As Obama concluded his address, around 9 p.m. local time, shelling on the rebel-controlled suburbs around Damascus surged according to activists reached by Skype and telephone.With any promised military response from the United States to the Assad regime's murder of over 1400 people, including over 400 children with illegal nerve gas, put off for at least ten day while President Obama seeks congressional approval, Bashar al-Assad enjoys the best of both worlds as a result of the chemical weapons attack he perpetrated. On the one hand, he can continue to gain all the political benefits, like renewed support at home, in the Arab nation, and in the US Left, that comes to him as a result of being in a direct military confrontation with US imperialism. Never mind all the dead babies, for some he's the anti-imperialist resistance fighter again. On the other hand, any real damage or pain, as usually accompanies US air strikes, is delayed for weeks if it ever comes at all.
For now, he is assured of no US attacks, but since they are only postponed, not canceled, their propaganda value remains intact. In fact, it is enhanced, because an attack this weekend might have proven to be slight and then the whole intervention might be declared over and the whole episode soon fade into history. This way Assad faces weeks with the threat of US military assault hanging over Syria. Not only does this give him a lot of time to prepare and thus mitigate the effects of any air assault, the details of which have already started leaking out with more certain to follow while the mission is on hold, it also gives him a lot of time to shift the focus from his brutal war against his own people to this "war on hold" with the mighty US imperialists.
Meanwhile the world's attention has been shifted away Assad's continuing war crimes in East Ghouta with its hundreds of babies shoveled into mass graves to the possibility of a US attack on Syria.
We all know how President Barack Obama doesn't shy away from putting those he considers "bad guys" on his kill-list. Barack Obama's own government has just determined that Bashar al-Assad has used illegal chemical weapons to murder 1,429 civilians including 426 children, that makes him a "bad guy." Few doubt that Bashar al-Assad could wake up dead before sunrise tomorrow if Barack Obama willed it.
Instead he gets treated to this diversion from his war crimes and this PR refreshment of his credentials as an "anti-imperialist resistance fighter." This is just what the doctor ordered.
Is there any thing else Barack Obama could do to make things better for his good buddy Bashar al-Assad?
Like I've been saying:
Obama's Dilemma and Assad's Opportunity
Barack Obama's Courtship of Bashar al-Assad
Obama Denied Gas Masks to Assad's Victims
Barack Obama's Courtship of Bashar al-Assad Exposed!
Obama "green lights" Assad's slaughter in Syria
Assad's Redline and Obama's Greenlight!
Chemical weapons use in Syria, Has Obama's red-line has been crossed?
AP weighs in on Obama's Green Light for Assad's slaughter in Syria
Syria: Obama's moves Assad's "red line" back as SOHR reports 42,000 dead!
SecState John Kerry and his "dear friend" Bashar al-Assad
How Obama's 'No MANPADS for you' policy in Syria is backfiring
More thoughts on Obama's 'No MANPADS for you!' policy
Obama: Did the CIA betray Assad's opposition in Syria?
World Time is reporting:
In Syria, Relief and Anger as Obama Delays Strike
As Obama backs down from an immediate attack against Syria, the country's civilians grow suspicious that the U.S. isn't committed to stopping President Bashar Assad's regime
By Aryn Baker / Beirut
Aug. 31, 2013
As U.S. President Barack Obama made his case for strikes on Syria in retaliation for the “certain” use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime against its own people last week, only to follow with the announcement that he would seek Congressional approval before launching a strike, Syrians simultaneously breathed a sigh of relief and gasped with incredulity. Civilians may have been spared the mayhem of yet another missile barrage in a country that has been at war for more than two years, but to see the U.S. suddenly standing back after much impassioned rhetoric about punishing the regime of President Bashar Assad dismayed opponents of the government.
As Obama concluded his address, around 9 p.m. local time, shelling on the rebel-controlled suburbs around Damascus surged according to activists reached by Skype and telephone. To many it was a signal of defiance by the regime, and proof that the sense of impunity that Obama in his speech warned would grow if the U.S. took no action against Assad was already a reality on the ground in Syria. “We don’t understand what more than the use of chemical weapons against innocent people the world needs to topple this dictator,” says Abu Hasan, a logistics coordinator for the rebel group the Free Syrian Army, speaking by Skype from Damascus after the speech. “History will remember how the whole world stood aside while a nation was being slaughtered.” More...
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