Posted on 12/04/2016 12:30:35 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
Congress authorizes Trump to arm Syrian rebels with anti-aircraft missiles
The House voted for the first time today to explicitly authorize the incoming Donald Trump administration to arm vetted Syrian rebels with anti-aircraft missiles.
Summary Today, the House passed a defense bill that conditionally allows the provision of MANPADs to anti-Syrian regime forces.
Author Julian Pecquet Posted December 2, 2016
While the language in the annual defense bill also creates restrictions on the provision of the controversial weapons, it represents a win for Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., a fervent advocate of helping the rebels resist President Bashar al-Assad and his Russian and Iranian allies. The Senate is expected to pass the bill next week.
Until now, the transfer of man-portable air-defense systems, or MANPADs, had been implicitly authorized in the absence of an outright ban. Critics, however, view the new provision as tantamount to a policy recommendation for the president-elect.
"I'm more afraid of Congress on this issue than I am of Trump,” said Robert Naiman, the policy director at Just Foreign Policy, a liberal advocacy group that lobbied for a ban. “I think Congress is trying to tie Trump's hands against making a realistic deal with Russia to end the Syrian civil war. And they are trying to pressure him in the direction of not doing that," he told Al-Monitor.
/snip
Mattis is well known in military and foreign policy circles for his aggressive determination to take on America’s foes, notably Iran, including in Syria and Iraq. Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee as far back as January 2015, however, he opined that the time for supporting moderate rebel fighters against Assad's forces had "passed."
(Excerpt) Read more at al-monitor.com ...
Hopefully Donald Trump ignores Congress and takes the necessary steps to finally end this conflict, rather than continuing Obama’s failed policy of arming “moderate” rebels, which has only prolonged the bloodshed.
They won’t outlast it. Trump has been put in the White House to destroy this cabal. Watch for us to have an alliance with Russia in the next year.
So we arm “rebels” in Syria with anti-air weapons that would presumably be shooting at the dominant air power in the area... Russia.
Why in the name of all things good and holy would we want to do that? Why THAT of ALL THINGS?
If we want to take on the Russians in a conventional air war then we are going to have to man up and go do that. But we DON’T want to do that.
We’ve made a mistake of epic proportions letting Russia have this much influence in Syria and the middle east in general. But it’s DONE NOW. And the only way forward for us is to work with them, long term it is going to have to be diplomatic.
We can’t, and shouldn’t, get involved unless they attack a direct ally like Israel... possibly Egypt depending on who is running the place. Iraq is complicated and we need to keep Assad, Russia and Iran from putting their fingers too deeply into that country. But once again, we’ve limited our military options already. Deals and diplomacy are going to be very important from where we are. And very tricky to get anything we want.
McCain is a traitor. We all know his “vetted” “good terrorists” are cutouts for AQ/IS.
You added McCain to the headline but this bill was passed by the house (Paul Ryan).
no. our “choices” are:
(1) total regional or world war (with nuclear overtones possible) due to the current strategy.
or
(2) muzzling/or defanging obama’s dog erdogan and getting out of putin’s way while he tries to fix the middle east obama and crew purposely destablized.
I think we should keep Bashar al-Assad in power until ISIS is totally destroyed. By giving the Syrian rebels anti-aircraft missiles, they will give them to ISIS who will use them to shoot down American bombers who are taking out ISIS strongholds. We must remember that Benghazi was about funneling surface-to-air missiles and other weapons from Libya to the Syrian rebels. We can’t repeat that mistake because it makes the ISIS component harder to eliminate.
I agree. Stay away from this. Mccain is something else.
NO Hell no!! And F NO!!!
Not a drop of US blood or treasure is worth this. This is a trap for proxy world war 3 for a nation that has ZERO national interest for the USA. Let Putin have this.
Exactly. We all know this by now. So my question is -
Is mccain & congress insane. Or do they want him to fail.
We shouldn’t ‘keep’ Assad in power. He’s not a friend to us or our allies. But he doesn’t have to worry about that. All we need to do is stay out of the fight and focus on ISIS and Iran (which is where Putin and Assad’s power really comes from)
The rebels “are being slaughtered as we speak. A genocide is taking place. It's a black mark on American history," McCain told Al-Monitor when asked about the MANPAD provision. “I think [Trump] is going to listen to the people he appoints as secretary of defense and secretary of state.”
He does not seem to be all detached. Apparently he is the one who passionately championed this legislation. Here is another excerpts from TIME article in 2014:
Even so, some influential voices in Washington think the risk is worth taking. In a recent interview with TIME, Arizona Republican Senator John McCain singled out the Assad regime’s use of “barrel bombs,” crude explosive devices pushed out of helicopters whose primary function seems to be killing civilians. “I want to shoot them down,” McCain said. “To stop these atrocities, I’m willing to take the risk of a manpad … falling into the wrong hands, because we’ve got to stop it.”
He is really all over the place to push the idea of giving MANPADs to so-called rebels.
Rebels = ISIS, Al-Nusera and Al-Qaeda.
All the same group with the same black flag.
McCain = 100% Insane
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mccain simply trying to slide a “make good” to the manufacturer of the man pad for a prior campaign contribution under the wire??
Now I finally am persuaded obama’/s brought us to the end time - I just thought McCain was an idiotic court jester (with obvious insane warmongering desires - but still an idiot almost nobody in Congress would actuelly follow). Boy was I wrong?! Please pray for us all
I saw some photos of McCain’s mother at 95. She looked pretty good for that age. Those years in prison probably cleaned a lot of plaque out of his heart and arteries.
Giving the rebels anti-aircraft missiles would enable them to knock out Assad’s air power as well as Russian and American air resources. That might be all that is needed for the rebels, allied with ISIS, to take Assad out and take over Syria. Syria may have nuclear weapons and we don’t want ISIS having access to them. We surly don’t want to hasten Assad’s fall while ISIS is a threat.
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