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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

#111

Post by losteric »

Alex3917 wrote: post #44
jdhn wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> At this point, is anybody surprised by this? I mean it does seem weird that you have liberals cheerleading for funding a genocide, and completely losing their shit at Republicans for trying to stop it.

No, that's just the media inciting tribalism for profit.

People across the political spectrum are sick and tired of our absurdly expensive and destabilizing foreign wars and international policing.

Republican politicians are escalating the war. We've actually increased the number of lives and dollars being sent to this war since Trump came into office. None of the Republican governing factions are seriously opposed to the Middle Eastern war.

Democrat politicians aren't really trying to stop it either. Obama de-escalated relative to Bush, but there was never a serious push to withdraw. Some of the progressive governing factions are in favor of moving foreign war spending to domestic investments, but I don't really hear the drums beating for ending the war purely for the sake of it.

There's a disgusting discrepancy between voter priorities and politicians.

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

#112

Post by rajathagasthya »

travmatt wrote: post #7
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.

So all Russia and Iran are doing is just trying to defend against ISIS? That's certainly one interpretation I suppose.

To put in another way, Russia is trying to defend Assad rather than fighting ISIS. They are going to fight anyone who opposes Assad, whether it's ISIS or the rebels. The reason is their military bases in Syria which Assad has allowed them to operate in exchange for his "safety".

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

#113

Post by TheCowboy »

hammock wrote: post #30
EGreg wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can someone write an article about this??

Many have, you just won't find it on ABC, NBC, CBS, NYTimes, WaPo, etc...

Wasn't hard to find: "and reports that some of the C.I.A.-supplied weapons had ended up in the hands of a rebel group tied to Al Qaeda further sapped political support for the program."

New York Times, Aug 2, 2017

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

#114

Post by danso »

I doubt I would have read this article (through HN) if the submitter hadn't added "Falsifies End User Documents" to the submission title (actual title of the article is "Revealed: The Pentagon Is Spending Up To $2.2 Billion on Soviet-Style Arms for Syrian Rebels"). So I'm glad that technical detail was emphasized, because a lot of this story deals with technicalities. It's not a secret that the Pentagon spends hundreds of millions to fund rebel groups -- as the article points out, they put out press releases and official PowerPoints about it. But what is interesting is the obfuscation of details, such as the special ops "end-user certificate" which is so vaguely worded that it basically implies the Pentagon could transfer weapons to anyone it feels like. "NATO allies and partners" instead of "Republic of Iraq", for instance.

I loved the example of one of the publicly-available arms contracts being altered after reporters sent questions; even in something as big as arms deals and proxy wars, someone in the bureaucracy will fuck up the paperwork: https://www.occrp.org/assets/makingakilling/pentagon-procure...

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

#115

Post by megous »

baursak wrote: post #77
notfromhere wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Not sure what you mean by "Kurds". Why is PKK still a designated terrorist group?

Obviously some Kurds in north-east of Syria. I'm not sure there's any support of Kurds on the Turkey side, where Kurdish cities are being razed to the ground last several years. It's not even in the news that much compared to the other stuff from the region. Yet there is million or more of internally displaced people by this violence.

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

#116

Post by pm90 »

Swizec wrote: post #104
ep103 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

No, its because it was terrorists that caused 9/11. So, you could justify anything if you just said: we're doing it because they're "terrorists".

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

#117

Post by parthdesai »

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...

and for US military industries to profit.

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

#118

Post by Chathamization »

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…

> The same documents confirm the CIA has been arming Al Qaeda in Syria.

That's not true. The U.S. has never armed al Qaeda in Syria (al Nusra). The U.S. has bombed them[1], and cut off arms to other groups when it looked like there was a possibility of them getting into al Qaeda's/al Nusra's hands[2].

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/20/world/middleeast/us-airst... [2] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-rebel...

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

#119

Post by travmatt »

evunveot wrote: post #106
travmatt wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

This is what people mean by strategic interest. But trying to say the Syrian proxy war is over a pipeline is saying the tail is wagging the dog.

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

#120

Post by rebuilder »

CapitalistCartr wrote: post #55
totalZero wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Setting aside every other part of this discussion: I don't think a state actor can be accurately described as sociopathic. The expectations and interactions among nations are fundamentally different from those among people.

Then why is it so many other countries don't act as we do? USSR under Joe did; that's hardly a ringing endorsement. Any Scandinavian country would be a good counter argument. Finland has withstood Soviet/Russian intimidation for more than seven decades without running around instigating insane, right-wing police states across the Globe.

Most states lack the means to throw their weight around like the USA does.

Interstate relations are what anarchy looks like.

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