Posted on 09/19/2014 5:24:10 AM PDT by lifeofgrace
Yesterday, the Senate approved a bill to arm and train Syrian rebels, who fight against Bashar Assad, so they can eliminate ISIS, which possesses hundreds of millions of dollars, and no shortage of fighters willing to die for them. I fail to see the wisdom in this action, or what good can come of this. It appears cowardly, and even immoral to pay others to fight for you.
The New York Times penned almost 1,800 words describing and analyzing this vote, and even got the tally wrong in the original version.
Correction: September 18, 2014Even libertarian-leaning (read: isolationist) Rand Paul voted for this measure.An earlier version of this article misstated the vote tally because of incorrect information announced in the Senate. The vote was 78 to 22, not 73 to 22.
Im not sending your son, your daughter, over to the middle of that chaos, said Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, whose libertarian views have propelled him into contention for his partys 2016 nomination. The people who live there need to stand up and fight.President Obama made a five minute statement from the White House after the vote, in which he reiterated the false claim that his coalition has 40 countries, including Arab countries (yeah if you include every possible type of aid like humanitarian, or paying the families of suicide bombers, or if you believe that Saudi Arabia has an extensive border with Syria). Obama did add that France will be joining in, and like clockwork, the French have started bombing ISIS (Obama stubbornly calls them ISIL). Merveilleux!
Obama also held to his no combat boots on the ground doctrine. So U.S. troops will be there to train, advise and equip whoever we select to fight ISIS. As for Syrian rebels, a week ago a number of senior leaders were blown up, either by Assads forces, or by ISIS. Im sure we know a guy who knows a guy who can take us to the rebels were looking for. Theres nothing good that can ultimately come from providing American weapons and training to people we dont know, who likely hate us and are working with us only because their own survival depends on it. It's a devil's bargain.
Lets say you had a bully threatening to beat you to a pulp, and I had some brass knuckles to help you defend yourself, and I could show you how to use them, but first I wanted you to use those brass knuckles to beat up the guy dating my sister. You might do it. Its immoral as hell for me to make such a bargain with you, and after you took care of my sisters boyfriend, and whipped your bully, youd probably come looking for me with a can of beat down. Im pretty sure Id deserve it. This is, in essence, the bargain we are making with Syrian rebels.
Not to mention the fact that it will likely drive Assad further into the loving arms of Vladimir Putin, who just cant wait to provide more arms to Syrias ruling regime in exchange for money and influence. Israel is not commenting, but they are surely feeling more squeezed, since Syrian rebels have a tendency to pass their weapons over to their Hezbollah friends. Israel watches closely, and sends a few F-16s to intercept these weapons when it happens. I imagine they wont be too thrilled to face American weapons, or the possibility of bombing Americans present during these transfers.
This bill that the House and the Senate passed just has bad idea written all over it. But in the do something! climate in Washington, with elections scarcely 50 days away, and Obama refusing to do anything except arming or convincing other people to fight ISIS on the ground, Congress caved.
Never to waste the opportunity to kick all the cans down the road past the election, Congress hid a bonus in the bill--an Easter egg: the reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank through June 2015. They could have just let it die, but no, they snuck it in under the news cycle.
I cant see our elected officials appearing any way but indecisive and cowardly to the rest of the world. We put on this strong show, and we certainly have the technology and weapons to defeat ISIS. But I think they see through that and realize theres not much substance behind the airstrikes (though they may be effective). We may simply have become a paper tiger, later to be drawn fully into a conflict that will make Vietnam or Iraq look like Grenada.
Cowards make poor leaders, and paying someone else to take care of bullies is a devils bargain. Americans are made of better stuff than that.
Arabs make lousy mercenaries. Always have.
America is NOW in the ‘client war’ business... and holding our own.
“O” is striving to make America the premier paymaster in this industry!
Thanks “O”!!
“It appears cowardly, and even immoral to pay others to fight for you.”
Congress wouldn’t be fighting were it to declare war, so they’d be paying people to fight for them anyway. Their only alternative would be to reinstate the draft, in which case soldiers would fight not for money but to avoid hard labor and ignominy. Besides, it’s misleading to say they’re fighting for us. They fighting for Syrians and Iraqis, or something, and Kurds and, as usual, Israelis, but only very indirectly for us.
By the way, “appears”? Is it or isn’t it? Is this yet another commentary on the shadow play that is politics, or is this writer of the “well, if you ask me,” “just my humble opinion, but” “seems to me,” “I feel,” “kinda-sorta,” “almost,” “as if,” “like, you know whatever,” school?
The Roman Empire was once the most powerful in the whole world, then they became fat, lazy and stupid, They paid others to fight for them. How did that work out?
I told hubby last night....if he didn’t want our boots on the ground instead of spending a year or 2 or 3 etc. training others to fight for us they should have just hired a bunch of mercenaries. Would’ve been a lot faster and probably cheaper.
No, this is not our fight.
We did not go into Syria and it is falling apart.
We did not go into Egypt and it is falling apart.
Ditto other parts of the ME
And even if we did screw up things in Iraq, two wrongs do not make a right.
Saddaam Hussein was not going to live forever and as soon as he was gone (either died of natural causes or someone took him out) civil wars was enevitble in Iraq.
Same think in Libya
Same thing in Syria
Same thing in Saudi Arabia
Do you think all these places would have been or will be peaceful one iron-fisted dictators are gone?
>>What if the newly armed rebels turn and use their weapons against Assad instead of ISIS? <<
That’s exactly what Obama is hoping for.
Americans have little appetite for anymore GWB/McCain/Grahamnesty massive ground wars in these poor Islamic crap holes, and rightly so,
I think he made a strange point there. Nothing immoral, IMHO, about paying others to fight. Or at least financing others to fight. For example it would have made sense to arm the Northern Alliance to marginalize the Taliban. It is their country and they know it better and the enemy better than we do.
In this case, the problem is it is unclear who is a true moderate, if any exist at all in the rebel camp in Syria. As far as I’m concerned minorities such as Christians are better under Assad than any of the rebels.
Thanks, Grae!
I thought the Rats didn’t like “Outsourcing.”.....
‘Arabs are bad enemies and worse allies’. Napoleon I
Worked for King George III, what could go wrong?
Yesterday, the Senate approved a bill to arm and train Syrian rebels, who fight against Bashar Assad, so they can eliminate ISIS, which possesses hundreds of millions of dollars, and no shortage of fighters willing to die for them... Even libertarian-leaning (read: isolationist) Rand Paul voted for this measure.Im not sending your son, your daughter, over to the middle of that chaos, said Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, whose libertarian views have propelled him into contention for his partys 2016 nomination. The people who live there need to stand up and fight.
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