According to the Washington Post, the U.S. and French embassies in Damascus, Syria, were attacked earlier today. The French embassy guards reportedly opened fire over the heads of demonstrators in order to stop them before they did any damage, while the American ambassador allowed the sanctity of his post to be violated with no real response from the local Marine guard.
Now, I'm not saying that Barack Obama is the second coming of Jimmy Carter, and Damascus in 2011 is not Tehran in 1979, but the parallels are there. We have a middle eastern dictator who needs to distract his people from internal issues with a foreign bogeyman facilitating assaults against our embassy. It's not a big step from smashing a few windows and ripping down our flag to a full scale overrunning of the embassy by a mob at the direction of the current Syrian client of Tehran.
President Obama needs to respond to this more forcefully than a stern look at a press conference. Armed Americans need to be on the walls and roofs of that embassy. They need to have clearly written, publicly viewable rules of engagement. It wouldn't hurt if someone went around the perimeter of the embassy with fluorescent, glow in the dark orange paint and put up a very visible line that will not be crossed. That way when some dumbass gets the top of his head removed by a 7.62mm haircut, his family can't say he wasn't warned. If Syria continues its provocations, a complete MEU and carrier battle group need to be in the eastern Mediterranean and an Air Force strike group needs to be in the Kurdish region of Iraq. A repeat of today's activities or worse should bring the full wrath of the United States on the Assad regime, including the residences of the president and his family.
I never want to watch images of 3rd world goat pimps parading U.S. diplomats and military personnel around for the cameras again. If President Obama is not willing to do what is necessary to protect our embassy, he should either close it or step aside and let a grown-up take charge for a little while.
1 comment:
We are dealing with obummer, who doesn't believe in American exceptionalism. He would rather see the U.S. humiliated rather than go against his "people". I remember the malaise of the carter years...Now we have obummer or jimmy carter 2.0
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