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Latest Syria Threat 'More Frightening Than Anything' Else, Holder Says

RDS

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Foreign fighters in Syria raises homeland security concerns. Singapore is not spared too.

Recent intelligence indicating that bomb-makers from Yemen have teamed up with terrorists in Syria to develop a new generation of undetectable explosives is "more frightening than anything" else the Obama administration has seen, Attorney General Eric Holder warned, becoming the first U.S. official to publicly confirm ABC News reporting on the threat. In recent days, U.S. officials have boosted security measures at airports overseas amid deepening concerns that terrorists in war-ravaged Syria could be looking to down a U.S.- or European-bound plane, with help from one of the thousands of Americans and other foreign fighters carrying U.S. and European passports who have joined terrorist groups in the region.
Holder called it "a deadly combination," in which people with technical know-how are now "married" to "people who have this kind of fervor to give their lives in support of a cause that is directed at the United States and directed at its allies."
"It's something that gives us really extreme, extreme concern," Holder said. "In some ways, it's more frightening than anything I think I've seen as attorney general."

Latest Syria Threat 'More Frightening Than Anything' Else, Holder Says - ABC News

'Handful' of Singaporeans went to Syria to join conflict: DPM Teo - Channel NewsAsia
 
What's the big surprise here? Even China and Russia predicted/warned that US interference in Syria would cause the conflict to spread into the entire region!! Look around people.
 
What's the big surprise here? Even China and Russia predicted/warned that US interference in Syria would cause the conflict to spread into the entire region!! Look around people.

Oh, yes they "warned". They wanted no further precedent r2p. That is quite understandable of regimes that know that they have to deploy military against demonstrators periodically or lose their jobs.

Had they not "warned" but put pressure on Assad to abdicate the situation would not have deteriorated to a breeding and training grounds for ISIL. As it now is, Russia has a real problem in its vicinity.
 

There can be little doubt that the world faces rather severe challenges at present. Many of these are due to a lack of coordinated security enforcement at the global level. This is going to become worse and not better, if we continue to act as though the problems were separate and diverse.
 
All the way from Singapure for Syria! Is it possible for anyone further away from Singapure to join the conflict for their own demise and not many gains?

How about New Zealand, or Hawaii for instance?
 
We counted ours. Did Obama count his?
 
Oh, yes they "warned". They wanted no further precedent r2p. That is quite understandable of regimes that know that they have to deploy military against demonstrators periodically or lose their jobs.

Had they not "warned" but put pressure on Assad to abdicate the situation would not have deteriorated to a breeding and training grounds for ISIL. As it now is, Russia has a real problem in its vicinity.

Wrong. The US should have stayed out of Syria from the beginning. President Assad would have crushed the insurgency early on and there would be no IS!
 
There can be little doubt that the world faces rather severe challenges at present. Many of these are due to a lack of coordinated security enforcement at the global level. This is going to become worse and not better, if we continue to act as though the problems were separate and diverse.

Decades of US support of militant Islamic groups has left us with this trouble!
 
Wrong. The US should have stayed out of Syria from the beginning. President Assad would have crushed the insurgency early on and there would be no IS!

Had the U.S. viewed the developments in Syria from the sober perspective that few consequential U.S. interests were at stake, and that those were limited to the spread of Syria's sectarian conflict to Jordan, Israel, and Turkey, the U.S. might well have refrained from aiding some of the sectarian actors in the conflict. Unfortunately, some on the right (neoconservative wing) and those on the left (emergent doctrine of a "responsibility to protect") made choices to believe things about the conflict that confirmed their own idealistic desires. The former group desperately wants to confirm the narrative that the Middle East can be hospitable to democracy so it assumed that the anti-Assad movement was democratic (even as elements, including the Free Syrian Army took extremely hostile stances toward Israel and refrained from offering any "constitution-in-waiting" that would confirm democratic intentions). The latter group saw the horrific casualties and assumed that they were not only preventable, but that the U.S. had a duty to prevent them (even as none of the combatants have displayed much regard for civilian protection according to repeated UN reports). The result was a muddle policy that resulted in a level of assistance to warring factions and leakage of that assistance to extremist ones (capture, alliances among the sectarian groups, etc.). Both narratives had the appeal that they were simple, even as Syria is an exceptionally complex society with widespread and deep societal fissures. Bad assumptions lead to flawed policies and that's what happened.
 
Had the U.S. viewed the developments in Syria from the sober perspective that few consequential U.S. interests were at stake, and that those were limited to the spread of Syria's sectarian conflict to Jordan, Israel, and Turkey, the U.S. might well have refrained from aiding some of the sectarian actors in the conflict. Unfortunately, some on the right (neoconservative wing) and those on the left (emergent doctrine of a "responsibility to protect") made choices to believe things about the conflict that confirmed their own idealistic desires. The former group desperately wants to confirm the narrative that the Middle East can be hospitable to democracy so it assumed that the anti-Assad movement was democratic (even as elements, including the Free Syrian Army took extremely hostile stances toward Israel and refrained from offering any "constitution-in-waiting" that would confirm democratic intentions). The latter group saw the horrific casualties and assumed that they were not only preventable, but that the U.S. had a duty to prevent them (even as none of the combatants have displayed much regard for civilian protection according to repeated UN reports). The result was a muddle policy that resulted in a level of assistance to warring factions and leakage of that assistance to extremist ones (capture, alliances among the sectarian groups, etc.). Both narratives had the appeal that they were simple, even as Syria is an exceptionally complex society with widespread and deep societal fissures. Bad assumptions lead to flawed policies and that's what happened.

That's a bit generous. Actually, US policy for the ME for a very long time has been destabilisation. And decades of supporting militant Islamic groups is working out quite well toward that end.
 
Decades of US support of militant Islamic groups has left us with this trouble!


Now that is populism of the type that the street lives.
 
Wrong. The US should have stayed out of Syria from the beginning. President Assad would have crushed the insurgency early on and there would be no IS!

Oh. The US might have stayed mute. But at the beginning the Americans did leave it up almost entirely to the Arab League, the EU, the Russians and the UN, which was quite proper. As was to be expected, they bungled badly and mass murder and refugees were the result.
The later help the USA has given was nice to have but nonconsequential.
 
Oh. The US might have stayed mute. But at the beginning the Americans did leave it up almost entirely to the Arab League, the EU, the Russians and the UN, which was quite proper. As was to be expected, they bungled badly and mass murder and refugees were the result.
The later help the USA has given was nice to have but nonconsequential.

At the beginning, Clinton was dispatched to the UN to secure resolutions that both China and Russia denied her. Covert support for the insurgency was there all along. Benghazi played a role in this.
 
At the beginning, Clinton was dispatched to the UN to secure resolutions that both China and Russia denied her. Covert support for the insurgency was there all along. Benghazi played a role in this.

My read was different.
 
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