Correct to a certain point. Crusades to Holy Land had already started. See Frank Yerby's 'The Saracen Blade' for an historically accurate, although fictionalized, telling of the Albigensian 'crusade'.

Why does this make me want to go back and re-read a bit of my required high school literature- "The Sranger" by Albert Camus?

The "crusade" in question was against French Christians. The Albigensian (Cathar) sect was considered heretical by Rome. But within the city of Beziers were still many Roman Catholics. See here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnaud_Amal...

'Let God sort them out' got its start in the Crusades. Crusaders would often sack a city, killing almost everything in sight, Jew, Muslim, slave, horses, dogs. Bombing them back to the Stone Age would not be such drastic change for most of them. Your primary targets would be the major population centers, leaving the more primitive hinterlands relatively untouched. Reverse the targeting and watch what happens. The population centers will begin to disintegrate and then you have the desired outcome.

I agree, totally. If we can't make them think, why would we think that we can make them act? You guys go to sleep too early for me. On Central Time. Sarah Palin's comment "Let Allah sort them out" works for me. Any action worth taking passed way before now. Perhaps we can just 'nuke' the whole country, and then allow the refugees to return and, perhaps, get it right!

Khalling's got my back!

No apologies necessary.
My personal take on satire: if you're not pissing someone off, you're not doing it right.

Indeed, I was provoked. Happily, however, I did not fail to to laugh at the post. Sorry, Euda! I owe you a point for the laugh.

There are at least three recent posts taking on the seriousness of the potential for US led retaliation in Syria. Euda is a political satirist. Is this issue off limits? Satire is a time honored medium to express protest. Your last statement is a great poser to all of us, but I submit you were provoked. ;)

The third is a conundrum. My first choice was blissful ignorance... Having the issue up-chucked in my lap makes that impossible. Blowing it off as people I don't care about killing each other seems intellectually dishonest. So, having done a bit of research into what it's all about, it appears that sanctions (as I see it, the best option from the standpoint of capitalism) haven't worked. More severe sanctions? I doubt they cost us more than the missiles we'd waste on military action. Doing nothing and choosing ignorance is tantamount to dreaming that we can remain as disengaged as we were in the good old days of physical isolationism.

The irony of labeling the situation as "Obama's Syria problem" is that we're self-labeling ourselves as victims of our own government rather than protesting it as so many Syrians have. Hmm... how do we laugh that off?

Sorry. Won't do the first. Done the second. Wish I could on the third. BO