Juan_Bottom wrote:Night Strike wrote:Juan_Bottom wrote:Let me ask you a question, do you love American history?
In the 1770s our American rebal force was illegally suplied with weapons from France, so that we might earn our freedom from a tyrannical king.
Why would that be good for us, but bad for Syria? Don't we, as "freedom loving" patriots have a duty to help the Syrian people to earn their freedom from a tyranical king? Should we not throw the rope back down the hole and help them to climb up like we did? Or are we just huge hypocrites? If our government sent guns to the rebals, then good for us.
Because as in Libya, the rebels are comprised of members of al-qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood, both groups that will gladly use those weapons to turn around and both attack the US and replace the existing dictators with their own Shariah Law dictators.
We didn't arm Al-Qaeda or the Muslim brotherhood in Libya, they intercepted and stole weapons that our allies shipped to Libya.
[citation needed]
Honestly, those charged with shipping those weapons probably weren't sure who exactly they were giving weapons to. It's an acceptable risk which the US will flatly deny but in reality allow. Theft isn't required, perhaps fraud, but I wouldn't expect the CIA to have their homework completely ready on the various groups spontaneously popping up.
The HUM INT capabilities of the CIA--especially in Libya--are a joke, so I don't find your story believable. It's highly likely the USG intentionally and perhaps unintentionally aided such groups, given the gaps in their knowledge and the general systemic problems of central planners picking winners and losers without market prices, incentives, etc.
Juan_Bottom wrote:We don't have any confirmation that we were shipping weapons from Benghazi to Syrian rebels. This is just an assumption based off of a secret tip.
We are not just giving out scud missile launchers to anyone with a "FREE SYRIA" t-shirt. We control where our aid goes.
"We"* control the 'aid' as much as the US controlled it during the 1980s with the mujahideen.
*We aren't the US government.
So, if there's no evidence, then of course the USG didn't do anything wrong. I'm not sure about that kind of reasoning. The USG is capable and willing to supply various groups in order to achieve their own goals--while flatly denying such support publicly.
Juan_Bottom wrote:Whenever you have a proxy war as in Syria, you are always going to have fractured resistance forces. In Syria, our team is the secular and non-sectarian FSA, who are fighting against the Islamic militants as well as against the Syrian government. President Obama approved a plan by which the CIA will hand pick Syrian Rebels, train them, then send them back to Syria to fight with the FSA. Saudi Arabia is doing the same thing, and you're only going to see a handful of fighters trained overall.
The Special Forces based in Lebanon which were 'originally' providing 'aid' to the refugees have been charged with training various rebels. The Patriot systems which we've authorized to be lent to Turkey and Lebanon were 'initially' for defense, but have recently been ordered to maintain a 15 mile or so area of control into Syrian air space. This would complement the defense of training camps on the Syrian-Lebanese and Syrian-Turkish borders.
Therefore, given how much the Pentagon/DoD/State spokespeople lie, I wouldn't trust them; therefore, I wouldn't find your analysis accurate--an analysis which I find many media sources touting about. Those training camps--especially the ones of the Turkish border--are dominated by the Islamic rebels, which the US government is 'inadvertently' defending. Gee, let's think about that one...
Also, "secular" is a funny word. It's just as accurate as calling Iran's new president "moderate." The USG provides aid to those groups which hopefully do what they want them to. That's about it. The USG in practice doesn't care much about spreading democracy, aiding refugees (as a sole goal), nor bringing peace, justice, and freedom to the world. They generally rely on a realist perspective, which occasionally blends with the liberal internationalism (e.g. exporting democracy to Iraq and AFG since 2002/2003). They want these groups to do their bidding, which explains why the US is so comfortable with supporting dictatorships and the recent military coup in Egypt.
If the USG has a history of supporting such extreme and authoritarian groups, then I wouldn't blindly reject the strong possibility that the US has been aiding Islamic groups in Libya and Syria. (Think about it. The Saudi government is just as Islamic as those "Islamic militants").
Juan_Bottom wrote:But the heart of the matter is that Bashar Assad will eventually be removed from power, and we have a chance to decide who replaces him. The FSA kind of denigrated in it's fighting ability due to the fact that they were unarmed and waiting in refugee camps with civilians, but now we are working with their command to build them back up to strength. The EU has agreed to help them as well. We could sit on our ass and practice isolationism and pretend that we don't care what happens in Syria, but that could be just the way that al-Nusra seizes power and strengthens Syrian's ties with Iran and with Al-Qaeda. The FSA are clearly the good guys here; they defected rather than turn their weapons against civilians when they were ordered to, and the Islamic Militants hate them almost as much as they hate us.
The Free Syrian Army is just a word under which many different groups operate, so it's not wise to call them the 'good' guys. Any perspective leaning on a 'good v. bad' reasoning should be suspect too.
Al-Nusra is probably being aided by the USG as we speak too. It's just a matter of time until the Freedom of Information Act allows us access to the information--of course, if that happens, it won't matter, since Americans will be busy screaming about supporting the next line of militant--I mean, moderate/secular--rebels for the sake of democracy, lol.
The FSA have killed civilians as well, and have probably used chemical weapons, since they've had access to some of the Syrian government's chemical depots. Collateral damage is unavoidable, so casting this story in such stark lines is miserably inept.