Posted on 09/14/2014 7:29:35 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
One concern about President Obama‘s counterterrorism strategy against ISIS is the plan to arm moderate Syrian rebels to fight the terrorist group. Arming moderate rebels was a contentious debate last year in the national fight over how to deal with President Bashar al-Assad, but now a new enemy is inspiring the calls for action. John McCain, in one of his rare TV appearances, said on Fox News today that anyone saying they mistrust the Free Syrian Army is just making excuses for not taking action against ISIS.
McCain touted that he’s “vetted a number of them because I know them.” It was at that point Fox aired the infamous photo from last year of McCain and a few Syrian rebels, two of which turned out to be suspected kidnappers. This led to Rand Paul taking a shot at McCain and illustrating this as an example of why it’s hard to properly vet Syrian rebels.
McCain said today, “Hundreds and even thousands of them have been killed and slaughtered with these barrel bombs and tortured to death by Bashar Assad. They can be trusted. There are groups of them to be trusted.”
(Excerpt) Read more at mediaite.com ...
ISIS = AL QAEDA.
Devastating.
Nothing like a good vetting to get your group a big wad of our tax dollars, right?
Kinda like the enema craze of the late eighteen hundreds. No matter what the problem, a good vetting will wash those tax dollars right out of the rump of Uncle Sam.
Go away McCain
John McCain: enemy islamist facilitator.
You know it’s bad when your president is selling us out to his Islamic fellow travelers, and the man who is supposed to lead the opposition declares known terrorists to not be so bad, and we should support them.
All of a sudden, al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood are our buddies? Really McCain?
Arizonans, we tried to tell you this guy was bad news back in 2010. We won’t be rid of him until 2017, if then.
I volunteered to drive to Arizona and walk neighborhoods if you folks needed it. I was told you had things under control, you didn’t need me.
I told you then what I’m telling you now, John McCain is human filth. He is the worst of the worst. The results of his actions would be the same as Obamas.
Obama knows and deals with the terrorists. McCain doesn’t know, and thinks he’s smarter than everyone else, and blunders into the same groups and supports them because they agreed to talk with him.
He is a major world class ass hat clown.
If us normal people can see that ISIS is evil, why cant the elected ones see it too?
They must be as dumb as a sack of doorknobs.
Exactly how I’m reading this. Unflipping real.
Is that Chris Stevens to the right of McCain?
Despite McCain’s vocal outrage over Benghazi, he’s just as guilty as Obama and Clinton.
First, in the spring of 2013 the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 15-3 to arm the Syrian rebels. That was 15 republicans and democrats voting yes. The two antiwar dems and the isolationist Rand Paul voted no.
Obama worked up a plan, which involved the CIA with the CIA doing the actual vetting. Obama submitted the plan back to Congress and the intelligence committee approved it.
So CIA would vet each group, train the group, and give them the weapons. But there were no anti-aircraft weapons, only anti-tank weapons. The rebels complained that they needed anti-aircraft weapons because the barrels bombs assad was using were killing not only rebels but also women and children. Plus the rebels said pace of the program was very slow.
Congress began talking about spending more money to speed it up and giving them anti-aircraft weapons, but then the airliner got shot down in Ukraine so they all stopped talking about it.
Now they are talking about it again.
Only a fool would trust a moslem and give them weapons and training.
Carpet bomb anything that moves,blow up the oilfields that they use for income, destroy anything with wheels and let these animals ride donkeys and camels into battle.
All this can be accomplished from the air.
Anybody agitating for a “coalition” of “moderate” rebels is out of their freaking mind at best and a subversive traitor at worst.
Ben, I don’t disagree with you, but who does the leg work? McCain goes into these places, talks to the terrorists, and it winds up with him influencing the Republicans to go along with the Democrats to support such things.
The guy winds up the Lead Man of the Left.
Those people on the committee relied on his word about the terrorist groups. Then they move as a majority to task the CIA with something that isn’t a good idea.
And then the thing all blows up in our faces as the weapons and any financial support winds up in the hands of ISIS, in part or as a whole.
It’s laughable to me that even the CIA might think they can identify the good terrorists from the bad terrorists. In this instance al Qaeda made up the majority of the group they thought should be supported.
Imagine that. The CIA thought al Qaeda was a group that merited our support.
Well, John mustered the votes, and this meant the CIA had to find someone to support, and al Qaeda was the only group they could.
Isn’t that special.
Thank again Johnny.
After Libya, you would think someone would wise up the the idiocy of this Maverick. Maverick indeed!
McCain’s May 2013 photo-op with “Syrian rebels” (Free Syrian Army) was arranged by Elizabeth O’Bagy.
In an August 30, 2013 Wall Street Journal op-ed titled “On the Front Lines of Syria’s Civil War” O’Bagy promoted the idea that the Free Syrian Army are not jihadists:
“Moderate opposition forces—a collection of groups known as the Free Syrian Army—continue to lead the fight against the Syrian regime. While traveling with some of these Free Syrian Army battalions, I’ve watched them defend Alawi and Christian villages from government forces and extremist groups. They’ve demonstrated a willingness to submit to civilian authority, working closely with local administrative councils. And they have struggled to ensure that their fight against Assad will pave the way for a flourishing civil society.”
In Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings regarding a possible attack on Syria McCain cited this op-ed to support the idea that the Free Syrian Army are not jihadists.
The next day Secretary of State John Kerry encouraged members of the House of Representatives to read this op-ed.
Shortly after her op-ed O’Bagy was exposed as a fraud. She did not have a PhD from Georgetown as she had claimed and her connections with the Syrian Emergency Task Force where she was Political Director also came to light. She joined the Syrian Emergency Task Force on May 13.
Prior to her exposure O’Bagy also was employed as a Senior Research Analyst and Syria Team Lead by the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington, DC based foreign policy advisory group focused on the Middle East. She was hired in either August or September 2012 (unclear) and fired September 11, 2013.
The WSJ subsequently issued this clarification:
“In addition to her role at the Institute for the Study of War, Ms. O’Bagy is affiliated with the Syrian Emergency Task Force, a nonprofit operating as a 501(c)(3) pending IRS approval that subcontracts with the U.S. and British governments to provide aid to the Syrian opposition.”
The Syrian Emergency Task Force is a Washington, DC based lobbying group working for the overthrow of the Syrian government.
The Syrian Emergency Task Force receives funding from the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, itself funded by the State Department.
After being fired by Institute For The Study of War O’Bagy was hired by McCain as a “legislative assistant”.
>> The State Department, working through the Syrian Emergency Task Force, and indirectly through O’Bagy, maneuvered McCain into supporting an attack on Syria and/or arming the “good” jihadists either method with the goal of overthrowing the Syrian government. <<
Whether McCain was a willing and knowledgeable participant or was duped no long matters, he continues to support the idea of “good” jihadists even though it’s been exposed as a lie, and even though it has been known that arms supplied to “moderates” are given to ISIS.
And to remove any and all doubt the Free Syrian Army has said they are with ISIS:
“As President Obama laid out his ‘strategy’ last night for dealing with ISIS in Iraq and Syria, and as bipartisan leadership in Congress push to approve as much as $4 billion to arm the Syrian ‘rebels,’ it should be noted that the keystone to his anti-Assad policy — the ‘vetted moderate’ Free Syrian Army (FSA) — is now admitting that they, too, are working with the Islamic State.” - http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3202964/posts
>> First, in the spring of 2013 the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 15-3 to arm the Syrian rebels. That was 15 republicans and democrats voting yes. The two antiwar dems and the isolationist Rand Paul voted no.
They did so at McCain’s urging
McCain speaks out of both sides of his mouth and practically gift wrapped the WH over to Obola by not even trying to win.
“We have nothing to fear from an Obama presidency”
After long experience at watching the political scene and having worked with a House campaign, a Senate campaign, and in the campaign of several local elections, I have to say, very few people care as much about tearing down the corrupt system as the people who are getting a slice of the pork care about keeping it in place. The majority just take their toys and stay home rather than putting out the sustained effort fixing the system would take.
McCain brings home the bacon for the right money interests in Arizona so there will always be plenty of money to buy votes and to convince those who don't like him to stay home and not bother voting.
That's what you get with democracy, the high bidder wins or the vote is ignored.
Look at how much democracy is respected when states have a referendum that outlaws queers marrying one another, the result doesn't suit the people who pump money into politics so democracy doesn't apply. When they can buy an election, though, democracy trumps everything else including all the rights of the who voted against the winner.
And that's why the US was founded as a Republic, not a democracy, so that the We The People would actually have a say by voting for State Representatives who in turn chose the Senators.
Now? Tough turkey, you can't work at the State election level and influence anything Federal other than by having more money than the opposition. Even then, the winner in any given State is still limited by the flood of money that flows into Washington to beat down anyone who doesn't go along to get along. There aren't fifty States where you might get caught passing money under the table to buy yourself a Federal Senator, there's only the Federal Department of Justice which is controlled by the incumbent President with predictable results.
We're enjoying the "great benefits" that flow from progressives convincing the public to go for the Seventeenth Amendment. The Senate approves judges and other appointments and Senators were supposed to be at the beck and call of each states' House of Representatives and therefore very sensitive to the current views of the people of the State.When that power over Senators vanished and Senators couldn't be touched for six years at a time the idea of States Rights became null and void, replaced by the auctioning off of Senate seats with bidders nationwide free to add to the bid.
"Don't pay, you have no say", throughout history that's what democracy has always ends up being and that's what we now have.
JMHo
Whenever I see “John McCain says” or something like it, I stop reading.
Yeah, mclkame. They can be trusted as much as you can be trusted to properly fly an F4 Phantom. This tool was tortured too much. He is a senile freakin’ loon. His “veteran card” has been played too often by him.
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