Self-Contradictory Neo-Conservative Brainlessness — Luke Coffey’s Recent Slam against President Obama’s Handling of the Syrian Civil War

© 2015 Peter Free

 

16 September 2015

 

 

Is neo-conservative (Heritage Foundation) Luke Coffey — (apparently representative of his kind) — somewhat dull witted?

 

One would think so, reading his latest implicitly self-contradicting article:

 

 

Today, Russia makes no secret of the fact that it has "advisers" in Syria. Even more, Russian warships have been called into Syrian ports, and Russian warplanes and helicopters can be spotted on Syrian airfields.

 

When US President Barack Obama said that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad "has to go", he did nothing to back up his words; when Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Assad will remain in power, he did everything to back up his words.

 

Obama's weakness and Putin's willingness to show strength have led us to the situation we find in Syria today.

 

Obama believes that saying something is the same as doing it - that delivering a speech is the same as implementing policy. This is the main difference between Obama and Putin, and between the West and Russia.

 

Russia acts and then the West reacts.

 

How much Russian blood and treasure Putin is willing to spend to prop up Assad and keep its naval base in Syria remains to be seen; but one thing is for certain: Russia is playing a deadly game in Syria.

 

Although the situation in Syria is, in many ways, different from Afghanistan in the late 1970s and '80s, there are some notable parallels between the Soviets' incremental escalation in Afghanistan and what Russia is doing today in Syria. Before the Russian people realise what is going on, "advisers" quickly turn into soldiers, and soldiers quickly come home in body bags. 

 

With the Russian economy in tatters, oil prices down, and the frozen conflict in eastern Ukraine, can Putin really afford another military adventure abroad?

 

The answer is he can, but the poor Russian people cannot.

 

© 2015 Luke Coffey, Could Syria be Putin's Afghanistan?, Al Jazeera English (14 September 2015) (representative extracts)

 

 

Internal contradiction is often a sign of unexamined presumptions

 

First, Mr. Coffey says that President Obama is a weak and jabbering non-actor, who has (by implication) lost Syria for the American side.

 

Second, he asserts that President Putin is muscled mighty-man, actively out-dancing the slothful American president in Syria.

 

Then, in virtually the same breath, Coffey destroys his own argument by concluding that Russia cannot afford deep physical involvement in tumultuously violent Syria.

 

 

Huh?

 

Mr. Coffey, how does your own analysis demonstrate the American president’s incompetence?

 

If even you see Putin’s Russian intervention as potentially catastrophic for the Federation that he leads, how can you legitimately criticize the American president for trying to keep his country out of the same mess?

 

 

The moral? — When neo-cons cannot logically edit their own thoughts . . .

 

Why pay attention to their incessantly violent — consistently US-defeating — prattle?