Posted on 04/09/2017 8:00:46 PM PDT by VitacoreVision
Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) made a trip to northern Syria to visit U.S. military forces and Kurdish fighters and to discuss the campaign for defeating the Islamic State (ISIS), his office said on February 22.
The news of McCains trip to Syria was broken by the Wall Street Journal in a February 22 report that cited unnamed officials.
Another report from CNN the next day quoted Julie Tarallo, a spokeswoman for McCain, who said he made the official but unannounced visit to northern Syria as the militarys campaign to take ISIS de facto capital in Raqqa unfolds.
Senator McCain traveled to northern Syria last week to visit U.S. forces deployed there and to discuss the counter-ISIL campaign and ongoing operations to retake Raqqa, Tarallo said, using the term for ISIS that began with the Obama administration.
McCains office said his visit to Syria was an opportunity to assess dynamic conditions on the ground there and also praised President Trump for requesting a review of the U.S. strategy to defeat ISIS.
Raqqa was captured by ISIS in 2013 and the terrorist organization went on to make the city its headquarters in Syria in 2014.
CNN noted that McCain who has a long history as an interventionist on U.S. foreign policy has argued for more aggressive military involvement in the Syrian civil war.
This was McCains first visit to Syria since 2013. A CNN report back on May 27th, 2013 cited a statement from McCains communications director that he had visited with anti-Assad rebels in Syria. The report noted that While in Syria, McCain met with General Salem Idris, the leader of the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army.
The support that McCain gave to the Free Syrian Army by means of his visit was problematic, however. A report from Breitbart on July 8, 2014 noted that several factions within the moderate rebel army may not have been so moderate after all. It observed:
Reports coming out of eastern Syria Monday revealed that several factions within the Syrian opposition force known as the Free Syrian Army (FSA) have pledged services to the Islamic State, the group formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). Sources and eyewitnesses said that the FSA has handed over its weapons to the Islamic State in large numbers.
The Free Syrian Army was said to be a moderate and secular force, which was used as the rationale by U.S. officials to supply the opposition force with weapons and training.
Sources told Homs, Syria-based Zaman Alwasl newspaper that several factions within the FSA, including Ahl Al Athar, Ibin al-Qaim, and Aisha have pledged to support the Islamic State.
The report noted that the Obama administration had delivered weapons, supplies, and CIA-sponsored training to the Free Syrian Army.
The New American posted an article on May 25, 2013 that summarized the objections expressed by Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) during a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to discuss sending arms to the Syrian rebels. Senators Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) had co-sponsored a bill that authorized critical support to the Syrian opposition through provision of military assistance, training, and additional humanitarian support.
Paul had offered two amendments to the bill one that would have forbidden the transfer of weapons to the rebel forces fighting to oust the government of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, and another that would have prevented the use of U.S. military armed forces in Syria. But both of Pauls amendments were rejected and the bill sailed through the committee, passing with bipartisan support by a vote of 15-3.
Paul said afterwards that it is a mistake to arm vetted Syrian rebels to counter the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
Its a mistake to arm them. Most of the arms weve given to the so-called moderate rebels have wound up in the hands of ISIS, because ISIS simply takes it from them, or its given to them, or we mistakenly actually give it to some of the radicals, Paul said on CBSs This Morning.
In 2013 McCain applauded the Obama administration for providing weapons to the Syrian rebels attempting to topple the regime of Bashar al-Assad, but said that provided arms was not enough.
An ABC News report in June 2013 reported:
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) who has been vocal on the need for more U.S. action against the Assad regime, praised the finding by the government [regarding the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime] and pressed Obama to offer lethal assistance to rebel forces.
But providing arms alone is not sufficient, said McCain in a joint statement with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) That alone is not enough to change the military balance of power on the ground against Assad. The president must rally an international coalition to take military actions to degrade Assads ability to use air power and ballistic missiles and to move and resupply his forces around the battlefield by air. This can be done, as we have said many times, using stand-off weapons such as cruise missiles."
We cannot afford to delay any longer, the senators added.
Assad is on the offensive with every weapon in his arsenal and with the complete support of his foreign allies. We must take more decisive actions now to turn the tide of the conflict in Syria.
