Posted on 01/31/2015 5:15:53 PM PST by Lorianne
The United States' reluctance to become decisively committed to the complex quagmire in Syria is understandable. However, its plan to insert a US-trained-and-equipped “moderate rebel” force into the mix is deeply concerning – on several levels.
According to reports, the US plans to deploy up to 1000 military trainers and support personnel to the region to train moderate Syrian rebel forces.
While US efforts to support rebel groups to date have been less than successful, there is so much that could go wrong with this course of action, and so little that could go right. Naturally, we only have access to the open source reporting on the plan, but from what we do know, there are many questions that demand answering.
What is a ‘moderate’ rebel?
When I asked a senior Lebanese army officer in November 2014 if there were “moderate rebels” in Syria, he simply laughed – not at my joke, but at the concept.
The reality of training and equipping a rebel force is that whoever does so becomes responsible for their actions, both on the battlefield and off it. There are claims that the US has “vetted” the thousands of rebels it is going to train. But the vetting process assumes perfect knowledge (which doesn’t exist) and also only checks that their transliterated names haven’t shown up on someone’s database as not being “moderate”.
It is vetting by exception, and says nothing about the present or future political, religious or societal outlook of the people the US and its allies will be training and arming. Is it likely that Saudi Arabia, Qatar or Turkey will be supporting an armed organisation that seeks the establishment of a secular, pluralist democracy in post-conflict Syria? Or is it more likely that they will be seeking an outcome more in line with their own Islamist political and societal views?
Does Washington care about promoting the former, or is it willing to aid and abet the latter – as long as it guarantees stability?
Who are they meant to fight?
Should the moderate rebels fight the jihadists, the Syrian military, Iranian Quds force, Hezbollah or anyone they come up against?
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If we arm anyone in that area it should be the Kurds. - Tom
I smell fish. Lots of it.
Arming the future enemies of Israel.
These Moderate Rebels don’t fight ISIS at all. Whats troubling is when GOP go along with this absurd plan. Did they not forget how US used to arm rebels against USSR? Assad is NOT the greater enemy.
We seem to favor one pack of wild dogs
over another pack of wild dogs
in hopes that we will be attacked last.
The 20,000 MANPADS from the Clinton-McCain-Obama
Libyan Benghazi transfer have to go somewhere
to murder Americans and their allies.
If we arm anyone in that area it should be the Kurds. - Tom
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And ONLY the Kurds. We should take a portion of the money going to the Iraqi government and spend it to have a major air base in Kurdistan. That way aid could go DIRECTLY to the Kurds.
NO FUNDING FOR JIHADIS.
Can't be doing that as it would upset our wonderful "allies" the Turks. /s
Yes, Obama is funneling weapons, training and money to the terrorists which will not only be used against Israel, but to spread the reach of the transnational terrorists in general and strengthen the effort to establish the Greater Caliphate.
I would've laughed too, at the concept.
Sounds like the Egyptians may be hinting that they think Obama has something to do with this new round of violence there as well.
They are already doing it!
Obama has always armed and trained and fought on the wrong side. I don’t know why anyone would expect him to change now.
If liberals like Romney and Jeb are considered “moderate” Republicans — I hate to think what a “moderate” jihadi is.
We apparently funded the Taliban against the Rooskies in Afghanistan. Look how well that turned out.....
It’s just The Great ObamaNations way of training and supplying ISIS, so that they have a more level playing field when facing our troops.
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