agree with me on. Does that mean other govts do not kill its own people? Well, we honestly cannot confirm the hyperbolic numbers MSNBC and Fox news gives us. But since we're here in the US, we can look at ourselves.

In the meanwhile, whenever you see a bomb dropped on an innocent civilian, you're just thinking, wait a second, that bomb costs us tax payers 15000 dollars! That's a low balling estimate too! I'm here in California, and tuition for state college is about 6000 dollars per year. So, if we assume that each bomb is 15000 dollars, can't that bomb be used for paying 2 student's tuition here in state college? Unreal.

I'm not sure what your response to me is trying to prove, Korn, and I'm not going to go reading lengthy government leaks to try and figure out your point. It makes less sense once you realize that the statistic of "millions" is made up on the spot. All of those conflicts combined did not equal even one million American casualties, much less actual deaths, and taken individually, every one of them resulted in less than 10,000 American's killed. So yes, I DO think 15,000 is a massive scale. Or massive enough for the international community to do something about if it is feasible. I am not suggesting that America launch an invasion, because we've already seen the limitations of nation-building and spreading democracy by military force. What I'm suggesting is that it's absurd to dismiss every story of Assad's atrocities as "propoganda" for a conflict that nobody wants.

In addition, the US does not, in fact, always elect to intervene in a conflict. In this conflict it has been stated multiple times, by personnel both government and military, that fighting the Syrian army would be a bad idea and that they don't intend to do it. If you don't believe them, then whatever, but to date we haven't moved any troops there and I haven't seen a single clue that that's about to change.

SF Accountant, if you don't want to read something lengthy, then how would you know ALL the details? Besides, I'm not saying that MSNBC is totally wrong. It's simply trying to persuade you to think in a certain way. My MAINPOINT: This news is slanted into making you think a certain way! That's it! The only thing we truly know is that there are deaths in Syria, but by whom? MSNBC has already tried to doctor evidence. Remember the Zimmerman case? Remember when MSNBC spliced the tape to make Zimmerman look more racist? You're telling me that MSNBC is truthful? Ever heard of an old idiom, "a liar is never believed even when he speaks the truth?" If you don't want to read too much, I would suggest to at least pick up the book "Manufacturing Consent" written by an MIT professor. There, he cites real primary sources to construct his argument as to how the mainstream media wins support. SF Accountant, please do be more curious than George Bush and at least see how the media manipulates your mind. If you disagree with the book, that's even better. Why don't you share your disagreements here.

A worldwide conspiracy to justify a war -- where do you people come up with this stuff? All of the UN observers, all of the news media outlets, everybody is on board with this so called propaganda. The only ones who know the truth are you commenters that sit around with tin foil on your heads so the CIA doesn't brain wash you, like they supposedly have done to the rest of us. The numbers of dead may be exagerated, it's hard to tell, but if these things weren't happening Russia and China could just show us the pictures of these quite and peaceful towns that haven't been destroyed since it's all propaganda! Maybe you conspiracy theorists should volunteer to go over there and act as independent observers. If you hate the U.S. and the conspiring Western world so much, take your pick of China, Russia or Syria and be happy in your new home! Of course, that's assuming that you don't already live there.

Russia and China have a face, and it's ugly.

I think what is happening in Syria is atrocious, and for the rest of the world to watch and act as nothing is happening is even more vile.

Assad is a mad man and must be stopped whatever means necessary. He is like his father. He is our present day Hitler.

And what we have in the White House has watered down our defense so much that we cannot defend anything.

Korn: Why do I have to know ALL the details of a tangentially related matter to argue that MSN isn't lying out of their collective arses to justify an invasion that isn't coming? More importantly, why should I have to go read who knows how many pages of arcane government tripe to figure out why I might possibly be wrong? I stated my point and supporting arguments. If you have a counter-argument, then state it, as you just did. If you happen to know something that is buried in those reports, then just tell me about it; unless it's fairly outrageous (as many of these accounts are), I'll believe you. I'm only willing to invest so much time into an Internet comments board debate.

As for your actual counter-point, it seems to me that youre fascinating quote about liars would imply that even people labeled as liars sometimes have something useful to say. So whether or not MSNBC tried to make Zimmerman look racist (I didn't read much on the story and really couldn't care less) doesn't lead me to believe that they're fabricating accounts of Syria's conflict.