Every bone in my body knows that simply providing weapons will not change the battlefield equation and we must change the battlefield equation," McCain later added on the Senate floor.
Otherwise, you are going to see a regional conflict the consequences of which we will be paying for a long, long time.
McCains eagerness to go to war against Assad is reminiscent of the charges that former President George W. Bush made as he built a case for invading Iraq to depose then-strongman Saddam Hussein. Much of Bushs case was built on unsubstantiated information that Saddam Husseins regime had weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
Bush addressed the nation from the Oval Office on March 19, 2003, to announce the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, stating:
The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder.
McCain was a supporter of the invasion of Iraq. In remarks in the Senate on March 19, 2003, he stated, in part:
Madam [Senate] President, there is one thing I am sure of, that we will find the Iraqi people have been the victims of an incredible level of brutalization, terror, murder, and every other kind of disgraceful and distasteful oppression on the part of Saddam Hussein's regime .
So I respectfully disagree with the remarks of the Senator from West Virginia [Robert Byrd]. I believe the President of the United States has done everything necessary and has exercised every option short of war, which has led us to the point we are today.
I believe that, obviously, we will remove a threat to America's national security because we will find there are still massive amounts of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
However, after the invasion, the Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence on the U.S. Intelligence Communitys Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq, which was released on July 9, 2004, found that many of the Bush administration's pre-war statements about Iraqi WMD were not supported by the underlying intelligence.
Following the removal of Saddam, the power vacuum in Iraq created fertile territory for the rise of ISIS. After seizing a large portion of Iraq, ISIS then turned its attention to Syria, where it sought to establish and Islamic state. It joined forces with many of the rebel forces supported by the United States that were trying to overthrow Assad.
The negative fallout that inevitably results from our nations interventionist foreign policy and commitment to regime change is a lesson that McCain, during his long career in government, seems never to have learned, however. An article in The New American in 2014 (Obamas Anti-ISIS Coalition Built ISIS, Biden Admits) cited statements made by former Vice President Joe Biden at a speech delivered at Harvard Universitys John F. Kennedy School of Government that confirmed a truth that the writer said has long been accepted among credible analysts: Despite all of former President Obamas rhetoric, there is no such thing as a moderate force in Syria that the White House claims to have been supporting against Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.
Among the most revealing points quoted in the article was Bidens admission:
The fact is, the ability to identify a moderate middle in Syria, um, was, uh there was no moderate middle. What my constant cry was, that our biggest problem was our allies our allies in the region were our largest problem they were so determined to take down Assad and essentially have a proxy Sunni-Shia war .
They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens, thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad; except that the people who were being supplied were Al Nusra and Al Qaeda and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world.
Biden neglected to mention the role of the CIA and the U.S. State Department in the process, a role that was just as key as the role of our allies.
McCain is a bipartisan interventionist, however. Whether the occupant of the oval office is a Democrat such as Obama or a Republican such as Bush or Trump, he has never met an incursion into a foreign nation that he didnt like. While he did criticize Trump for calling the recent Navy SEAL operation in Yemen a success, that criticism was based on the fact that the operation resulted in the loss of a Navy SEAL and an aircraft, not on the fact that we had intervened there. Back in 2015, McCain and Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) both said that an increase in the U.S. presence in Yemen might be necessary to stop Iranian influence in the country.
McCain said at the time that Iran is on the march in Yemen.
There is one further aspect of McCains recent visit to Syria that we should consider. That is whether of not McCains action constituted a violation of the Logan Act. As was noted in a recent article posted by The New American, the largely unknown Logan Act, which was passed more than 200 years ago, is a federal statute that makes it a crime for Americans to seek to influence the policies of foreign governments without official permission from U.S. authorities.
The Logan Act reads: Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
Although no American has ever been prosecuted under the Logan Act, accusations fueled by the media that he was in violation of the law was named as a factor forcing Trumps national security advisor, Lt. General Michael Flynn, to resign after serving just 24 days in that position.
Having served in the Senate since 1987 and running as the Republican Partys candidate for the presidency in 2008, McCain is a well-entrenched Washington insider who has most likely built up a political immunity to the forces that drove Flynn from his position. His possible violation of the Logan Act is nevertheless an interesting point to ponder.
