The U.S. Should Not Sacrifice The Syrian Rebels!

Discussion in 'Middle East' started by JimfromPennsylvania, Sep 18, 2013.

  1. JimfromPennsylvania

    JimfromPennsylvania Active Member Past Donor

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    Amazingly, the U.S. and Russia made a deal this past week on a U.N. resolution requiring the country of Syria to disarm of chemical weapons. But here is the big big question mark, Bashar al-Assad, the President of Syria, says he is not cooperating in the disarmament unless the U.S. agrees to stop arming the Syrian rebels. The U.S. government should definitely and absolutely "not" take or make any such deal neither openly or secretly. Ordinary Americans cannot take it for granted the U.S. government would not do such a bad thing and make this deal for the following reasons.



    America's principle and top interest in the Middle East is the protection and safety of Israel for the past sixty years our behavior demonstrates this. Well the critical existential threats to the state of Israel are only two that is nuclear weapons from Iran and chemical weapons from Syria all the other threats are conventional which Israel can readily handle but these WMD threats could largely wipe out Israel's population thus wiping out the country. This deal that President Obama reached with Russia this past week has the potential to eliminate this Syria WMD threat it is awesome it is epic it is solving a major problem the world has had for decades! The U.S. media is absolutely ridiculous with their labeling and insinuation that President Obama lost in this confrontation with Putin he won and won big that is not to say that Putin didn't win because he saved his ally Assad from really hurting his regime from a U.S. bombings campaign. In any event, these benefits from this Syrian chemical weapon disarmament will put enormous pressure on the U.S. government to take this deal. Plus, any person knowledgeable about U.S. politics knows that the pro-Israel lobby is enormously powerful in America. If elements of this lobby decide to act maximally shrewd and amoral on this issue they could use their power to push the administration to cut such a deal it could be a secret deal to have the Obama administration save face. The circumstances of this situation sure make a compelling case if such elements want to act this way!


    Certainly the prospect of destruction of these chemical weapons alone makes a compelling reason to manipulate such a deal but also if the U.S. agrees not to arm the Syrian rebels the rebels will lose it may take two or three years but it will almost certainly happen and that offers advantages to Israel. Why will the rebels lose the Assad regime has too many trump cards; he has the country of Iran and Russia sending him any needed weapons to win this conventional war, he has battle hardened Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon to do the hard work of taking rebel ground and as we learned this past week in the Wall Street Journal he has Iran running a camp where Iran has its elite soldiers train Shiite fighters and then sends them to Syria to fight for Assad. Why is it really good for Israel if Assad crushes this rebellion and remains in power, besides the fact that Assad is now a permanently disgraced leader as a result of his regime's indefensible brutality so he will never be able to lead a formidable opposition to Israel, because the alternative could pose such great danger to Israel. If the rebels win they could hold democratic elections and a very Islamic government could gain power and advocate jihad against Israel to help the Palestinians. A more likely scenario is the Syrian people have elections where a typical moderate Arab government gains power and a stable security situation prevails in Syria which allows Arabs to focus and helps facilitate the Arab world unifying on the Palestinian question and focus and make progress on lobbying the U.N. and the world community to economically ostracize the state of Israel like the world did to the South African apartheid government. This would put enormous pressure on the government of Israel to heed reasonable voices in the peace process that say you have to be fair in dividing up the land of Palestine in setting forth boundaries for your country and the country of Palestine, the Palestinian population numbers four million people, a lot of people, you can't give them a body of land with many large and small cutouts and say go have a nice country it is not a just deal, largely the 1967 Israel borders is a fair divide it leaves the Israel people with over sixty percent of the land; both countries need to be able to have Jerusalem as their capital because of the historic symbolism of that city and Israel can't be greedy about the Palestinian portion of the city it is fair the Palestinians should get East Jerusalem and it should be East Jerusalem.


    Advocates for Israel must exhibit virtue here as the U.S. and the U.N. try to get the Assad regime to cooperate in this disarmament. They and the U.S. government and the people that hold the reins of power in American must not throw the Syrian rebels to the wolves, not sacrifice their lives and their opportunity here for freedom and democracy for success on the Syrian chemical weapons matter! It would be an off the charts betrayal and act of immorality to the Syrian people involved and supporting the rebellion to do so! Furthermore, during this past month on the Syrian chemical weapons matter Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel stated clearly and unequivocally in Congressionally that it is the U.S. governments policy to arm vetted Syrian rebels so they can succeed on the battlefield and force Assad to agree to popular election to choose his successor and President Barack Obama himself absolutely publicly did the same thing. This presidential administration really needs to follow through on these words. Any knowledgeable person with common sense knows these rebels are doomed if the U.S. doesn't come through here, Iran's treating this Syrian war like a religious war between Shia and Sunni and Putin is treating this like a gold medal fight between the Russia and the U.S. obviously the world's got to arm the Syrian rebels well enough for them to take on a well-armed conventional army or they'll lose! President Obama and the head of the CIA have to stop taking this excuse from their intelligence leaders in Jordan that they can't identify a lot of non-extremist Syrian rebel groups to support, the consensus in the intelligence community that extremists only make up fifteen to twenty percent of the Syrian rebels which means these intelligent leaders are incompetent and need to be replaced if they can't quickly remedy this problem and get the arms flowing to these rebels at least at a good rate!


