Oct. 22 Final Debate on Syria

In the October 22, 2012 debate with moderator Bob Schieffer President Obama’s response to Mitt Romney’s answer to – Should we reassess our policy on Syria was - we are playing the leadership role and he repeated everything he already said we’re doing; he went on to say we’re making sure that those we help will be friends of ours and our allies for the long term; he said going back to Libya – we’re were successful there because of the coalition that we organized; he gave Romney credit for supporting that effort but went on to say that Romney suggested that making sure Gadhafi was captured was mission creep/mission muddle-other than Bin Laden, Gadhafi had more American blood on his hands and going after him is part of the reason the Libyans stand with us – we did so in a careful, thoughtful way, making certain we knew who we were dealing with and those forces of moderation were ones that we could work with and we have to do the same thing with Syria. Schieffer asked Romney if he’d go beyond what the Administration has done – Romney used a lot words that sounded like agreement with the President and then said – this has been going on for a year and it’s time for American leadership, the insurgents there haven’t come together, haven’t formed a unity and America can help that happen and we need to make sure they have the arms they need. Obama responded with – you heard that he doesn’t have different ideas and that’s because we’re doing exactly what we should be doing. Schieffer then went on to Egypt. 

I want to remind everyone that on October 21 the Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, born in Kumasi, Ghana, again warned the world that military intervention in Syria won’t work. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for his founding of the Global AIDS and Health Fund to support developing countries in their struggle to care for their people. From February 23 until August 31, 2012 Annan was the UN Arab League Joint Special Representative for Syria. If you check Annan’s background you’d see that he’s been around the block a few times in handling peace missions and he has worked with several Arab and Muslim countries on women's rights and other topics. Not at least listening to this man, as the Republicans have suggested, would be foolish on our part. On October 23 it was reported that the Syrian rebels are worried that Al Qaeda is hijacking their revolution. You can’t be a world leader and not hear others before making a decision on what you want to do for another country.