The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : Ambassadors and Massacres

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The Assad regime is still killing civilians in Syria -- the last few days have been particularly bloody -- and Italy has withdrawn its ambassador in protest. The Italians are urging other European countries to follow suit; while none have, yet, the EU is imposing new sanctions on the regime. (Unfortunately, these don't yet include sanctions on the Syrian oil industry, which could have real bite -- Syria produces a type of heavy crude oil that relatively few refineries can handle, and most of those refineries are in Europe. US sanctions on companies that deal with Syria, which Senators Kirk, Lieberman, and Gillibrand are proposing, might nudge Europe in the right direction on this front.)

The US Ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, is in Washington this week, briefing the President and testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about the horrifying behavior of the regime in Damascus. How about keeping him here? ABC News reported yesterday: "Officials say the United States is preparing further punitive measures against the Syrian government, though one official ruled out closing the U.S. embassy in Damascus or kicking out the Syrian ambassador to Washington."

Why on Earth would you rule this out? With Syria threatening to restrict Ford's movement, it's likely that he'll be unable to do much good. Maybe the move by Rome (which came after ABC talked to that anonymous official) will convince the Obama administration to rethink its position, particularly if other countries follow suit. Really, though, Washington should be leading on this, not following.

View all comments (17) | Leave a comment

BenfromMO| 8.2.11 @ 11:45PM

I completely agree, the US should be leading on this issue. But name JUST ONE TIME when our president has been a leader and not just a community organizer sitting behind the stages and waiting for polls and statistics to make him decide how to act?

Just one time.

PCC| 8.3.11 @ 2:15AM

Severing diplomatic relations in circumstances short of war is petulant, ineffective and counter-productive. Passing messages to our enemies second-hand through the Swiss and the Swedes is unreliable and stupid. Assad would be only too happy to have Ambassador Ford stay home at Foggy Bottom. Don't give him the satisfaction!

Bob K.| 8.3.11 @ 6:08AM

This is exactly what the Muslim Brotherhood wants to happen. Once the Alawi minority is out of power in Syria Israel will be surrounded by hostile Sunni states making the defense of their nation even more tenuous.

rendite | 8.3.11 @ 6:10AM

PCC, pulling your ambassador is more a symbolic "action." You still keep the embassy abroad open; the staff is still there. And, frankly, the ambassadors come and go, travel a lot, attend all kinds of conferences, do speaking gigs, etc. The real work of an embassy (the important work) is not done by the figurehead ambassador.

So much of the time ambassadors (of this nation and most) are complete neophytes on the country to which they've been assigned and the region they find themselves in.

Unless our embassy staff and grounds are physically threatened so as to require complete evacuation, channels of communication -- should they be used -- remain in place.

Yes, we should kick out the Syrian ambassador in Washington, D.C.

PCC| 8.3.11 @ 8:06AM

Rendite,

Your points are well taken. Still, in hot spots like Syria, Libya, Iran, etc., I'd prefer we talk forthrightly to our adversaries at ambassadorial level than be satisfied with empty gestures.

Occam's Tool| 8.3.11 @ 10:31PM

A nuke on the Capitol City isn't an empty gesture, and it might get the point across, in Iran and Syria. (I exclude Libya because we want to encourage them GIVING UP Nukes.)

By the way, here's the Ramadan Body Count, Coutesy of the RoP website---funny how none of THIS makes the mainstream media:

Ramadan Bombathon 2011 Scorecard

Day 3
In the name of
The Religion
of Peace 13
In the name of
All Other
Religions 0
By
'Anti-Muslim'
Right-Wingers
Terror Attacks 0

Dead Bodies 33 for Islam
0 for the Crusaders
0 for Right Wing Christian Terrorists
Not all attacks are immediately listed on TROP

Islam's Latest Contributions to Peace
"Mohammed is God's apostle. Those who follow him are ruthless
to the unbelievers but merciful to one another" Quran 48:29

2011.08.03 (Pattani, Thailand) - A Buddhist teacher is shot twice in the head by warriors of Islam.
2011.08.03 (Kandahar, Afghanistan) - Sunni bombmakers take down a child and two others.
2011.08.03 (Rasala, Iraq) - Three Iraqis are killed when fundamentalists bomb a liquor store.
2011.08.02 (Kunduz, Afghanistan) - Four are killed when Muslim extremists stage a Shahid attack on a guesthouse used by foreigners.
2011.08.02 (Cotabato, Philippines) - A 7-year-old child is among two killed by a Jemaah Islamiyah bomb blast.
2011.08.01 (Atariwal, Pakistan) - A woman dies from injuries when Taliban militants fire a rocket into her home. "

Love that equivalence.

