General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Obama just announced the most anti-war foreign policy doctrine in decades [View all]Maedhros
(10,007 posts)The Sandinistas were socialists.
But no, I'm not drawing any direct comparisons between specific regimes. I'm simply pointing to the big picture, which hasn't changed since Reagan: the United States finances opposition groups in an effort to destabilize regimes we don't like, and props up dictatorships that we do like. And the "we" in that sentence refers not to the American people, but to the powerful interests that directly benefit from our paramilitary meddling (e.g. United Fruit Company).
I find it highly unlikely that anyone in our military command structure is concerned in the tiniest of ways about human suffering under the brutal Assad dictatorship or that such suffering is the motivating force behind arming the Syrian rebels. Were that the case, we would have not sold arms to Bahrain as they brutally cracked-down on pro-democracy demonstrators:
http://www.propublica.org/article/americas-arms-sales-bahrain-crackdown
Defense Department documents released to ProPublica give the fullest picture yet of the arms sales: The list includes ammunition, combat vehicle parts, communications equipment, Blackhawk helicopters, and an unidentified missile system.
We like Bahrain's dictator, so we help him kill his own people. We don't like Assad, so we wail and gnash our teeth about human suffering and arm "freedom fighters" to further weaken him. Bonus points for those "freedom fighters" being designated as "terrorists" prior to our need to use them.