They ARE, of course, relying primarily on the rebels, who do have a reason to lie, but it's hardly their fault that it's really hard trying to confirm news coming out of a warzone under the watch of an oppressive dictator that exercises firm control over the media. So I give the rebels the benefit of the doubt.

Manufacturing Consent

So you read a book and now it's your bible. I can think of plenty of news outlets that totally manufacture truth, MSNBC is not one of them.

Do you know how to tell a ROMNEY supporters from Obama supporters .

Romney suporters sigh there checks on the front.

Obama supporters sigh there checks on the back.

One may support whomever one likes. NO WARS and no interventions in these Shiites vs Sunni battles.

US, British, European nations have been doing too many dirty jobs for the ungrateful and backstabbing bigoted Sunni Saudis barbarians and beasts.

Oil companies and their lobbyists have manipulated Iraqi wars, oil price manipulations and now directing us to dance in for them in Syria and Iran.

If atrocities and barbarism on girls, children and women are the criteria, then the most despotic, autocratic and bigoted Sunni Saudi ruler with his 5000 princes and princesses, Kuwaiti, UAE and other Arab League Sunni rulers and their rich sheiks are the biggest culprits in the history.

In killing of opponents again, these people have established world records.

Compartively Assad is the best among the bad lot of ME Muslim rulers.

If he is overthrown, then it will be one-way traffic and bigoted Saudi like al-Qaida/MB rules in Syria.

Look at the mess left behind in Iraq by over throwing Saddam.

There is an unmistakable sectarian dimension to this conflict, yes.

But at the same time, it's crucial to remember that:

A) the civil war started with peaceful protests for democracy being fired upon by Syrian soldiers and

B) the Sunnis are a majority, and thus have an obvious interest in democracy simply for the sake of gaining legitimate power for being the most numerous citizens.

Sadly, there's no way to be sure that the rebels would respect the rights of the minorities (in particular the Alawites that oppressed them for so long) in victory, but that can't be a reason to allow this kind of bloodshed to continue.

If we apply the logic of Syria being Sunni majority, then Bahrain is Shiite majority.

Bahrain is ruled by a more corrupt, autocrat and despotic bigoted Sunni ruler. Barbaric and beastly bigoted Sunni Saudi rulers and their Sunni Arab League friends sent armies to crush the Shiites peaceful protests.

These Sunnis are so bigoted that they can't even tolerate a good Shiite ruler like Assad!

No wonder Saudi and Paki Sunni Islamic radicals and terrorists are responsible for 80 percent of world problems.

Well, as a matter of fact, I support democratic reform in Bahrain, too. Even if it would end up giving Iran a bigger hold on the region. Happy?

What a crock. If gas is used, it will not be Assad.

@RalphH

How do you know?

Has it occured to you that there are some things this government fabricates to take advantage of, and THEN there are things that already exist that this country takes advantage of.

They really do have chemical weapons in Syria, because they are an effective weapon. Are you saying Syria doesn't want effective weapons?

You are right about this countries war-mongering, but you act like it is just this country that is screwed up. The reality is, they are ALL screwed up, the winner is whoever takes advantage the best. Which is usually the U.S.

More to the point, not everything that happens around the world revolves around the US. It would be rather nice if it did, because then we would just have to make sure we kept OUR administration clean and competent, and the rest of the world would be just peachy. But no. Sometimes bad things happen and we really don't have anything to do with it. It IS actually possible for a tyrant to be tyrannical without any intrigue from the United States or our allies, for his citizens to rise up for their own trampled rights, and for soldiers tasked with killing those citizens to turn against their commanders.

Hell, we can always give pork sausage with onions and peppers on rolls to the winners.

Actually, the latest statistics for homicides in the United States puts it at about 150 for all of 2010. So unless you're counting all the people who died from everything, including disease and car accidents and old age and whatever else, you're very, very wrong.

150? Really?

Figures I see put it at close to 15,000 ... 14,748 to be exact. Pretty piss poor accounting.

Ah, I see where I made the mistake. I counted the US population as 3 million rather than 300 million by mistake. So I was off by two decimal points. I did think it seemed surprisingly low.

Thank you for correcting my mistake. So it turns out the figure is about 15,000 homicides annually, for a country with a population many times larger than Syria's. Thus despite a significant blunder on my part, write's argument is still, statistically, a complete joke.

