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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsObama advisor Susan Rice hints at ‘lethal’ aid to Syrian rebels
President Barack Obamas top foreign policy advisor Susan Rice on Friday said Washington was providing lethal and non-lethal support to select members of the Syrian opposition, offering more detail than usual on US assistance.
Top Obama administration officials typically decline to say exactly what equipment, arms or ammunition the United States is providing to moderate Syrian opposition forces.
But President Barack Obama said in a major foreign policy speech last week that the United States would ramp up support for rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad.
National Security Advisor Susan Rice said in an interview with CNN while she was traveling with Obama to D-Day 70th anniversary celebrations in Normandy that she was heartbroken about the carnage in Syrias civil war.
Thats why the United States has ramped up its support for the moderate vetted opposition, providing lethal and non-lethal support where we can to support both the civilian opposition and the military opposition.
Read More: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/06/06/obama-advisor-susan-rice-hints-at-lethal-aid-to-syrian-rebel/
Weapons for terrorists, what could go wrong...
MisterP
(23,730 posts)to the most amateurish hermeneutics to find out "why they hate us" when it's just the CIA showering them and then pulling the rug out from under them (as has been the case since the 50s)
Jenoch
(7,720 posts)include Syria for background checks?
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)This is a really shoddy, cynical policy. It is literally designed to kill enough Syrians to force Assad to the table to negotiate his own demise. And that isn't going to happen, as any serious observer of the "Syrian revolution" will tell.
Anybody want to talk about our last humanitarian intervention, in Libya? No? I didn't think so.
pampango
(24,692 posts)that isn't going to happen ..."
I agree with you there. If anything has been proven in this conflict it is that you can't kill enough Syrians to force Assad to the bargaining table.
1. There has been no military intervention in Syria, and as a result 150,000 people are dead and several million displaced; even an unstable Libya has been far, far less troubled than Syria is.
2. There was no Western military intervention in Egypt (the West preferred Hosni Mubarak), but it has swerved toward military rule and violent polarization, too. The independent variable doesnt appear to be Western intervention.
3. So the lesson is that revolutions are often messy. Nothing was more depressing than French politics in the 1790s, which swerved from terror to Thermidor to Bonapartes coup. Somehow you dont hear so much about how we should bring the Bourbon monarchy back to France. The Gaddafists still carp from under the trash heap of history, but cant possibly keep it up much longer. The Libyans have an open rather than a closed future now; there are lots of things they can do with it. Unfortunately, not all are necessarily positive. Still, an open future is generally better than a closed one.
And no, these problems of transition would not justify having kept the totalitarian and murderous dictatorship of Muammar Gaddafi in place. In fact, many of the extremist fundamentalists were provoked to a life of violence by his oppression.
http://www.juancole.com/2014/05/revolution-political-extremist.html
What Cole neglects is that "totalitarian and murderous dictatorships" do their terror in secret with midnight arrests and torture in hidden cells that we in the West never actually witness. It is quite easy to ignore and focus on the "law and order" in the streets. As bad as things are in Libya you seldom hear of anyone actually fondly wishing for a return to the good ol' days of Gaddafi. Perhaps they know something of Gaddafi's governing style that we do not.
Liberals used to trash the US policy of promoting and supporting dictators in the Middle East and elsewhere for the sake of 'stability' and 'the lesser of two evils'. Ahh, the good ol' days.
KG
(28,749 posts)upper hand tactically...
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)KG
(28,749 posts)woo me with science
(32,139 posts)B Calm
(28,762 posts)AngryAmish
(25,704 posts)There will never be a negociated solutuon. Let them sort it out.