Obama takes Syria case to the public in White House address

[alp227]

Source: Washington Post

President Obama said Tuesday that he would seize one last diplomatic opening to avoid a military strike on Syria, while trying to convince a skeptical United States that it must retaliate against the Middle Eastern nation’s alleged use of chemical weapons if the effort fails.

In a nationally televised prime-time address from the East Room of the White House, Obama cautiously embraced a Russian proposal that the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad give up its stockpile of chemical weapons, signaling that he would drop his call for an assault on the regime if Assad complies.

But with little guarantee that diplomacy would prevail, Obama spent the bulk of his 17-minute speech trying to directly address the concerns that have moved public opinion and Congress against him over the past week.

The president argued that a military response is in the national interest, although he conceded that Syria poses no direct threat to the United States. Obama said that not responding to Assad’s alleged use of chemical weapons in an Aug. 21 attack that killed more than 1,400 outside Damascus would allow him to use them again and would embolden other regimes hostile to the United States, including Iran.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-takes-syria-case-to-the-public-in-white-house-address/2013/09/10/11b5356a-1a36-11e3-82ef-a059e54c49d0_singlePage.html

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Video:

Full text of remarks: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/09/10/remarks-president-address-nation-syria

[Iliyah]

1. He is serious

As to the civil war, well, its not our problem.

[delrem]

2. An american I suppose, a Democrat who voted Obama, who listened to Obama's speech,

and yet says of the Syrian war "As to the civil war, well, it's not our problem".

This is unacceptable. The President, Congress and Senate of the USA say different.
You pretend all the war build-up hysterics on DU and in general didn't even happen, wasn't even orchestrated by your US admin. Your President gives a shout out to the (this pains me to type it) "Free Syrian Army", which he claims is "moderate" and somehow fights for the Syrian people, as if they, funded and armed by Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, were virtuous. Even though *none* of that ill-gotten wealth used to fund and support this war isn't totally tainted, through and through, via the hands of the emirs.

sheee.... it's like the entire past history didn't happen, that history was born afresh today, and now people are yakking...