Rom1; I've been saying the same thing since this started in 2011. I'm not stupid like the Assad apologists above, I know it's true that he's killing his own people. The apologists are saying "But why would he do this when they're negotiating a peaceful settlement that will allow him to stay in power?" Because 'they' are not the Sunnis, 'they' are the UN. The Sunnis will not abide by a settlement, they will kill Assad, and he knows it. He's fighting for his life, and of course, to remain in power. And Ralph up above..."it won't be Assad who uses the chemical weapons". News flash Ralph, the rebels wouldn't have control of the weapons unless Damascus falls, and then they'd have no need to use them. Assad does.

But, despite what's REALLY going on over there...I could care less. It wouldn't bother me if he gassed most of the country. Like you said, even if we come to their rescue, they will all still hate us. They are not worth the life of one American, or the cost of a cruise missile. Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Lybia...haven't we learned yet? Let's just sit back and watch this one.

At least you own up your apathy rather than trying to excuse it. Not like there's anything we can do about it anyway.

You know, sometimes news outlets just report the news because it happened and it's worthy of note. There doesn't have to be a "push", much less an entire liberation and nation-building plan in MSN's report.

A little late for response but here goes. The news outlets are parroting what unconfirmed sources are saying and I could care less. I was trying to explain why we should leave these people to their own devices, thats all. The "Push" is many things. Have you read the signs that the anti-Assad protesters are carrying? The signs are written in english. Do you know why that would be? Because if someone is going to save them and burn up billions of dollars doing it, they won't be Arab. Listen, MSNBC is just like every other internet news agency promoting an agenda that suits their collective needs, nothing more. When bigger rating news arrises, they will leave the Syrians on their asses wondering "where did all the caring and nice reporters go?". Ciao.

If you don't care, fine. Then why are you posting here?

But seriously, a news outlet may have an agenda and they might not. It's common for anyone presenting news to present it in a way that's sympathetic to their opinions, and it's not like MSN could confirm these reports if they wanted to.

But that's not really your point, your point is that America shouldn't be invading Syria to help, just like the government said we wouldn't. And I don't believe that these media reports are suggesting that we should. That's MY point.

Totally agree. Most MSNBC readers to tell you the truth seem less informed than Wall Street Journal readers, though they aren't that good either. WSJ, owned by Rupert Murdoch, which owns Fox news. Both companies, Fox and MSNBC wants to push the war machine manufacturing effort. I mean, come on, do you seriously think Lockheed Martin is going to those Occupy protests to stop the wars, even though selling those helicopters would make them tons of money? Yea, right, Lockheed martin sure is the leader of the occupy movement. (sarcasm).

News outlets pushing for a war effort for the sake of boosting military manufacturing? So professional journalists are placidly and regularly sacrificing their integrity and risking their careers to promote warfare and destruction for the sake of a boost in demand for a completely different industry that already has its profits practically guaranteed with or without a war?

Maybe you're right about certain MSNBC readers being uninformed. That's an awful convincing piece of evidence you've posted there.

"why in the hell you leave it if you fing love it that much"

Because you're being shot at? That seems like a really good reason to me.

I really love America, but if one of our presidents snapped and decided to start bombarding California, you can bet I'd be rushing to leave. You give this long string of very sad and compelling statements and then top it off by pointing out the "flaw" in the logic that's supposed to make it all BS, but it's not a flaw at all. And I don't find it very funny.

"then he shows you why that rebels became a rebel , because he was in a peaceful demonstration and the Assad people opened fire on them , and just so happened they were filming that peaceful demonstration back then , you know either these people in the media and our politicians think we are stupid and dumb to buy into all this crap"

You stated an awful lot of good reasons for the rebels to become rebels, and then I thought you were going to finish it with a poorly-thought-out flaw that will reveal it all to be a lie... but you didn't. You just gave a bunch of good reasons for the Syrian people to rebel and then implied that the media thinks we're stupid. That makes no sense. I'm trying to understand your point of view here, turn, but you seem to be accidentally reinforcing MY point of view instead: that the rebels have very legitimate reasons for turning on Assad. Want to try again?

You mean like Obama did in Libya? (Sounds like a wonderful land for liberals... Lib, YA!) saying that he went in without congressional approval to save the people. So if that is the logic he used, why does he let the Syrian's die? Why does he hate the Syrian people so much?

