There is one thing I don't get in situations like this. Considering that a) someone feels a need to punish Syria for doing Bad Stuff (tm), and b) you can't really kill Assad, since it's hard to know where he is... Why not simply bomb every piece of his palace into rubble? THAT is no secret. THAT would put it into personal perspective for him. Keep it up with all the pretty little prestige projects that all dictators seem to feel the need to spend money on. Triumph arches, statues of him, monuments... If these things are so important to build, they should feel pretty harsh to lose. You want to hit him personally in a way that hurts, do that.
Yeah, I get it. "How can you equate loss of civilian lives with bombed monuments, Sissyl?" To which I say: It's apparently the worst thing you can do personally to him, including what consequences would come of invasion. Remember that it took a very long time to find Saddam despite invading Iraq.
These dudes have 12 palaces. They don't care. They just build another palace. He's not going to say "OH F+@@!!! THEY BLEW UP MY PALACE!!! THEY REALLY MEAN BUSINESS!!!"
Assad will pick three orphans off the street, strangle them, and claim that we blew up his grand children. Then Sissyl will squawk about what a bunch of babykillers we are.This is great though. You don't have any kind of clue as to what to do in this situation. So, might as well continue b#*%+ing about America's lack of leadership.
12 palaces is great. This gives us the possibility of a graduated response. Not to mention, working in a palace for him MIGHT see a downturn in applications once this policy goes online, meaning less service for mr Assad. If you only had one palace to kill, then once that was gone, this strategy would no longer work.
Oh good lord. The teleprompter thing? Really?
LOL thejeff, whether you like it or not, virtually every mess Obama has gotten himself into in his tenure as President has been when he ad-libbed or answered a question off script.
"The police acted stupidly"
"If I had a son"
"We will prosecute and discharge sex offenders" (or whatever he said that violated the military code of justice.)
I'm sure you'll snicker at these things, and that's fine. My opinion of Barack Obama certainly does not match yours, but my experience with Obama's misstatements is that they pretty much all occur when he is caught off-guard and off-script.
This was CERTAINLY a case of that, and there are plenty of other examples.
Obama reminds me in many ways of some of my own professors in college. He is very precise and careful in his speech when he is prepared, but when he has to wing it, it's like watching Tim Tebow throw a football.
Oh good lord. The teleprompter thing? Really?LOL thejeff, whether you like it or not, virtually every mess Obama has gotten himself into in his tenure as President has been when he ad-libbed or answered a question off script.
"The police acted stupidly"
"If I had a son"
"We will prosecute and discharge sex offenders" (or whatever he said that violated the military code of justice.)I'm sure you'll snicker at these things, and that's fine. My opinion of Barack Obama certainly does not match yours, but my experience with Obama's misstatements is that they pretty much all occur when he is caught off-guard and off-script.
This was CERTAINLY a case of that, and there are plenty of other examples.
Obama reminds me in many ways of some of my own professors in college. He is very precise and careful in his speech when he is prepared, but when he has to wing it, it's like watching Tim Tebow throw a football.
an approach so stringent you could use it to disinfect wounds.
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I really am trying to give Obama the benefit of the doubt here. I'm notoriously cynical about our leaders. I opposed both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, but not for partisan reasons, simply because I don't believe the USA or the West in general have the will to pursue military action to its inevitable conclusion unless there is truly an existential threat involved. Which is probably good if you think about it, but the problem is that we keep getting into military engagements in spite of our reluctance to do so and the end result is a muddled mess instead of specific goals and clarity.
I've generally found that the majority of people I deal with tend to fall into the realm of partisan shills on issues like this. I hear all about how Bush and Cheney were oil-sucking warmongers and how Obama is on a mission to destroy the US as a world power. It boggles my minds how easily people on both sides get sucked into the partisan character destruction instead of just trying to reasonably analyze things.
Obama f***ed up on this with his "red line" statement. Just as Bush f***ed up with his "axis of evil" statement. You could argue that Bush's was the worse of the two since his came in prepared statements that had been vetted by his handlers, but the end result is similar. Both wrote checks with their mouths that they will find difficult to actually cash and which will end up costing both dearly in political capital and remain a stain on their "legacies" probably forever.
