By Rob Lorei
Today on Radioactivity, the latest edition of Florida This Week, a political discussion show moderated by Rob Lorei and broadcasted by local PBS station WEDU on Friday Nights at 8:30. This week’s panel (Manatee County Democratic Party Sheryl Wilson, Fox 13 News political reporter Craig Patrick, Tampa Bay Times columnist Ernest Hooper, District 58-Plant City Rep. Dan Raulerson) tackle the latest stories in Florida news and politics, including the effort to raise the minimum wage to 15 dollars an hour, congressman Dan Webster’s US House speaker aspirations, Gov. Rick Scott on hospital transparency, and a recent Harvard study that found Florida to be one of the most political corrupt states.
Then we look at Russia’s intervention in the Syrian civil war. Russia has been carrying out airstrikes in Syria against IS targets, in support of President Bashar al-Assad, but members of the US-led coalition in Syria say the country is escalating the conflict by targeting Syrian opposition groups who are fight Assad. Joining us to talk about Russia’s moves in Syria is Paul Josephson, Russian and Soviet history professor at Colby College in Waterville,Maine.
One Response to “Florida This Week; Russian History scholar looks at Putin’s involvement in Syrian Civil War”
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I think the US has no business in Syria and we are rather responsible for creating the mess by supporting Bandar and the Saudi’s intervention in Syria’s internal affairs. Syria experienced a terrific drought, which caused many farmers to move to the city. Assad presided over a peaceful and progressive society. The Syrians never dreamed their country could be destroyed the way it has been. President Assad was 2014 elected with 80% besides other candidates. The Saudi’s wanted to remove Assad because he refused a pipeline through his country the Saudi’s wanted. The US made the Saudi’s the military leader of the Midle East. Ths US was looking for the most undemocratic country in the region and made it our allie. This is about controlling the distribution of oil and gas in the region, and further. It is about controlling the Middle East as it butts up to Russia on up into the Ukraine and the Balkans. There too, there are pipelines and resources that the west has been agitating to control for over a decade. I hope we remember the lesson of Afganistan. When the Soviet Union went into Afganistan in 1979, we jumped in and helped create the Taliban to fight the Russians. Wars and the burning of fossil fuels make money for the banks that are left and for the energy and war profiteers. The American public should not be bamboozled into lining these guys pockets with money while innocent people on all sides are sucked into fighting needless and endless wars. I am not saying Putin is my ideal, but I think he has a point. While Russia, China, India and others form an alliance, the U.S. pursues a fool’s game, proclaiming regime-changes as they like that only benefits the multinational players at our expense. We need to step back and consider if our objectives should be to have a stable and peaceful world vs. one where every country has a democracy that likes America.
We are most likely to make countries want to have a democracy that is ruled by 1%, by our own example, which quite frankly is not working so well right now. We have an elected congress that is unable to do their basic job of passing appropriations to keep our government functioning effectively.
People who don’t know how to fix Baltimore want to fix Allepo from air. I don’t think so.