Have we invaded another middle-eastern country yet?

President Obama, his cabinet and the U.S. Congress are all contemplating doing something to the dictator in Syria. They are thinking about doing something because the dictator in Syria has changed over from blowing people up with explosive artillery shells to gassing people with chemical-filled artillery shells.

Here's a little history for you:

In 1966, Hafez al-Assad participated in a coup and overthrew the leadership of the Ba'ath party and he was appointed as the Syrian Minister of Defense. From 1966 until 1970, al-Assad participated in a power struggle against his friend and mentor, Salah al-Jadid. In 1970, al-Assad won the battle, overthrew his friend, arrested him and became the leader of Syria's military and, by default, the leader of the country.

He was, by all accounts, a brutal dictator who managed to stabilize the country by oppressing all dissent. For instance, when the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization that is currently recognized as a terrorist organization, attempted to gain power in Syria, he ordered the military to resist them and they managed to kill between 10,000 and 40,000 of them. We here in the United States have only managed to kill 4,000 or 5,000 of them.

He also did other horrid things to the people of the country like changing the constitution to give woman equal rights and allow non-muslims the right to run for president.

For more than thirty years, Hafez al-Assad led Syria with an iron hand until his death in 2000. In 2000, his son, Bashar al-Assad, an eye doctor, took over from his father and became the leader of Syria.

Everything was pretty quiet and Syria continued to remain a bastion of stability in the region until 2011 when the so-called "arab spring" kicked into gear and a significant civil war broke out between al-Assad's government and a whole bunch of "rebel" groups. This immediately led to large numbers of reporters from NBC flooding the country and reporting on everything that the government was doing while downplaying what the "rebels" were doing. And by the way, the "rebels" are made up of primarily of the Muslim Brotherhood, whats left of the Taliban and whats left of the various al-queda groups.

So now, after more then 40 years of stability in the country of Syria, we are going to step in and help our sworn enemies (the taliban and alqueda) overthrow the leader. The end result is going to be a country that is ruled by religious nutcases who shoot little girls in the face for the heinous crime of going to school.

Tell me again why this is a good idea?

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Here are some links you might be interested in:

• This is why we should not discourage those idiots who wear their pants down below their ass.



• Ahhh, young love is in the air....



• Key phrase in this story: "Alcohol is suspected."



• Key phrase in this story: "He had no explanation as to why squirrel hunting requires attaching marijuana to an arrow."