Obama has a chance still to salvage something from this, and to his credit he is trying to do so. However, his efforts right now seem to be wholly invested in twisting arms in Congress to approve his request to intervene militarily while I think he should instead be twisting arms at the CIA, NSA and State depts to either give him incontrovertible proof to support his actions, or else to give him a reason to back away from the trigger by credibly stating that his initial intelligence was faulty.
Today may well be the day that this all comes to a head. We'll see. So far Obama has a less than sterling record in this regard with his actions in Libya and Egypt and his inaction in Iran. But in his defense, the middle east is far more difficult to deal with than most people understand, and is certainly a more difficult puzzle than he expected as a candidate.
I really am trying to give Obama the benefit of the doubt here. I'm notoriously cynical about our leaders. I opposed both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, but not for partisan reasons, simply because I don't believe the USA or the West in general have the will to pursue military action to its inevitable conclusion unless there is truly an existential threat involved. Which is probably good if you think about it, but the problem is that we keep getting into military engagements in spite of our reluctance to do so and the end result is a muddled mess instead of specific goals and clarity.
I've generally found that the majority of people I deal with tend to fall into the realm of partisan shills on issues like this. I hear all about how Bush and Cheney were oil-sucking warmongers and how Obama is on a mission to destroy the US as a world power. It boggles my minds how easily people on both sides get sucked into the partisan character destruction instead of just trying to reasonably analyze things.
Obama f***ed up on this with his "red line" statement. Just as Bush f***ed up with his "axis of evil" statement. You could argue that Bush's was the worse of the two since his came in prepared statements that had been vetted by his handlers, but the end result is similar. Both wrote checks with their mouths that they will find difficult to actually cash and which will end up costing both dearly in political capital and remain a stain on their "legacies" probably forever.
Obama has a chance still to salvage something from this, and to his credit he is trying to do so. However, his efforts right now seem to be wholly invested in twisting arms in Congress to approve his request to intervene militarily while I think he should instead be twisting arms at the CIA, NSA and State depts to either give him incontrovertible proof to support his actions, or else to give him a reason to back away from the trigger by credibly stating that his initial intelligence was faulty.
Today may well be the day that this all comes to...
a sane and well-worded response.
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I'd also point out that, unlike Iraq where we had some pretty obviously falsified orbital photography with pictures of nothing in particular. Have you honestly not seen the footage of the victims of this attack? It's harrowing and would be exceedingly difficult to fake.
There's always someone around who will tell you that X or Y horrific event is a "false flag" orchestrated by the CIA. It behooves us to recognize that it is the luxury of those safe from harm to make such claims.
In answer to the question: yes, I have seen the footage. No, I don't think it's a fake.
Doesn't it also behoove us to realize that those arguing for flying bombing runs and bombarding from the Mediterranean are also indulging in the luxuries of those safe from harm? Or is that just a one-way street?
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In other news, 16 killed in a drone strike over the weekend.
Cynical, conspiracy-minded types are claiming up to 12 women and children killed.
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Today's fun commie link:
"In philosophy circles, bullshiznit is a technical term denoting a claim presented as 'fact' although its veracity has not been established. The truth value of bullshiznt is largely irrelevant to its propagators. Bullshiznit is disseminated in the service of particular ends, typically opaque to the audience. There is no better description for the White House’s case for intervention in Syria – and today we want to call their bullshiznit."
And, seems, like usual, I've been neglecting Black Agenda Report.
Obama: As Warlike As Bush and Just As Lonely
US, the Biggest User of Chemical Weapons in History, Asserts "Right to Protect" Syria
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Yeah, I think I'm going to reverse myself here -- we should stay out of it. I'm generally biased toward liking Obama, but I think he badly miscalculated in this case. He should just take the credibility hit and learn from it.
In other news, 16 killed in a drone strike over the weekend.
Cynical, conspiracy-minded types are claiming up to 12 women and children killed.
As a citizen of the USA I have to say that there is very little that my country has done in the course of history that I find as despicable as these drone attacks and the cruise missile joystick barrages that previous Presidents employed.
The idea that it's OK to send in guided bombs just because we don't risk our own lives is beyond the pale. Those bombs kill more civilians than they kill the supposed targets they are sent for. And everyone knows it. These drone attacks are despicable, unlawful and qualify as acts of war. It is very hard to claim any sort of moral high ground when you're raining death and destruction on women and children as a matter of FRICKIN' POLICY.
/rant
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“We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized,” the president said a year ago last week. “That would change my calculus. That would change my equation.”