I feel the same about Libya. This is an Arab problem, let them solve it. Our evolvement in Libya will come back to really bite us in the ass. Every time we Americans want to bring peace and prosperity to an Arab country we get @!$%# on. Helping any middle eastern country besides Israel has only brought us trouble 10 fold and Israel is a pain in the ass at times. My point is this, I don't hate these people like you think I would I just know that they hate us and that is never going to change. I used Canada as an example because they are our brothers and sisters and I feel the need to protect them because they would do the same for us. Syria, not so much. We aren't even distant cousins and they have no real love for America or Americans. Like I said, let the Arabs clean up their own dog @!$%#.

there were a ragtag rebels that fought and won for their freedom, and that ragtag rebels were americans during the american revolution war, and the ragtag rebels of americans would had lost in gaining their freedom if it wasn't for France.

By continuing to blame the revolution on a foreign conspiracy, dismissing hundreds of thousands of his fellow citizens as "bandits, Zionists and al Qaeda," Assad is taking a page out of the handbook of Gadhafi and likely will end up like Gadhafi. Obama during his state of the union speech mentioned the following:

"I have no doubt that the Assad regime will soon discover that the force of change can't be reversed, and that human dignity can't be denied."

John M: The trouble is, the French ( and a few other nations ) did not support the American's at the time out of a sense of principle, morality or anything else. It was pure self interest in costing the British crown a strategic and geopolitical defeat at best, and at worst stretching them militarily ( casualties plus not available in Europe ) and costing their exchequer bigtime. That is, a proxy war. That given - then one should not ascribe any higher value to the support being given these rebels. Pure self interest is involved with I suspect little real concern for the civilians. As a final point as I recall, yes there were irregulars in the US war of independence, but by far and large the battles were carried out between uniformed ( at least well identified ) protagonists. In this Syrian case the FSA seems to be all irregular and largely in civilian dress ( all the photos I have seen ) and hold up in civilian areas - little different to what we have complained about in regards Taliban conduct in Afghanistan, and certainly contributing to civilian casualties. I would say they have taken a leaf out of the Taliban book, having seen the Taliban fight us to a standstill.

Pure self interest is Assad willingness to slaughter majority of his own people in order to keep himself in power. Another pure self interest is the ones that want to turn a blind eye to Assad's murderous ways, he is only thinking of himself and that will cause his demise.

There is a point at which a government's "right to defend itself" crosses a line into massacre. It's a blurry line, to be sure, but it's well south of 10,000 people.

A nation isn't its government, it's the people. Once the government has to kill its citizens wholesale to maintain control, then it has failed as a government; it is no longer defending the country or its interests, it is defending its own power structure, and any "rights" the government has are null and void. All Assad has is soldiers and a thug in Russia who's afraid of seeing the same thing happen to him.

glad france didn't take your view during the american revolution or you would be kneeling before the king. Also you are wrong about the opposition being very disorganized, the freedom army is getting stronger and stronger daily and will continue that path of gaining strength as Assad's forces defect by the drones on a daily basics and the population side with the opposition is also gaining strength.

The English don't even "kneel before the king" anymore and didn't even "kneel before the king" during the time of the American Revolution. God, you activists are such transparent, stupid individuals.

It matters less what replaces Assad than it does that the killing stops. Even a severely flawed "democracy" such as Iraq which is riven by sectarian strife is preferable over this military oppression to maintain the power base of one family.

SF accountant we were doing so good before you got here , you right to maintain the power of one family , tell that to our government the Saudis been ruling for years , they kill anybody that dare to demonstrate against them , just like they are doing today , so if the republicans decided to demonstrate against pres. Obama and they were using guns and killing people , the pres. should just leave office and not protect the innocents , I do not understand you all people , sorry I do we are the same people that want to go to Iraq to over throw a movement of a sovereign country , explain that to me buddy .

Why should I have to explain Bush's Iraq policy? That has nothing to do with this discussion.

As for Obama, if a full-scale revolution really did start against him, then it would, actually, be worth looking into whether or not he should step down. A leader that can't keep his country from sliding into mass rebellion can't be a very good leader, can he? And if while "protecting the innocents" he ended up killing thousands of them, then YES, absolutely, he should be removed from power and I would take up arms to help do so.

It is, of course, worth looking into whether the rebels' demands are reasonable and what actions they've taken in their defiance, but that's more complex than what you're looking for here; you're looking for a quick comparison that I have no defense against. You've failed again in this. Do you feel like answering any of my questions now? Like why we should believe you over MSNBC or why protecting a few Christians is worth the oppression of thousands of Muslims?