re: What do you think is happening in Aleppo? Who do you believe?

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Jesus, I trust the side that isn't Russian media. 

Has shite become so politicized that people are actually willing to accept the Russian state sponsored narrative?

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This is equally naive.

I don't trust a lot of the western reports either. More than the Russian state media, but I have little doubt that media outlets and NGOs are slanting coverage against Assad.

I'd just rather Americans not take passionate sides. If you want Assad to finish off the war (which won't be finished w/ Aleppo) for stability, fine. If you want the rebels to somehow bring down the regime, ok. But it's depressing to see normal people holding up likely-fabricated RT articles because they shite on Obama, or the lefties pretending that the rebel factions aren't absolutely stocked with radicals.

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Jesus, I trust the side that isn't Russian media.

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I don't really trust any media...

My personal rule of thumb when it comes to the Middle East is just that we need to stay the frick out of that business. Nothing we can do but make things worse.

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I heard Hillary Clinton injected Magic Johnson with HIV in his sleep.

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Don't know
It's not a USA issue to resolve

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Debatable. The civil war would never have gotten to this point had we not backed the rebels.

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I am no fan of the man's presidency in general and foreign policy in particular, but the only truly effective measure would have been to send in thousands of soldiers to quell the violence.

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I don't think that's necessarily true. In the beginning, Obama promised the rebels support in the form of intelligence, arms, and even air support to make Syria another Libya. Now, I am not saying that would have been wise, but that's what we said we would do. Believing this, they organized and kept fighting. Then, Obama famously changed his mind and yet still insisted that Assad step down - an insane and irrational position. In that sense, all of this blood is on Obama's hands. Were it not for their expecting US support, the rebels might have surrendered years ago when Assad agreed to certain concessions, or perhaps never even organized.

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I don't think that's necessarily true. In the beginning, Obama promised the rebels support in the form of intelligence, arms, and even air support to make Syria another Libya. Now, I am not saying that would have been wise, but that's what we said we would do. Believing this, they organized and kept fighting. Then, Obama famously changed his mind and yet still insisted that Assad step down - an insane and irrational position. In that sense, all of this blood is on Obama's hands. Were it not for their expecting US support, the rebels might have surrendered years ago when Assad agreed to certain concessions, or perhaps never even organized.

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Well, that's a counterfactual that is difficult to prove. Obviously, given the protests and then resulting civil unrest, there was a great deal of rebel sentiment in the place. We weren't the only country supporting the rebels, either - KSA, the Gulf States, most of Europe, and on and on.

I've always believed that we don't have as large an impact in that part of the world as we think we do, and that goes for any administration. It's a wild beast of a region, and we regularly get played by other players there.

And yes, it would have required our direct intervention. Ghaddafi had no Russia or Iran with a significant stake involved. We would have had to keep elevating our involvement until we actually directly intervened in ground combat and seized government and/or Islamic State strongholds.

I've spoken with a few Syrian refugees (a mother and her daughters) before the issue became politicized. Their story was one of the saddest asylum stories I've heard first hand.

There is a lot of bad stuff happening there by both sides, and there are no "moderate rebels". We need to stay far away.