It was also unclear what the consequences of crossing that “red line” would be.
"Using lots of CW" is pretty easy to say hasn't been passed yet.
And you can certainly wait for the real investigation to say what happened and who did it. i.e. what plenty of other countries including Russia say.He didn't exactly say "we won't care about actual proof and we won't care about following international law".
What happens after a red line is passed was simply never stated, other than "change my equation",.
There's nothing in the red line forcing his hand or embarrassing him if he doesn't act a certain way, it simply never stated what would happen.
Incidentally, nobody can really say that anything like the majority of Syrians actually support the armed rebels vs. Assad,
so the idea that these armed violent groups must automatically be supported "somehow" by the US (as it has been doing) is ridiculous.
The rebel-friendly Syrian Observatory for Human Rights' own numbers, routinely cited as reliable by mainstream press,
state that more regime fighters have been killed than rebels by a significant margin,
and the numbers are in line with the rebels killing more Syrians than the regime...
So why should the US or anybody be arming and backing the side causing most of the death?
(or all of the death, since Assad wasn't just killing thousands of Syria before the armed rebellion)
Assad is no human rights loving democrat, but his regime wasn't any worse than others that the US fully backs.
To me, that is just as much an issue as the proposed bombing, yet the mainstream narrative is that the US and France are somehow innocent here.
I really hope that COngress can, as well as stopping an attack, also re-assert control over War powers,
and prevent the Presidency from running secret proxy wars, arming rebels...
The problem with trying to parse Obama's year-old comment now is that it was widely reported and assumed to mean the US would intervene and no US spokesperson has taken any initiative to "clear up" the confusion. In world affairs when something is assumed for months to mean something and it isn't refuted, it is assumed to be accurate.
Besides, now Kerry has stuck his own foot in it.
It's almost as if our leaders really don't know what they are doing.
It's almost as if our leaders really don't know what they are doing.
You think?
Not that they ever have; look at how the War of 1812 ended up, vs. how it was pitched at the time.
Worked on Qhadaffi (sp?).
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It's almost as if our leaders really don't know what they are doing.You think?
Not that they ever have; look at how the War of 1812 ended up, vs. how it was pitched at the time.
Well, there is a difference between normal fog of war and lack of prescience and true incompetence, I think we can agree with that. No doubt the world has suffered from plenty of incompetence in our history.
But while I will agree that our current leadership is adrift, I don't agree that every administration in US history was as incompetent in foreign policy as I believe this one to be. Some were, for sure. You could argue that Lincoln was as naive as a baby when he ran for office. But I would submit that we've had some brilliant Presidents in our history who have directed world affairs instead of being jerked around by other leaders like our current bunch have been.
In other news, 16 killed in a drone strike over the weekend.
Cynical, conspiracy-minded types are claiming up to 12 women and children killed.
As a citizen of the USA I have to say that there is very little that my country has done in the course of history that I find as despicable as these drone attacks and the cruise missile joystick barrages that previous Presidents employed.
The idea that it's OK to send in guided bombs just because we don't risk our own lives is beyond the pale. Those bombs kill more civilians than they kill the supposed targets they are sent for. And everyone knows it. These drone attacks are despicable, unlawful and qualify as acts of war. It is very hard to claim any sort of moral high ground when you're raining death and destruction on women and children as a matter of FRICKIN' POLICY.
/rant
Really? For all the talk about how they're not really "precision", most of it justified, they're a hell of a lot more precise than previous tactics.
Are they really in the same league as carpet bombing Vietnam or the "secret" bombing of Cambodia and Laos?Edit: It's just that our standards have changed and we like to pretend we can do it without civilian casualties/.
Yes, really. I'm not going to try to explain the difference between Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Pakistan here on these boards. While I deplore the tactic of carpet bombs on general principles, I can recognize that there is a distinction between bombing Frankfurt in 1944 and sending drones into Pakistan (an ALLY supposedly) in 2012.
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NYT, RT and RT:
Amazingly enough, IN RESPONSE TO A REPORTER'S QUESTION about what could be done to avoid an attack, Kerry said:
“Sure, he could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week — turn it over, all of it, without delay and allow the full and total accounting.”
while subsequently saying he didn't believe Assad would do it.
Well, Russia in fact pushed Syria to accept that, and now Syria has accepted, putting all CW under international controls before being destroyed, and then joining the international CW convention.
