With Gaddafi checked off the world's To Do list, the next dictator on the list is Syria's Bashar Assad. NATO can now focus on an appropriate military intervention to eliminate Assad. NATO will have to work closely with the Arab league and other important groups in the middle east.

The Syrian people were chanting for a No-Fly Zone earlier this week and are open to an intervention. Perhaps the time has come.

August 18, 2011, after 6 months of a brutal crackdown, over 3000 lives lost. President Barack Obama finally call on the murderous Assad to resign. In a statement, Obama said, “For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President Assad to step aside,” Mr. Obama says in the statement issued by the White House.

President Obama on Thursday for the first time explicitly called on Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad to step down, a symbolically significant step intended to ratchet up pressure on the government five months after the start of the uprising in that country.

Obama also issued an executive order immediately freezing all assets of the Syrian government subject to U.S. jurisdiction and prohibiting Americans from engaging in any transaction involving the government.

“We have consistently said that President Assad must lead a democratic transition or get out of the way. He has not led,” Obama said in a statement. “For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President Assad to step aside.”

The full statement is below:

More...

He says, “Sit down and hold your legs up in the air.” And with no more preamble than that, he begins beating my feet, really hard with his stick. I jerk my feet down, but he shouts “Put them up again!” and I have to.

There is no tyre this time to keep my feet in place. He beats me savagely, 20 or 25 slashes, and I am screaming, but I keep my feet up, because I know it will be worse if I don’t. Even though I have gotten used to it, it doesn’t make falaka any less violent or painful or agonizing.

I scream and cry every single time. When I say I’ve gotten used to it, I mean I’ve gotten used to screaming and crying, not the pain. The pain is terrible, but I know its limits.

More...

Obama is either demonstrating severe naivety or tremendous wisdom in waiting out the Syria ordeal. We are pretty sure he knows more than we do about the situation, so people are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. He keeps asking for a united, organized opposition movement to coalesce. But this is a fantasy. Why did he call for Mubarak and Kadaffi to leave so quickly? There was no organized opposition. He did the right thing. And that's what he needs to do now. Do the right thing. Stop standing by and watching a murderous regime and dictator kill innocent men, women, and children at random. History will not view this kindly.

The ball is in Obama's court. But it appears, he has no balls.

Watch this great video recap of the Syrian Revolution to Bryan Adams You Can't Take Me. Chills!

More...

Washington (CNN) — The United States is moving toward issuing an explicit call for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down, U.S. government sources told CNN Tuesday. The move is expected to be announced in coming days after U.S. officials consult with the United Nations Security Council, the sources said. The question of whether to call for al-Assad to step down has been under discussion over the past few weeks, the sources said.

More...

Syrian Organizations in the United States form Syrian Coordination Committee (SCC)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                                                                         August 2, 2011

Syrian-American organizations establish a national coordinating committee to better support revolution in Syria

United States, August 2 2011: Due to the ongoing massacres of the Assad Regime in Syria. Ten Syrian-American organizations have established a national coordinating committee (Syrian Coordination Committee, SCC) to provide a united voice in support of the ongoing revolution in Syria.

More...