Related articles:
U.S.-backed Syrian Opposition Linked to Bilderberg, CFR, Goldman Sachs & George Soros
In Syria, Obama-backed Rebels Battle Obama-backed Militias
Rand Paul: Senate Is Arming Al-Qaeda and Rushing to War in Syria
Obama Builds Up Syrian Air Base With Banned Communist Group
U.S. Intel: Obama Coalition Supported Islamic State in Syria
Obama Considers Military Cooperation with Iran Terror Regime
ISIS: The Best Terror Threat U.S. Tax Money Can Buy
Obama Deepening Syria War as Prelude to More War, Based on Lies
Globalists Using Muslim Terrorists as Pawns
In Iraq, U.S. Foreign Policy and Obamas Rebels Strike Again
Soros and CFR Exploit Refugee Crisis for New World Order
Christian Massacres: A Result of U.S. Foreign Policy
Too bad he made it home OK.
McCain, Graham and Rubio love them some Al Qaeda.
Amazing that we would be arming the group who attacked us on 9/11 just 10-15 years later.
These same groups of jihadists were who we backed to overthrow Khadafi.
Did he bring any Sarin gas with him?
I don’t think Captain Queeg can tell a strawberry from a jihadi. C’mon home and retire, John.
The Syrian Rebels already had the Sarin Gas. They used it in 2013 and tried to blame Assad, but it failed. Looks like they tried it again in 2017 and pulled it off.
Flashback 2013:
UN Investigator Claims Evidence Syrian Rebels Used Sarin Gas
https://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/asia/item/15308-un-investigator-claims-evidence-syrian-rebels-used-sarin-gas
U.S. Military Document: Syrian Rebels Had Chemical Weapons
https://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/asia/item/16577-u-s-military-document-syrian-rebels-had-chemical-weapons
Syrian Rebels Fire on Civilian Protesters
https://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/asia/item/15449-syrian-rebels-fire-on-civilian-protesters
Top Syrian Rebel Group Merges With Al-Qaeda in Iraq
https://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/asia/item/15065-top-syrian-rebel-group-merges-with-al-qaeda-in-iraq
Someone had to deliver that Sarin to the rebels. Old Crazy Man McCain just doing his Neo-con duty.
I wish there was a way McConnell could defund McCain’s trips.
This is the absolute last guy I want gumming up the works in the Middle East.
He’s a freakin traitor. He’s helped Obama funnel funds to the very terrorist organization that took down the Trade Center on 09/11/2001. al Qaeda
Does anyone in Washington, D. C. think about this?
John McCain armed Kosovo Islamic terrorists
Again?
Ditch does not have this (your choice of epithet here) on a choke chain leash?
I hadn’t realized he armed the Kosovo Islamic terrorists.
So he’s been at this for some time hasn’t he.
What worse could a guy do?
Isn’t that like a primary type offense, funding and arming terrorists?
Evidently not.
This guy is like Senator Palpatene in Star Wars. He’s actually the evil Emperor.
Has anyone seen McCain with Soros in the same room at the same time, when Soros is wearing a Black robe?
A very apt analogy. One might also say he’s Machiavellian though he’s a little shy on the cunning aspect. Cunning enough to cause a lot of trouble though. Yes, he love them long time.
If not treason before 9/11 it certainly should be after.
Next time he goes over there, someone cancel his credit cards.
Then make sure he isn’t allowed on military aircraft.
Fixed!
When he takes a shower, someone get his passport.
Then every U. S. Citizen should start addressing him as Mohamed Hussein Abdullah Nimrod.
McCain? Never heard of him. Watch this guy though. He’s a real shady character. He’s on the no-fly list.
Juan performs a valuable function, like a canary in the coal mine.
If he gets cozy with any “moderate muslims” we know who to Tomahawk.
Change his ringtone to Rockin’ the Casbah.
I don’t know what else to call it. (treason)
How could he, Clinton, and Obama think it was a wise idea to fund and arm those people? It just defied logic.
Good al Qaeda? Say what?
You don’t have to respond, but this has bothered me for some time. Just blowing off steam.
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