Now you're defending Assad and by Proxy Putin.
Wonderful.
My take on the Syrian problem is pretty simple. First, Assad, no matter what we think of him, is the duly elected president of a sovereign country. Since the mass destabilization effort carried out by the Muslim Brotherhood and sympathizers on governments around the Mediterranean, including Libya and Egypt, which may or may not have had help from the US State Department under Hillary, Syria has been beset with 'rebel factions' trying to seize a country critical to pipeline transport of petroleum and petroleum products from the Middle East to Europe.
That Obama, whose efforts include one dead ambassador, two dead former SEALs, and a host of others including Mummar Khadaffi (who had been relatively well behaved since he gave up his WMDs) and the deposition of Hosni Mubarak, supported the destabilization of yet another government in the region was enough to give me pause.
That friends of Hillary's 'assistant' were emplaced in Egypt (Mursi--Muslim Brotherhood connection) during this destabilization effort (and later removed from office by the locals) indicated to me that there was indeed a power play in the region, but to benefit one faction seeking to dominate the region. Other hotspots of unrest occurred during the period.
When the media pick a boogeyman, they don't let go, and the question, not of whether WMD (Chemical weapons) were being used, but by whom, arose. Adamant claims by the Obamites that Assad's government was the perpetrator by both the MSM and the Obama Administration again gave me pause.
Recall, if you will, that the WMDs attributed to Saddam were transported into Syria using Russian trucks. Aside from the interest in pipeline corridors, the Russians may be interested in keeping those assets from falling into hands that will ensure they surface in Russia and satellite states where there are heavy Russian interests, among other places in the West.
The line in the sand is between the Muslims of the MB and other organizations which hate the west and Western Civilization, including the Russians, despite the general differences between our form of government and theirs. It is difficult to maintain a statist hold on a people when you have theocratic terrorists trying to pry that control from you, just as it is difficult to balance the liberty that should be inherent in our system of government with the amount of surveillance needed to thwart terrorism.
For either system, and those in between, the advance of Islamism is a bad deal, and the region is rife with that. However, under Assad, Christians were tolerated and not lined up and beheaded for their faith. Being the tough guy in that region is the way to retain power, and has always been the way to keep the squabbling tribal and other factions in line.
With the incredible disinformation campaigns out there, especially in support of the actions of Obama and Hillary (as SoS), even the difficulties in getting the skinny on Benghazi, I would not doubt that there is a lot of anti-Assad agitprop out there being pumped by the Western Media that is simply untrue. I have witnessed with a local issue how lies can, through repetition and bombardment by media, become commonly accepted as true, even though those closer to the situation know them to be false.
So the question arises of whether, in this instance, Putin is telling more truth than Obama, who helped destabilize the region. Who would you trust more? At least Putin didn't promise I could keep my doctor or my insurance (both gone).