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The Pentagon Is Spending Up To $2.2B on Soviet-Style Arms for Syrian Rebels

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Re: The Pentagon Is Spending Up To $2.2B on Soviet-Style Arms for Syrian Rebels

#11

Post by banned1 »

skrebbel wrote: post #3
r721 wrote: post #2

The better link is the whole project page: https://www.occrp.org/en/makingakilling/ >Since the outbreak of war in Syria, weapons from Central and Eastern Europe have flooded the conflict zone through two distinct pipelines – one sponsored by Saudi Arabia and coordinated by the CIA, and the other funded and directed by the Pentagon. >A series of investigations by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and t…

Anyone got a tl;dr about the motive behind all this? What does the US government gain by flooding the middle East with weapons?

Funds?

Re: The Pentagon Is Spending Up To $2.2B on Soviet-Style Arms for Syrian Rebels

#12

Post by QAPereo »

baursak wrote: post #5

The US is literally sponsoring Al-Qaeda and its affiliates in Syria to fuel the proxy war against Russia and Iran and to hinder their fight against ISIS and other jihadi groups. It's 1980s all over again and a 16th anniversary of 9/11. No lessons learned.

Lessons were learned... 9/11 gave the MIC 2 tasty wars, one ongoing and the longest ever for us. They've learned that this is how you create a cycle of demand, aka a cycle of violence.

Re: The Pentagon Is Spending Up To $2.2B on Soviet-Style Arms for Syrian Rebels

#13

Post by phyller »

skrebbel wrote: post #3
r721 wrote: post #2

The better link is the whole project page: https://www.occrp.org/en/makingakilling/ >Since the outbreak of war in Syria, weapons from Central and Eastern Europe have flooded the conflict zone through two distinct pipelines – one sponsored by Saudi Arabia and coordinated by the CIA, and the other funded and directed by the Pentagon. >A series of investigations by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and t…

Anyone got a tl;dr about the motive behind all this? What does the US government gain by flooding the middle East with weapons?

The article says they are theoretically only arming groups that are fighting against ISIS. I'm pretty sure if they can defeat them on the ground without committing American troops (airstrikes can only do so much) and only spending $1 billion dollars they are going to consider that a big win.

The sentiment of this question explains why even further. ISIS does very bad stuff and is a major problem, and we can all wonder why the west doesn't do more to stop them because they clearly have the ability to do so. But then the moment the US gets really involved, everyone is going to shift blame to them for everything. I don't condone secretive actions like this myself, but considering the US's global influence and capability, if they weren't doing something about ISIS the question could easily be restated "What does the US government gain by allowing extremists to rape and pillage the middle east?"

Re: The Pentagon Is Spending Up To $2.2B on Soviet-Style Arms for Syrian Rebels

#14

Post by hLHEDuYtSh »

This article makes it sound like the program is ongoing, but I am not sure how to reconcile this with stories like this, which claim that the program has been cancelled: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump...

Does anyone have insight here?

Re: The Pentagon Is Spending Up To $2.2B on Soviet-Style Arms for Syrian Rebels

#15

Post by cfv »

skrebbel wrote: post #3
r721 wrote: post #2

The better link is the whole project page: https://www.occrp.org/en/makingakilling/ >Since the outbreak of war in Syria, weapons from Central and Eastern Europe have flooded the conflict zone through two distinct pipelines – one sponsored by Saudi Arabia and coordinated by the CIA, and the other funded and directed by the Pentagon. >A series of investigations by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and t…

Anyone got a tl;dr about the motive behind all this? What does the US government gain by flooding the middle East with weapons?

Shitting on Russia's projection of power?

Re: The Pentagon Is Spending Up To $2.2B on Soviet-Style Arms for Syrian Rebels

#16

Post by sixQuarks »

QAPereo wrote: post #12
baursak wrote: post #5

The US is literally sponsoring Al-Qaeda and its affiliates in Syria to fuel the proxy war against Russia and Iran and to hinder their fight against ISIS and other jihadi groups. It's 1980s all over again and a 16th anniversary of 9/11. No lessons learned.

Lessons were learned... 9/11 gave the MIC 2 tasty wars, one ongoing and the longest ever for us. They've learned that this is how you create a cycle of demand, aka a cycle of violence.

Sadly, you're probably correct. Although we should never underestimate the incompetence of government, but this is too crazy to be incompetence.

Re: The Pentagon Is Spending Up To $2.2B on Soviet-Style Arms for Syrian Rebels

#17

Post by wu-ikkyu »

hLHEDuYtSh wrote: post #14

This article makes it sound like the program is ongoing, but I am not sure how to reconcile this with stories like this, which claim that the program has been cancelled: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump... Does anyone have insight here?

See Iran Contra. Congress made it illegal to use tax payer $ to fund Nicaraguan terrorists, so the MIC created a clandestine workaround.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran–Contra_affair

Re: The Pentagon Is Spending Up To $2.2B on Soviet-Style Arms for Syrian Rebels

#18

Post by raverbashing »

phyller wrote: post #13
skrebbel wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone got a tl;dr about the motive behind all this? What does the US government gain by flooding the middle East with weapons?

The article says they are theoretically only arming groups that are fighting against ISIS. I'm pretty sure if they can defeat them on the ground without committing American troops (airstrikes can only do so much) and only spending $1 billion dollars they are going to consider that a big win. The sentiment of this question explains why even further. ISIS does very bad stuff and is a major problem, and we can all wonde…

"only arming groups that are fighting against ISIS"

Yeah, a lot of "moderate rebels" (that are slightly less theocratic than ISIS)

Re: The Pentagon Is Spending Up To $2.2B on Soviet-Style Arms for Syrian Rebels

#19

Post by Quarrelsome »

misja111 wrote: post #8
skrebbel wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone got a tl;dr about the motive behind all this? What does the US government gain by flooding the middle East with weapons?

The war in Syria is a proxy for a battle between two countries: Iran on the one side, which supports Assad's regime, and Saudi Arabia on the other side, which supports the Sunnite rebel groups ISIS and Al Qaida. Saudi Arabia is an ally of the US and Iran an enemy, so therefore the US supports the rebel groups that fight Assad's regime. What's more, US's close ally Israel is right at the border of Syria and Israel is…

Assad is also Russia, that's a pretty big deal. Its worth noting how this conflict also draws in people linked to Hamas and Hezbollah. Its suspected that part of ISIS's emergence was due to Turkey as they expanded towards the Kurds (a key demographic that Turkey is keen on subduing) so it really is a clusterfuck before we even start to consider US/Russian involvement.

Re: The Pentagon Is Spending Up To $2.2B on Soviet-Style Arms for Syrian Rebels

#20

Post by jdhn »

hammock wrote: post #4

The same documents confirm the CIA has been arming Al Qaeda in Syria. Scroll down to the last map[1] which shows CIA weapons went directly to Idlib province (northwest section in green) and the Golan border region (south). Both of these areas were and continue to be occupied by Al Qaeda. Idlib specifically is where genocidal cleansing of religious minorities was confirmed to be conducted by Al Qaeda "rebels" directly…

At this point, is anybody surprised by this? It's quite clear that when it comes to sponsoring groups in the Middle East, we just throw money/weapons at anyone, no matter who they are.
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