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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

#171

Post by [deleted] »

Chathamization wrote: post #156
omurphy27 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 possib…

> Are those locations occupied exclusively by Al Qaeda? They aren't; there are even areas controlled by the Syrian government. Here's a map of Idlib that someone tried to make recently[1]; HTS is the group that includes al Qaeda/al Nusra (though it should be noted that al Nusra is officially no longer part of al Qaeda). I don't think any Idlib groups are currently being aided by the U.S. either (unless I missed somet…

[deleted]

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

#172

Post by mengibar10 »

forapurpose wrote: post #153
mengibar10 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US is giving weapons to PKK in Syria. PKK has been considered a terrorist organization both by US and EU for a very long time, I mean decades. They are giving weapons under the pretext of fighting ISIS. Among the weapons given there are surface to air anti-aircraft missiles. Strange thing is that ISIS does not have any aircraft to shoot down. The amount of weapon delivery as of last week is about 13,000 containers. H…

The PKK is a far more complex issue. Their mission is self-determination for Kurdish people. After WWI, the Allied powers split the region where the Kurds reside, their hoped-for Kurdistan, between Turkey, Iraq, and Syria. They have faced oppression and worse (e.g., Iraq murdered Kurdish civilians with chemical weapons in the 1980s) from these governments for generations. In Iraq: In the contest with Saddam Hussein,…

In that case, can we then draw the conclusion that US is giving PKK all these weapons for a purpose beyond fighting ISIS?

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

#173

Post by enraged_camel »

megous wrote: post #123
enraged_camel wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The PKK is responsible for killing over 30,000 Turkish civilians back in the 80s and 90s. That's roughly ten times the number of people that died in 9/11 attacks. If that doesn't make them a terrorist organization... well, I don't know what to tell you.

Turkey is responsible for executing 20,000 Kurdish civilians and destroying several thousands villages in the same conflict. They're still destroying Kurdish cities today, Sur, Sirnak, Nusaybin, Cizre, ... Burning civilians alive by hundreds in one incident. If that doesn't make them a terrorist organization... well, I don't know what to tell you. It's a war.

>>Turkey is responsible for executing 20,000 Kurdish civilians and destroying several thousands villages in the same conflict. They're still destroying Kurdish cities today, Sur, Sirnak, Nusaybin, Cizre, ... Burning civilians alive by hundreds in one incident.

[citation needed]

Turkey is definitely not blameless in this conflict, but I want to see some reliable sources for the outrageous claims you just made.

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

#174

Post by mmjaa »

baursak wrote: post #155
ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought as you do. That's why I invested in Haliburton when Trump was elected. I figured the Military/Industrial complex was about to do VERY well. I'm down 20% since Trump was elected. Not saying we are wrong, necessarily. But its good to check these theories against reality whenever possible. http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/hal

Should have gone with Raytheon, up ~35% since the election. Why HAL anyway, it's more of an oil company than a MIC company?

Oil companies are the industry, in military-industrial-complex.

(Note that it should really be: military-industrial-pharmaceutical complex, since that is a more accurate description of the conglomerates currently destroying the planet..)

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

#175

Post by mengibar10 »

ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #127
yogthos wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wars are a business for the US military industrial complex, plain and simple. The longer US is funding these wars, the more profit these people make.

I thought as you do. That's why I invested in Haliburton when Trump was elected. I figured the Military/Industrial complex was about to do VERY well. I'm down 20% since Trump was elected. Not saying we are wrong, necessarily. But its good to check these theories against reality whenever possible. http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/hal

What makes you think Trump is pro-war? My observation that he's against wars unless they are very profitable for the State not necessarily for companies. That is why the stocks are down probably. On the contrary Clinton was pro-war and establishment wanted her to win but she lost.

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

#176

Post by mengibar10 »

mentalpiracy wrote: post #102
notfromhere wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 conf…

PKK is a terrorist organization because they have been killing civilians. Especially indiscriminate killings through bombings market places, public meetings. Most of the time their victims have been Kurdish people.

A terrorist is a terrorist only when Americans are targeted?

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

#177

Post by zeep »

rtkwe wrote: post #167
curiousgal wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>fell into the hands of Al-Qaeda If you’re spending billions on weapons I doubt you didn’t make sure they go to the right person.

Even with a perfect screening process for the initial deliveries it's really easy for weapons to end up in unintended hands just as positions/territory are taken and lost by the various sides.

> really easy

meaning more than 50% of weapons?

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

#178

Post by mengibar10 »

meri_dian wrote: post #159
mythrwy wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not people are horrified by Assad's regime at all. That's just a line to sell a war in newspapers. There are much much worse governments than Assad in the world. Some are nominally our friends. Some we just ignore because they aren't in strategically important locations or don't have resources of interest. I thought it was commonly understood at this point that "spreading democracy and human liberty" translated…

You're much too cynical. We support democratic nations and try to set up democracy and liberal institutions when situations present themselves. We don't completely shut out nations like Saudi Arabia because there is more to be gained by working with them than against them. What would you want the US to do, invade Saudi Arabia because we disagree with it?

Do you support Democratic nation? Read and learn (spoiler it was not the first nor the last time).

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/19/cia-admits-rol...

The mistake you're making is using the "we". If you mean a state within State by "we", you are wrong, if you mean the people, the public, you are right. People general have no clue what their state (not government) are doing to others.

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

#179

Post by refurb »

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.

Finland did align themselves with Nazi Germany early in WW2 in their effort to counter Soviet actions.

Only after they came to a stalemate and peaceful agreement with the USSR did they split from the Axis and align with the Allies.

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

#180

Post by balance_factor »

omurphy27 wrote: post #107
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 possib…

> 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

You stick a very key word there, directly. In fact the US is who funded and armed Osama bin Laden and his followers jihad against the secular government of Afghanistan in the late 1970s and 1980s - but the CIA did it via the Pakistan ISI. The Maktab al-Khidamat actually had connections to organizations all over the USA.

The US press says Cambodia was taken over in 1975 by communists led by Pol Pot, and in a de facto sense that is somewhat true but in a strict de jure sense it is not. Sihanouk, the Cambodian king who had been ousted by a CIA-backed coup by Lon Nol was who officially ran the government. He was in a political, governmental and military coalition with the communists. The US government and press saw his role as a figurehead and it's not that inaccurate. OK, the Cambodian communists are ousted in the 1979 and suddenly the US is looking to oppose Vietnamese communist influence in Cambodia. So who do they fight to keep the UN seat of? Who does US intelligence fund and arm? The political/military coalition of Sihanouk and the Cambodian communists. Which in the 1970s was called the Khmer Rouge. But suddenly things aren't happening directly, and the fig leaf of Sihanouk and other minor figures and groups becomes much bigger. This was reported in the New York Times at the time, and Nightline went even further, taking a camera crew to Cambodia and showing exactly what was going on - that the US was arming the "Khmer Rouge" rebels whom it had been accusing of genocide a few years earlier.

If a direct link is what is needed then you're not going to find much, as they're not that dumb and incompetent.

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