" Mr. Lavrov went into more detail than Mr. Kerry’s suggestion — which Mr. Kerry’s own spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, had described as more of a rhetorical exercise than a proposal. Mr. Lavrov said Russia was proposing that Syria join the international Convention on Chemical Weapons, which bars the manufacture, stockpiling and use of poison gas.
"In quick succession, the idea of sequestering Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile was also endorsed by Britain’s prime minister, David Cameron, the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, and France foreign minister, Laurent Fabius. "
“I am sure that the international community will take quick measures to make sure that these chemical weapons reserves are stored in a safe place and are to be destroyed,” [UN Secretary General] Ban Ki-moon said.
[UK Prime Minister] David Cameron also stressed that the Syrian conflict can only be solved with “political methods”.
Cameron said that the only way to put an end to the conflict in Syria is to work out a peaceful political decision, adding that through it Syria will come to stability and democracy.
Meanwhile, "Leader of the FSA" (/preferred conduit for Western arms smuggling) former Syrian General Salim Idriss said "We warn the international community that this [Assad] regime tells lies... The regime wants to buy time to save itself". ...Shockingly indicating that he believes the threatened US strikes are about regime change, and not even considering the value of neutralizing regime CW (which would be promptly under international oversight, by the proposal).
Wow, I hope that works.
The problem with trying to parse Obama's year-old comment now is that it was widely reported and assumed to mean the US would intervene and no US spokesperson has taken any initiative to "clear up" the confusion. In world affairs when something is assumed for months to mean something and it isn't refuted, it is assumed to be accurate.
Besides, now Kerry has stuck his own foot in it.
It's almost as if our leaders really don't know what they are doing.
Well that interpretation only holds if you stick with your theory that it was a "gaffe" that he made because he can't talk coherently without a teleprompter.
Now, I've got no special insight into the inner workings of the White House, but I suspect that the fact they never tried to walk it back and in fact repeated it and stood by it suggests that it was actually policy. Probably uttered with the hope it would dissuade Assad from actually using chemical weapons.
Just pursuing your own logic here thejeff, that would imply that Obama is dissembling NOW when he says he never set a red line and that his credibility isn't on the line because of that.
I hardly see how that puts Obama in a better light from any sort of principled perspective. But hey, if it makes you feel better, feel free to believe it.
OR Cambodia and Laos, with which we were not at war?
Or villages in South Vietnam? Which we were theoretically defending from the north. Very theoretical there, I admit.
LOL, I'm certainly not going to defend actions I once actively protested against thejeff.
In retrospect I'll actually agree with you here. Those were also despicable acts that I am ashamed my country performed.
Wow, I hope that works.
Indeed. The crazy thing is this was the result of a question a reporter asked Kerry, who answered it in a rather off the cuff manner. Clearly, the US just wasn't trying all the diplomatic approaches. Of course, it will be interesting to see what comes of the actual investigations, which Russia is apparently insisting go ahead including ALL previous alleged incidents...
Worked on Qhadaffi (sp?).
??? Worked on Qadafi so great that Libya Armed Islamic Fighting Group/ Al Qaeda Islamic Maghreb / tribal mercenaries have now flooded to Syria to pursue jihad against infidels? So basically, Afghanistan strategy updated with an Air Force for the jihadis?
One can't help but think that Putin knows something that the Obama administration prefers not to be made public. I wonder how far Putin plans to push this. He certainly shows no signs of backing off so far.
Don't go too far with this. It's a great idea and I do hope it works, but it's not a done deal by any means.
Syria hasn't accepted, though the foreign minister has voiced approval of the concept. There isn't even an actual deal, as far as I can tell, just a vague concept. No details. No real timeline. No plan for how inspections and sequestering can be carried out quickly in war torn country. How it will be verified that all the chemical weapons have actually been declared. Etc.And of course, why is this considered a defeat for Obama? If it happens can you really think it would have without the current threats of military action?
Most observers of international affairs will assume that if Syria "accepts" this, all they will really do is be playing for time and they will only turn over the oldest and least useful weapons in their arsenal, most likely claiming that they were delivered to them by Saddam Hussein and that they are glad to be rid of them. They'll also have evidence to prove that the rebels had stolen some of the chemical weapons.
It is quite amusing to think that some people think this sort of thing can be accounted for like balancing out a bank teller's cash drawer at the end of the day.
