Breaking: US Will Proceed with Plan to Arm Syrian Rebels After Congressional Concerns Eased

[Hissyspit]

Source: Reuters

@BreakingNews: The US will proceed with plan to arm Syrian rebels after congressional concerns were eased, officials tell @Reuters http://t.co/KgWHCyrEcN

Exclusive: U.S. congressional hurdles lifted on arming Syrian rebels

By Tabassum Zakaria and Susan Cornwell
WASHINGTON | Mon Jul 22, 2013 9:03pm EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will move forward with a plan for the United States to arm the struggling Syrian rebels after some congressional concerns were eased, officials said on Monday.

"We believe we are in a position that the administration can move forward," House of Representatives Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers told Reuters.

The White House announced in June that it would offer military aid to vetted groups of Syrian rebels after two years of balking at directly sending arms to the opposition.

"We have been working with Congress to overcome some of the concerns that they initially had, and we believe that those concerns have been addressed and that we will now be able to proceed," a source familiar with the administration's thinking told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE96L0W520130723

[leveymg]

1. I hope the Administration doesn't mistake silence for support on this, or expect it.

[Scuba]

2. Feel safer?

[Comrade Grumpy]

3. This is a stupid and counterproductive move...

...unless your policy objective is to prolong the civil war by preventing the Syrian government from decisively putting down the rebellion. The arms the US is talking about won't be enough to overthrow Assad, but enough to perpetuate the killing.

This is a feckless, half-assed approach, and the failure of it to make any real difference will only increase the pressure on Obama to do something more.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

25. we've been arming and training rebels for 2 years, already.

how is this any different?

[Hell Hath No Fury]

4. Oh THIS -

is going to go well.

Fuck.

[bowens43]

5. Obama loves playing with his war toys

Any way to revoke that peace prize?

[wordpix]

19. notice House repugs don't block him on THIS & demand THEY be the ones to declare war

It tells you the MIC puppetmasters want war! They don't like O shutting down the endless wars and Afghanistan's almost ended.

[Wolf Frankula]

6. Oh Good, More Money for Al-Qaeda

That's what this means. And this is an act of war. Of course, Syria isn't strong enough or in a position to punish the United States for this.

I wonder what would be the response if Syria, or its allies offered military aid to groups wishing to overthrow the US government.

Wolf

[Vinnie From Indy]

7. What could possibly go wrong?

How about they spend a few bucks more here at home instead of dealing death around the globe?

[matthews]

8. Did anyone ever seriously think that they wouldn't? nt

[azurnoir]

9. For what? what's the endgame? why?

the last sentence says exactly why we should stay away from this

The fighting is further evidence that the 2011 uprising against Assad's rule has splintered into turf wars that have little to do with ousting him.

[John2]

10. I think the Syrian

side already thinks the U.S. is in it, as well as Israel. They think the rebels are just foreign fighters and hired mercenaries for the U.S., Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey. They have plenty weapons, but they might be running out of recruits, because they are dying like flies. As they are getting killed, I think the Syrian Army is getting a lot of hardware too. They keep claiming they are recovering all these weapon stashes from the rebels. They also are claiming, they are recruiting and arming the Palestinian refugees in their territory now. The politicians in Washington are stupid. Obama is listening to the people that armed the Taliban and went to War in Iraq. They haven't learned anything, and they are still listening to Netanyahu. I don't think they are going to get rid of Assad. He seems too smart for them to me. They claim that Israel did attack Lakatia, but Israel don't want to fess up to it, because the missiles being there was a decoy, and the F16, Israel claims crashed, really was shot down. They also claimed that rebel commander got killed because he was a spy.

[wordpix]

16. exactly---who will assure the arms don't get into the wrong hands? A: No one

what a crock, I say stay out!

Just upset I sent that campaign money to O this time around. What a disappointment

[Lugal Zaggesi]

11. Say, aren't struggling Syrian rebels breaking the Law of Syria ?

President Obama seemed quite adamant that people breaking the Law should be turned over to their Government for prosecution, to face the consequences of their decision to break the Law, no matter what they felt of the Law's justice. Dissidents have to work within the System, they can't just do their own thing and break the Law, President Obama declared about Ed Snowden.

Now I'm no expert in Syrian Law,
but I bet that killing a member of the Syrian military and cutting out the heart and taking a bite of it in front of your maniac rebel followers, is at least a felony.

Imagine something similar in the USA - killing a soldier, cutting out his heart and taking a bite. Unless it was just a private, or a private 2nd class, you'd be in pretty serious trouble with the Law...

