Maine politicians are beginning to respond to President Donald Trump’s cruise missile strike against a Syrian air base in the wake a nerve gas attack by the Syrian government that violated international law and killed scores of innocents. U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree said Friday the American military action “is a proportional response to the despicable […]
syria
Posted inOp-Eds
Obama can still act on Syrian horror
The New York Times’ David Sanger had an interesting observation in a recent article on Vladimir Putin’s bizarre foreign policy. Russia, Sanger wrote, is a “declining economy with the gross domestic product of Italy.” So how come it manages to push around the United States, which has the world’s biggest economy and, as President Obama […]
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Posted inOp-Eds
Syrian death toll continues to rise
Some time this spring, the death toll in Syria’s grinding war surpassed 400,000. The number is an estimate. War is always chaotic, but Syria’s war is chaos incarnate. The government — the Assad dictatorship — attacks civilian neighborhoods with chemical weapons. ISIS, which still controls significant territory, razes captured towns and uses mass murder as […]
Posted inNation / World, sj-web
Putin orders Russian troops out of Syria
GENEVA (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the start of the pullout of the Russian military from Syria starting Tuesday. Putin said the move should help serve as a stimulus for Syria’s political talks. The president said he coordinated the move with Syrian President Bashar Assad. Putin said that the Russian airbase in […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Obama’s lack of action led to today’s Syrian refugee plight
WASHINGTON — The Syrian refugee debate has become a national embarrassment. It begins with a president, desperate to deflect attention from the collapse of his foreign policy, retreating to his one safe zone — ad hominem attacks on critics, this time for lack of compassion toward Syrian widows and orphans. This, without a glimmer of […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Kasich’s idea to promote U.S. values unworkable
Conservatives are supposed to be against big government and opposed to the left’s belief that problems can and should be solved by Washington. Which is why Ohio governor and Republican presidential candidate John Kasich’s proposal to create a new government agency to promote “Judeo-Christian values” is a really bad idea. Put aside for a moment […]
Posted inLocal & State
Turkey’s shoot-down of Russian warplane concerns Collins
LEWISTON — U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said the downing of a Russian warplane by America’s NATO ally Turkey on Tuesday was making an already tense and difficult situation in the Middle East even more worrisome. In Lewiston on Tuesday to visit with city leaders on economic and community development issues, Collins, a member of […]
Posted inLetters
ISIS the height of hypocrisy
In the Nov. 16 Associated Press article on the bombing by French military planes of Raqqa, Syria, the Islamic State group’s de facto capital, the group was quoted as saying that it attacked Paris because it abhors the city as “the capital of prostitution and obscenity.” This from the ogres who make no secret of […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Obama’s sanctimony on Syrian refugees
From the tone of President Obama’s post-Paris remarks, you’d think that a sophisticated terrorist assault on a major Western city is a setback; sentiment in the U.S. against taking more Syrian refugees is an atrocity. Obama warned this week against “that dark impulse inside of us,” as if we were debating whether Syrian refugees should […]
Posted inLetters
What is all the fuss about?
President Barack Obama held a news conference from Turkey on Nov. 16. He gave an intelligent, reasoned and logical explanation, repeatedly, of the U.S. administration’s strategy and plans for dealing with ISIS, both internationally and domestically, and his plan to accept 10,000 immigrants from Syria. I was aghast at the lack of respect from the […]