'Responsibility to Protect?' I call bull on that

At least 72 protesters have been killed by security forces in Syria, rights groups say - the highest reported death toll in five weeks of unrest there.

Demonstrators were shot, witnesses say, as thousands rallied across the country, a day after a decades-long state of emergency was lifted.

Many deaths reportedly occurred in a village near Deraa in the south, and in a suburb of the capital, Damascus.

US President Barack Obama called for a halt to the "outrageous" violence.

"This outrageous use of violence to quell protests must come to an end now," the president said in a statement.

You tell 'em, Barry! Give 'em another "strongly worded statement." That ought to stop the madman from massacring his own people.

Protesters - said to number tens of thousands - chanted for the overthrow of the regime, Reuters news agency reports.

Video images coming out of Syria show footage of many confrontations where live ammunition was used.

President Bashar al-Assad's lifting of the emergency had been seen as a concession to the protesters.

In their first joint statement since the protests broke out, activists co-ordinating the mass demonstrations demanded the establishment of a democratic political system.

At least 260 people have been killed in the unrest - about as many who died before the R2P crowd convinced the UN to go into Libya. Given the lack of progress there, is it possible that the "humanitarian interventionist" crowd is having second thoughts?

Not likely. It's just that the "peace at any price" crowd thinks that Assad is the only hope for peace between Israel and Syria. Can't go in and upset the applecart by tossing Assad aside. Therefore, Assad will get a free pass - except for vacuous statements like Obama's that I'm sure has the Syrian strongman quaking in his boots - and the world will turn a blind eye to the killing.