Obama called potential attack on Syria a 'pinprick,' Rubio says

[David_42]

I wish the lies would stop.
Obama called potential attack on Syria a 'pinprick,' Rubio says

Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida defended a 2013 vote not to authorize President Barack Obama to use military force in Syria by saying the strategy wasn’t worth risking American lives.

During a presidential debate in Simi Valley, Calif., on Sept. 16, 2015, radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt asked Donald Trump if he thought three senators — Rubio, Ted Cruz of Texas and Rand Paul of Kentucky — who opposed intervention against Syrian President Bashar Assad were now responsible for the current Syrian refugee crisis. Rubio defended his stance after Trump said he thought they were partly to blame.

"We have zero responsibility, because let’s remember what the president said," Rubio said. "He said the attack that he was going to conduct was going to be a pinprick. Well, the United States military was not built to conduct pinprick attacks."

Rubio went on to say he wanted a strategy that would put "men and women in a position where they can win."

Obama’s Syria policy has been a target for Republicans during the campaign, but did Obama refer to potential strikes against Assad as "a pinprick" attack?

Pinning down strategy

We didn’t hear back from Rubio’s campaign when we contacted them, but the crux of his reference is Obama’s response to Assad’s chemical weapons attack against civilians in 2013.

While initially planning a military response against the Syrian government, Obama suddenly switched gears on Aug. 31. He announced he would first ask Congress to authorize intervention, likely starting with surgical missile strikes from Navy destroyers — an approach that faced questionable results, according to a July 2013 report from the Institute for the Study of War.

Involving Congress was widely seen as a political gamble to bring lawmakers into the decision to move against Syria. Prior to that, Obama had struggled with whether to act unilaterally, without support from the American public, Congress, the United Nations or U.S. allies.

Obama did use the term "pinprick" several times, but he used the word to say that's what he was not doing.

Take, for example, an interview blitz on Sept. 9. Obama told Savannah Guthrie on the Today show that day that "the U.S. does not do pinpricks. Our military is the greatest the world has ever known. And when we take even limited strikes, it has an impact on a country like Syria."

 

[Vigilante]