Negro X| 8.3.11 @ 6:32AM

Obama loves radical muslims he encourages their hate.

DLB| 8.3.11 @ 7:05AM

I'm surprised that we would make Robert Ford an ambassador after what he did to Jesse James.

Too Many Tims| 8.3.11 @ 10:16AM

Syria has always been anti-American, thus Obama practices professional courtesy.

Gaddafi's blunder was opening up to Bush.

Wayne | 8.3.11 @ 11:26AM

So how is Egypt working out? How about Libya? Obama is too busy leading us over a cliff.

Roger Fortier| 8.3.11 @ 12:27PM

Why do we even have an ambassador to Syria?

Tina B| 8.3.11 @ 12:43PM

Just FYI, from the NIV translation:

Isaiah 17
A Prophecy Against Damascus
1 A prophecy against Damascus:
“See, Damascus will no longer be a city
but will become a heap of ruins.
2 The cities of Aroer will be deserted
and left to flocks, which will lie down,
with no one to make them afraid.
3 The fortified city will disappear from Ephraim,
and royal power from Damascus;
the remnant of Aram will be
like the glory of the Israelites,”
declares the LORD Almighty.

4 “In that day the glory of Jacob will fade;
the fat of his body will waste away.
5 It will be as when reapers harvest the standing grain,
gathering the grain in their arms—
as when someone gleans heads of grain
in the Valley of Rephaim.
6 Yet some gleanings will remain,
as when an olive tree is beaten,
leaving two or three olives on the topmost branches,
four or five on the fruitful boughs,”
declares the LORD, the God of Israel.

7 In that day people will look to their Maker
and turn their eyes to the Holy One of Israel.
8 They will not look to the altars,
the work of their hands,
and they will have no regard for the Asherah poles[a]
and the incense altars their fingers have made.

9 In that day their strong cities, which they left because of the Israelites, will be like places abandoned to thickets and undergrowth. And all will be desolation.

10 You have forgotten God your Savior;
you have not remembered the Rock, your fortress.
Therefore, though you set out the finest plants
and plant imported vines,
11 though on the day you set them out, you make them grow,
and on the morning when you plant them, you bring them to bud,
yet the harvest will be as nothing
in the day of disease and incurable pain.

12 Woe to the many nations that rage—
they rage like the raging sea!
Woe to the peoples who roar—
they roar like the roaring of great waters!
13 Although the peoples roar like the roar of surging waters,
when he rebukes them they flee far away,
driven before the wind like chaff on the hills,
like tumbleweed before a gale.
14 In the evening, sudden terror!
Before the morning, they are gone!
This is the portion of those who loot us,
the lot of those who plunder us.

Israel is still God's people and He will "have their backs."

Occam's Tool| 8.3.11 @ 8:55PM

Deat Tina:

Thank you so much for that beautiful comment. I had a great day today on my B-day. Listened to a lecture on treatment of bipolar disorder this AM, ate early dinner with the greatest military SF writer of the 21st Century, Lt. Colonel Tom Kratman, then went to see Plymouth rock.

Awesome. G-d Bless America, and read "Caliphate" by Tom to understand the type of America we need to avoid and how to do it.

And may G-d Bless You, Tina.

Tina B| 8.4.11 @ 8:54AM

Thank you OT, and your posts have made many of my days better, so keep on truckin'. Yes, an ex-hippie I am.

I will have to order "Caliphate" and jump right on it. And may the Lord bless you too.

Glein| 8.3.11 @ 11:22PM

Obama and his group of diplomatic idiot savants truly believe that the end of the only democratic and prosperous country in the Middle East, Israel, should no longer exist. No Israel, no problems. And the Arab world and Iran will love us and stop doing that terrorism thing. It scares me that such persons are in control of American foreign policy, or what is left of it. We may never recover from Obama!

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