"most observers of international affairs" = US, Syrian Rebels...
vs. UK, FR, UN, Russia... and presumably, India, Indonesia, South Africa, Italy, China, and all the other countries not backing US' violent stance?
Wow, I hope that works.Indeed. The crazy thing is this was the result of a question a reporter asked Kerry, who answered it in a rather off the cuff manner. Clearly, the US just wasn't trying all the diplomatic approaches. Of course, it will be interesting to see what comes of the actual investigations, which Russia is apparently insisting go ahead including ALL previous alleged incidents...
Worked on Qhadaffi (sp?).??? Worked on Qadafi so great that Libya Armed Islamic Fighting Group/ Al Qaeda Islamic Maghreb / tribal mercenaries have now flooded to Syria to pursue jihad against infidels? So basically, Afghanistan strategy updated with an Air Force for the jihadis?
Reagan bombed his house. We didn't hear boo out of him till the early 2000's.
"most observers of international affairs" = US, Syrian Rebels...
vs. UK, FR, UN, Russia... and presumably, India, Indonesia, South Africa, Italy, China, and all the other countries not backing US' violent stance?
Quandary, do you actually believe Syria does not have chemical weapons? Or are you arguing that if they do, they will politely turn them all over on request?
One can't help but think that Putin knows something that the Obama administration prefers not to be made public. I wonder how far Putin plans to push this. He certainly shows no signs of backing off so far.Or Putin, who is Assad's main supporter, supplier and backer, has decided it's not in his interests to let this confrontation go forward any longer.
Assad isn't going to piss Putin off. He can't. He'll do whatever he's told.
Unless this is just a ploy. A stalling tactic.
There's no reason at all it can't be both.
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(I didn't come up with that slogan.)
Vive le Galt!
Turns out you can only click on this if you're friends with him. Facebook sucks.
(By then the sign had been blown down)
I still don't read it as dissembling. I don't read it as denying he said it, but as referring to the long standing bans/conventions/treaties and other world wide agreements against the use of chemical weapons. Essentially: I didn't just make up the idea of chemical weapons crossing a line beyond normal war, the world agreed on that long ago.
I have absolutely no doubt that you will bend logic and common sense into knots to convince yourself that Obama wasn't dissembling.
Luckily your opinion counts for very little in international affairs. From an international community perspective Obama's already blown his credibility.
The vast majority of this whole charade wouldn't be happening if that weren't the case.
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I didn't just make up the idea of chemical weapons crossing a line beyond normal war, the world agreed on that long ago.
Who's going to bomb the US for violating cluster munitions treaty they didn't sign?
I didn't just make up the idea of chemical weapons crossing a line beyond normal war, the world agreed on that long ago.Who's going to bomb the US for violating cluster munitions treaty they didn't sign?
Heh. touche.
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What I think is very sad is that Putin very obviously just bided his time waiting for an opportunity to step in when the Obama administration gave him an opportunity, and Kerry stepped right in it today.
Part of me wants to say "well, what do I care if Putin gets the credit if we stop a war?" But part of me still cringes at the sheer incompetence and buffoonery our "leaders" have put on display the last few weeks.
I mean wow.
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I didn't just make up the idea of chemical weapons crossing a line beyond normal war, the world agreed on that long ago.Who's going to bomb the US for violating cluster munitions treaty they didn't sign?
Not to mention the whole cognitive dissonance of the whole "we have to bomb Syria for violating international law even though the UN says us bombing would be illegal"...
<tangent>You look at his partnership with the fundamentals in his country, and you wonder...is he trying to turn Russia into the 80's USA?
That whole Pussy Riot thing...just...wow.</tangent>
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The 100-year ban on gay rights demonstrations in Moscow always blows my mind.
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<tangent>You look at his partnership with the fundamentals in his country, and you wonder...is he trying to turn Russia into the 80's USA?
That whole Pussy Riot thing...just...wow.</tangent>
Yeah THAT'S the guy who is making our leaders look like idiots.
Again, just.... wow....
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Oh good lord. The teleprompter thing? Really?LOL thejeff, whether you like it or not, virtually every mess Obama has gotten himself into in his tenure as President has been when he ad-libbed or answered a question off script.
"The police acted stupidly"
"If I had a son"
"We will prosecute and discharge sex offenders" (or whatever he said that violated the military code of justice.)I'm sure you'll snicker at these things, and that's fine. My opinion of Barack Obama certainly does not match yours, but my experience with Obama's misstatements is that they pretty much all occur when he is caught off-guard and off-script.
