Bill Clinton: History Will Judge Obama the “Fool” Over Syria Inaction... By Tom Wyld June 13, 2013 On Tuesday night in New York, former President Bill Clinton took aim at Barack Obama’s inaction in Syria by contrasting it with his intervention in Kosovo. History, he suggested, will not treat Mr. Obama kindly over his “lame” policy. If a president refuses to act for the sake of political expediency, Mr. Clinton said, he looks “like a total fool,” Josh Rogin at the Daily Beast reported: [Just] think how lame you’d be… Suppose I had let a million people, two million people, be refugees out of Kosovo. A couple hundred thousand people die. And [critics would] say, “You could have stopped this by dropping a few bombs. Why didn’t you do it?” And I say: “Because the House of Representatives voted 75% against it?” You look like a total wuss, and you would be. The Syrian Coastal Massacre of May 2013 – Syria’s Guernica. One of my most trusted sources in Syria said at least 400 were killed in a 3-day, “village by village” extermination in which entire families were slain. Note the defensive wounds on the arms of men, presumably the fathers and brothers of murdered children. The slaughter was reminiscent of Pablo Picasso’s masterpiece Guernica, a painting widely recognized by art historians as “genocide on canvas.” (Unmarked photo snapped by a Syrian source.) The Syrian Coastal Massacre of May 2013 – Syria’s Guernica. One of my most trusted sources in Syria said at least 400 were killed in a 3-day, “village by village” extermination in which entire families were slain. Note the defensive wounds on the arms of men, presumably the fathers and brothers of murdered children. The slaughter was reminiscent of Pablo Picasso’s masterpiece Guernica, a painting widely recognized by art historians as “genocide on canvas.” (Unmarked photo snapped by a Syrian source.) Actually, Mr. Clinton did not act as early or as resolutely in Kosovo as he implied Tuesday night, as humanitarians like Elie Wiesel might recall. In April 1993, when President Clinton spoke at the opening of the Holocaust Memorial Museum, he was introduced by the former prisoner of Auschwitz and Buchenwald who chastised him for his incoherent Balkans policy. The Nobel Laureate minced no words: I cannot not tell you something. I have been in the former Yugoslavia last fall. I cannot sleep since [I saw what] I have seen. As a Jew, I am saying that we must do something to stop the bloodshed in that country! … Something, anything must be done. Nothing was done. Two years after the stern reprimand, under Bill Clinton’s watch and to the dismay of Elie Wiesel, 8,000 were slaughtered in Srebrenica. It was that massacre that triggered U.S. intervention, and it was successful: None of the predicted calamities and staggering casualties materialized. The Douma Massacre of July 2012. Among those killed in Douma, a village on the outskirts of Damascus, was a family of 14 executed by Shabbiha (pro-Assad thugs). The dead included 7 children and their 90-year-old grandmother. (YOUTUBE, 01:47, heartbreaking and graphic). No one really knows how many were killed, as everyone in Douma was either wounded or forced to flee – or murdered, with most bodies buried in mass graves or set ablaze. The Douma Massacre of July 2012. Among those killed in Douma, a village on the outskirts of Damascus, was a family of 14 executed by Shabbiha (pro-Assad thugs). The dead included 7 children and their 90-year-old grandmother. (YouTube, 01:47, heartbreaking and graphic). No one really knows how many were killed, as everyone in Douma was either wounded or forced to flee – or murdered, with most bodies buried in mass graves or set ablaze. At last year’s museum anniversary, Mr. Wiesel introduced another U.S. president and again expressed outrage, because this president, Barack Obama, pursued a policy in Syria just as adrift as Clinton’s in Kosovo decades before: How is it that Assad is still in power? Have we not learned? We must know that Evil has power…. The greatest tragedy in history could have been prevented had the civilized world spoken up, taken measures in 1939, ‘40, ‘41, ‘42. Each time in Berlin, Geobbels and the others always wanted to see what would be the reaction in Washington and London and Rome, and there was no reaction – so they felt they could continue. Nearly 93,000 people were killed in Syria from March 2011 through April 2013, said Navi Pillay, U.N. Commissioner for Human Rights, but these are just the “documented cases.” The U.N. rejected an additional 37,988 reported killings due to insufficient information, prompting Mrs. Pillay to caution that this week’s 92,901 death estimate represents “a minimum casualty figure.” At the start of the revolution, the Assad regime assiduously kept murders below the 100/day threshold so as not to provoke intervention. The introduction of a meaningless “ceasefire” plan by hapless U.N. Envoy Kofi Annan in April 2012 hiked the kill rate. As Assad saw he could kill greater numbers with impunity, he kicked brutality into overdrive. Between July and October 2012, average killings jumped to a fairly consistent 200-a-day, punctuated by kill-peaks from massacres like Douma and Treimseh. At this rate, by the end of July 2013, deaths will top 100,000 – again “a minimum casualty figure.” The Treimseh Massacre of July 2012. Tanks, artillery and helicopter gunships pummeled the rural Sunni village of Treimseh in Hama governorate on 14 July 2012. When the pounding ceased, that was the go-signal for Shabbiha to go door-to-door, killing anyone they found. Most of the victims were butchered to death with knives and axes. At least 30 were burned alive, and one man was skinned alive (YouTube, 03:50, Arabic, English subtitles, grim). In a single day, Assad killed 247 in Treimseh. Wounded by shelling, the little girl shown above would die hours later – before the Shabbiha killed the rest of her family with knives. (Video no longer available.) The Treimseh Massacre of July 2012. Tanks, artillery and helicopter gunships pummeled the rural Sunni village of Treimseh in Hama governorate on 14 July 2012. When the pounding ceased, that was the go-signal for Shabbiha to go door-to-door, killing anyone they found. Most of the victims were butchered to death with knives and axes. At least 30 were burned alive, and one man was skinned alive (YouTube, 03:50, Arabic, English subtitles, grim). In a single day, Assad killed 247 in Treimseh. Wounded by shelling, the little girl shown above would die hours later – before the Shabbiha killed the rest of her family with knives. (Video no longer available.) • The Take-Away: “Evil Has Power.” Two years after being scolded by Elie Wiesel, President Clinton finally intervened in Kosovo, but only after 8,000 were slaughtered in Srebrenica. One year after a similar upbraiding by Mr. Wiesel, President Obama continues to run away from resolute action. Mr. Obama is a fugitive from history, and his flight has empowered Bashar Al-Assad to paint his land with blood, kill at least 93,000, discharge 1.6 million refugees like so much bilge water and threaten some of our most trusted allies. “Evil has power,” Elie Wiesel told Mr. Obama, and Evil will have power over Syria and the Middle East as long as this president flees history. thebrennerbrief/2013/06/13/bill-clinton-history-will-judge-obama-the-fool-over-syria-inaction/
Posted on: Fri, 14 Jun 2013 19:24:19 +0000
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