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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

#101

Post by elif »

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.

7 wars at last count, i believe. Or actually, 0 wars and 7 AUMFs since if they were wars, congress would have to publicly debate their merits and impacts.

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

#102

Post by mentalpiracy »

notfromhere wrote: post #61
baursak wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This literally started a couple of months ago under Trump, along with ending CIA's weapons running program. Here Trump truly deserves credit and outshines Nobel Peace laureate Obama. If he removes PKK from the US list of terrorist groups, that would be a 3 for 3 for him, although I'm not holding my breath.

US has been supporting the Kurds longer than trump's term in office

We have been supporting the Kurds, yes - but our support is schizophrenic at best.

Though the Kurds are almost everything the US could want in a mideast ally - moderate, self-sustaining and stable, demonstrably capable - we will probably never embrace them fully due to our relationship with Turkey.

Some backstory:

Turkey lists the PKK as a terrorist organization, as Ankara and PKK have been fighting a separatist conflict for decades. Though the PKK has never targeted Americans, the US still lists the PKK as a terror org to placate Ankara.

The US has invested in Turkey as a strategic regional ally since the Cold War. Geographically Turkey was a key bulwark against Soviet power, and indeed we housed nuclear missiles within Turkish territory for many years. Even after the USSR collapsed, Turkey's regional value to the United States has grown. Incirlik is one of the largest air bases in the world, and remains a key logistical point for our military action in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Turkey was also important to the US ideologically because they were a stable, moderate, secular Muslim state, e.g. the kind of country we wanted to serve as a template for the rest of the Middle East. Thanks to Erdogan, this value has decreased sharply thanks to his moves to consolidate autocratic power at the expense of the still largely secular and moderate Turkish populace.

(Tried to keep the value judgements out of that, sorry if I offended someone by summarizing too generally).

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

#103

Post by pm90 »

alrs wrote: post #67
frandroid wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you miss the part where the U.S. has been giving tremendous support to the SDF/YPG in its fight against ISIS?

The US supported both Iran and Iraq in their war against each other, which makes sense if the end-goal was to weaken both. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Contra_affair http://www.nytimes.com/1992/01/26/world/us-secretly-gave-aid...

This comment is quite misleading. The US did support Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war. The Iran-Contra affair, if you read the article you linked to, was an attempt to free American hostages held by Hezbollah (an Iranian funded group) while also procuring illicit money to pay the Contras. i.e. US sells weapons to Iran, Iran pays US, Hezbollah frees hostages, US pays the money from Iran to Contras. The US never supported Iran the way it supported Iraq; the USG has been pretty anti-Iran every since the Islamic revolution, and specifically the storming of the US embassy in Teheran.

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

#104

Post by Swizec »

ep103 wrote: post #70
djsumdog wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been saying this for years. "The CIA created ISIS. Not just funded, but created the situation where such organizations could come up." I constantly get criticized for this. "No, of course America isn't funding ISIS. We're fighting them." I then talk about The Bay of Pigs, the 1973 Coupe in Chile, Iranian Contras, The School of the Americas ... a criminal rap sheet that shows a pattern of sociopathhy by the US go…

You're right about ISIS for what its worth. The documentary "The Power of Nightmares" is a really good introduction to the background of that whole story for people who criticize you on the topic. Its very accessible and well researched (and from the BBC, so reputable). But yeah, the short and long of it is that Donald Rumsfeld specifically disbanded the Iraqi command structure after the invasion, against President B…

> He literally admitted to a war crime, and nothing happened.

I thought the idea was that you call them terrorists specifically so that they’re not official enemy combatants and the Geneva convention doesn’t apply?

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

#105

Post by kruhft »

rublev wrote: post #58
djsumdog wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been saying this for years. "The CIA created ISIS. Not just funded, but created the situation where such organizations could come up." I constantly get criticized for this. "No, of course America isn't funding ISIS. We're fighting them." I then talk about The Bay of Pigs, the 1973 Coupe in Chile, Iranian Contras, The School of the Americas ... a criminal rap sheet that shows a pattern of sociopathhy by the US go…

>we've been in 1984 long before I was born and long before my parents were born. Can you expand on this? Thanks.

