Does anyone think this Syria debacle is another distraction from the NSA issue?
Only if the entire civilized world is obsessed over the NSA and Snowden, etc., not really. The issues are only tangentially related.
The offer of the day from Russia sounds nice on paper (NATO supervised removal of Syrian chem weapon supplies to be handed over to Russia, and from there to be destroyed under NATO supervision, allegedly), but it gives too much time for Assad to hide a few canister warheads, and who the fuck trusts Putin, anyway.
If Assad really ceases to use chem weapons ever again, fine as to that, but he still needs to be under the gun for having already massacred innocents.