This was CERTAINLY a case of that, and there are plenty of other examples.
Obama reminds me in many ways of some of my own professors in college. He is very precise and careful in his speech when he is prepared, but when he has to wing it, it's like watching Tim Tebow throw a football.
I disagree. We knew Syria had Chemical Weapons, we didn't want them used for all of the reasons listed and we though Assad would never use them because, given it was a civil war it makes little practical sense to give the opposition so much ammunition (pardon the pun) so we made that the red line.
He is full of it backtracking now, because that was the line. The calculation was if we said the line was Chemical Weapons we wouldn't ever have to intervene and we could let the civil war play out saying "Well Assad never crossed the red line"
He was wrong. Here we are. If he didn't say chemical weapons, he would have been hounded day after day about what would it take for us to intervene.
Saying Chemical Weapons answered that question. Unfortunately, now that line has been crossed.
It wasn't a bad line, it just got crossed. And here we are.
As a citizen of the USA I have to say that there is very little that my country has done in the course of history that I find as despicable as these drone attacks and the cruise missile joystick barrages that previous Presidents employed.
The bombings are small potatoes.
I mean off the top of my head
a 400* years genocide of the native american populations, including biological warfare, rape, genocide, starvation, treaty violations. (* the constitution was more of a rearranging of existing governments rather than making something new)
Dousing vietnam and our own soldiers in agent orange.
Going to war for Dole fruit in south america
overthrowing democratically elected leaders in south america for being too liberal
carpet bombing civilians and bulldozing viliages in vietnam (the entire war itself was a big why the hell?)
Our brutal conquest of the philipines.
The legal importation and selling of human beings and their deplorable treatment under slavery.
I mean really, I don't think the bombings merit a blip on the US's evilometer.
Oh good lord. The teleprompter thing? Really?LOL thejeff, whether you like it or not, virtually every mess Obama has gotten himself into in his tenure as President has been when he ad-libbed or answered a question off script.
"The police acted stupidly"
"If I had a son"
"We will prosecute and discharge sex offenders" (or whatever he said that violated the military code of justice.)I'm sure you'll snicker at these things, and that's fine. My opinion of Barack Obama certainly does not match yours, but my experience with Obama's misstatements is that they pretty much all occur when he is caught off-guard and off-script.
This was CERTAINLY a case of that, and there are plenty of other examples.
Obama reminds me in many ways of some of my own professors in college. He is very precise and careful in his speech when he is prepared, but when he has to wing it, it's like watching Tim Tebow throw a football.
I disagree. We knew Syria had Chemical Weapons, we didn't want them used for all of the reasons listed and we though Assad would never use them because, given it was a civil war it makes little practical sense to give the opposition so much ammunition (pardon the pun) so we made that the red line.
He is full of it backtracking now, because that was the line. The calculation was if we said the line was Chemical Weapons we wouldn't ever have to intervene and we could let the civil war play out saying "Well Assad never crossed the red line"
He was wrong. Here we are. If he didn't say chemical weapons, he would have been hounded day after day about what would it take for us to intervene.
Saying Chemical Weapons answered that question. Unfortunately, now that line has been crossed.
It wasn't a bad line, it just got crossed. And here we are.
Not entirely sure what you are "disagreeing" with here ciretose since I concur with pretty much everything you said.
To perhaps clarify, I am not now suggesting, and never did suggest, that Obama said something he didn't MEAN when he made the red line comment. I am just saying that it SHOULDN'T have been SAID, and he should have known better. It is actually generous to suggest that Obama actually knew better than to say it and misspoke when off teleprompter.
The alternative explanation is far less generous to Obama.
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Russia doesn't control Syria and more than Iran does. Syria does things they want to gain resources and share in their influence, but I think the Assad regime is much more independent minded than some people try to portray them.
Russia's stake in this is really to be counter to the US. To show that they influence and control parts of the world more than the US does and that they are one of the major players. It has Putin's personality written all over it, as has Russian foreign relations in a lot of areas over the past 14 years. Russia refuses to agree with the US on anything to carve out their own stance and show they haven't fallen in power.
I mean really, I don't think the bombings merit a blip on the US's evilometer.
Alright, alright.... no argument. I take it all back. It's not the most evil thing. But it is AN evil thing.