1984 was simply an extrapolation into the future from someone that already saw the story as a later progression of what is or what has been in societies. The powers that be have always 'watched', there have always been class systems (being a Party member or a Prole), and each class is always said to have it better than the rest, although each always wants to be on the other side, thinking it's better.

It's been this way a long time and didn't start with 1984. There's a saying the '1984 is not an instruction manual', but with it's great proliferation amogst all the great works, one has to wonder that it's spread through society can be thought of as an instruction book on how to lead a society into fear and oppression by claiming it is literature.

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

#106

Post by evunveot »

travmatt wrote: post #24
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?

Broadly, America has traditionally supported Sunni leaning states, most notably Saudi Arabia. Russia has traditionally supported Shia Iran, and both the powers are competing for influence within the region. In the course of the Arab Spring, the legitimacy of many ME leaders/dictators was questioned, among the most notable of these was the rule of Bashar al-Assad of Syria. A popular local outpouring of resentment agai…

There's also the pipeline angle, which isn't a mainstream narrative, though I haven't noticed anyone trying to debunk it. Article by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.:

https://www.ecowatch.com/syria-another-pipeline-war-18821805...

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

#107

Post by omurphy27 »

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…

Are those locations occupied exclusively by Al Qaeda? The only evidence you've shown is that the CIA has given arms to rebels in areas where Al Qaeda and its affiliates are known to operate.

I see no evidence that the CIA directly gave weapons to Al-Nusra or other Al-Qaeda affiliates. And zero evidence of any direct funding or support of ISIS as conspiracy theorists and Putin propagandists love to assert.

It's possible that these weapons fell into the hands of Al-Qaeda, but more evidence needs to be presented and it's doubtful that arming Al-Qaeda was ever the original intent.

As for arming the SDF/YPG, that has been well known and public for awhile. Morever, the Kurdish forces are pretty much the only ones actually making significant progress against ISIS and will likely be the ones to free Raqqa. Arming and supporting them is completely justifiable, just as supporting the Iraqi army in their fight against ISIS was and remains justified.

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

#108

Post by david927 »

meri_dian wrote: post #98

This is a damned if we do damned if we don't sort of situation. People are horrified by Assad's regime, so the US is called to take action. Arming rebels is one way it has taken action. Unfortunately in a situation as complex as Syria some of those weapons inevitably fall into the hands of rebels groups we do not want to be associating with. On the other hand if the US were to do nothing, people would decry the injus…

Rubbish. The US needs to curb its military, worldwide.

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

#109

Post by pm90 »

wil421 wrote: post #86
djsumdog wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact, Gaddafi didn't run the country. No media outlets reported on the democratically elected head of state in Libya. They also didn't report on the free electricity, subsidized housing, subsidized fuel, free education and the fact that Libya was stable and in no debt to the WMF. Now they are in debt to the WMF, are a totally non-stable state ravaged with crime and their slowly progressively moving government has…

Free is only free until your money runs out. Look at Venezuela, the government gave the things you listed as free until they couldn't.

You could say that about almost any Petro State, including Saudi Arabia. Libya's tremendous energy reserves plus small urban population made it that much more easy to offer freebies to all the citizens who asked for it.

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

#110

Post by shitgoose »

iovrthoughtthis wrote: post #95
djsumdog wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been saying this for years. "The CIA created ISIS. Not just funded, but created the situation where such organizations could come up." I constantly get criticized for this. "No, of course America isn't funding ISIS. We're fighting them." I then talk about The Bay of Pigs, the 1973 Coupe in Chile, Iranian Contras, The School of the Americas ... a criminal rap sheet that shows a pattern of sociopathhy by the US go…

We've always been at war with Eastasia

thank you for proving GP point.

EDIT: "CNN says that we are at war with Eastasia. therefore we are at war with Eastasia."

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