[John2]

12. Lets get

real. They are trying to overthrow Assad, because he is supplying Hezbullah and an enemy to Israel. In one hand they tell the Palestinians no preconditions but set preconditions on everybodyelse. The U.S. Government is bought and paided for period and don't work in the interests of the American people. They just try to pacify us. If it was up to the American people, they wouldn't be intefering in Syria period. It want matter anyway, because they are losing their little war. The more they up the ante, the closer they move towards a World War III. And I don't think they will have the backing from the people in their own countries. The people in our Government and representing us are just embarrassing us. They are so drunk with delusions of how right they are over everybodyelse. Power has went to their heads.

[Lugal Zaggesi]

13. History is a Mystery

If it was up to the American people, they wouldn't be intefering in Syria period.

You're right:
Polls say that 70% of the American people oppose sending arms to the rebels,
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jameszirin/2013/06/19/do-we-achieve-anything-by-sending-arms-to-the-syrian-rebels/

The overarching questions in Obama’s decision is what arms and what rebels. Are we sending only small arms or anti-tank and anti-aircraft weaponry? Do we want to use the United States Air Force to establish a no-fly zone? Will our actions provoke Russia, which has a substantial investment in Syria? Syria provides Russia with a naval base in the port city of Tartus, and a beachhead on the Mediterranean. The White House has been dodgy in answering these questions.

I'm sure the small group of "national security professionals" that make these sorts of decisions for the US Government, over the objection of large segments of our democratic country, know exactly what they're doing:

[center]

[/center]

[bemildred]

17. And that is why we don't draft people any more.

So they don't have to listen to us to when they start these stupid wars.

And that is why we always lose too. Employee morale just does not measure up to what you can get from free and committed citizens fighting for their nation and their families.

[go west young man]

14. Some congress critters

must be making money on the arms sales. Why else support a conflict that is already decided where your allies are made up of people who despise you? Once again American capitalism trumps common sense.

[nadinbrzezinski]

22. I could name names (Feinstein for example)

[bemildred]

15. Nobody could have predicted this.

[wordpix]

18. where is Congress on a declaration of war as required in the Constitution?

I am so sick of presidents using their Commander in Chief title to engage US in war without asking Congress to declare war. And Congress goes along with it as "our dirty little secret."

Once more, stuck in the mire of endless war and waste of blood and treasure.

[Dash87]

20. Nobody supports this, but our govt just does

whatever it wants.

We'll be the ones that feel the blowback of this while they sit on their yachts eating caviar and drinking $5000 champagne.

Our govt never viewed Al Qaeda as an enemy. They were a convenient means to boost the defense industry just as they are in this instance as well.

[nadinbrzezinski]

21. We will not like the blowblack

[HooptieWagon]

27. Yep. And Obama is going to own it.

I can't believe I was suckered into voting for a Neo-Con, twice.

[nadinbrzezinski]

29. But, but, Palin...I kid, I kid

Neo cons are in for a surprise, many of us are well done with that.

[bobthedrummer]

23. Still LBN kick for factchecking n/t

[DeSwiss]

24. The MIC gods will NOT be denied their child sacrifices.

- Even in eleventy-dimensional chess the pawns always get it in the end......

K&R

[dkf]

26. Let the proxy war continue.

[durablend]

28. Relax everyone

Obama got this...

I guess...

[NoOneMan]

30. The enemy of our enemy says YUUUMY!

[Marrah_G]

32. So now we are arming the same terrorists we are fighting

Fucking brilliant

[City Lights]

33. What could go wrong?

[malletgirl02]

34. Washington Post Article U.S. weapons reaching Syrian rebels

Article from the Washington Post posted an hour ago.

"The CIA has begun delivering weapons to rebels in Syria, ending months of delay in lethal aid that had been promised by the Obama administration, according to U.S. officials and Syrian figures. The shipments began streaming into the country over the past two weeks, along with separate deliveries by the State Department of vehicles and other gear — a flow of material that marks a major escalation of the U.S. role in Syria’s civil war.

The arms shipments, which are limited to light weapons and other munitions that can be tracked, began arriving in Syria at a moment of heightened tensions over threats by President Obama to order missile strikes to punish the regime of Bashar al-Assad for his alleged use of chemical weapons in a deadly attack near Damascus last month."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cia-begins-weapons-delivery-to-syrian-rebels/2013/09/11/9fcf2ed8-1b0c-11e3-a628-7e6dde8f889d_story.html

[daleo]

35. And on September 11, too

A conspicuous day to ignore the possibility of blowback from extremists.

[Celefin]

37. Talking out of both sides of the mouth again

Makes that whole long time planned diplomatic victory for peace look a little dubious. More like 'damn, they called us on it... well, back to the CIA and plan A'.

It's only the civilians killed by Assad's forces and with Russian weapons that count.
Kissinger approves, I guess.