    The American public has heard a lot of public cynicism on Secretary of Kerry's ambitious time table for destruction of all Syrian chemical weapons, the deadline is the middle of next year. A prudent person should not conclude this is a pie-in-the-sky, unrealistic deadline. Reports are that Syrian soldiers themselves during this rebellion moved Syrian chemical weapons spreading them from five sites to around fifty sites. Which makes one wonder why couldn't the U.N. inspector teams get a caravan of trucks go to each site load up the trucks with the weapons and drive to the Syrian coast and off-load the weapons to cargo ships where they could be taken to weapon incineration sites throughout the world; we've seen UN investigation teams drive to the worst fighting sites in this Syrian war doing chemical weapon use investigations.
     
    waltky and (deleted member) like this.
  2. waltky

    waltky Well-Known Member

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    Shhh, don't tell nobody - it's a secret...
    :wink:
    Congress secretly approves U.S. weapons flow to 'moderate' Syrian rebels
    WASHINGTON Mon Jan 27, 2014 - Light arms supplied by the United States are flowing to "moderate" Syrian rebel factions in the south of the country and U.S. funding for months of further deliveries has been approved by Congress, according U.S. and European security officials.
     
  3. waltky

    waltky Well-Known Member

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    What they really need is the weapons we agreed to send them - but haven't...
    :roll:
    US May Decide to Train Syrian Rebels
    May 28, 2014 WASHINGTON (AP) — In an open move that would significantly boost U.S. support to Syrian rebels seeking military help in their quest to oust President Bashar Assad, the White House may soon sign off on a project to train and equip moderate forces.
     
  4. HBendor

    HBendor New Member

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    I shall answer this paragraph only for this is the one I mostly disagree with.

    Israel has been a friend that the US could rely on until Mr. Clinton (the Oval office desecration) arrival, and the arrival on the scene of Mr. Obama who had to learn on the Job...
    Too many things the US has used to undermine this friendship, by putting limitations on what Israel could manufacture or export... The US is in the process of Keeping Israel out of the 'Eager Lion' training program
    Read on...
    Excerpts: 20 countries in Jordanian 'Eager Lion', no Israel 28 May 2014

    SOURCE: Jordan Times 28 May’14:”Israeli troops. No chemical weapons in Eager
    Lion”, by Khetam Malkawi
    SUBJECT:20 countries in Jordan ‘Eager Lion’ drill; Israel not included
    QUOTE: ”no Israeli troops taking part, organizers asserted”
    AMMAN — The “Eager Lion 2014” military training drill has kicked off this
    week in Jordan with no Israeli troops taking part or chemical weapons,
    organisers asserted.

    FULL TEXT: Speaking at a joint press conference in Amman on Tuesday[27 May],
    Director of Joint Military Training at the Jordan Armed Forces Brigadier
    General Fahed Damen and Director of Exercises and Training and the US
    Central Command Maj. Gen. Robert Catalanotti said that 12,000 army personnel
    from 20 countries are taking part in the exercise in its third edition.
    The training that started on May 25 will end on June 10, and aims at
    strengthening military cooperation and coordination between participating
    countries,Gen. Damen said.

    He added that the training is an opportunity to develop relations between
    the participating countries with ground, air and marine forces that are
    taking part in the drill.

    “This drill is part of a recurrent planning and it has nothing to do with
    what is taking place in the region”, Gen. Damen said in response to
    questions by the press associating the drill to the regional turmoil.

    Gen.Damen also noted that training on protecting the borders is part of this
    year’s drill.He explained that despite the increase in penetrations on
    borders, forces are doing a “great job”.

    “We saw cases of penetration but we will use, if necessary, any kind of
    power to protect our borders”.Meanwhile Maj.Gen. Catalanotti said: “We have
    brought equipment with us and when we leave for the US we will take
    everything back … Nothing will stay from what we have brought.”

    He added that preparations for Eager Lion 2015 have already started, as the
    process customarily takes 13 months.

    The US army official also referred to the drill as an investment, noting
    that the cost of hosting the drill is paid by Jordan, US and other
    participating countries.


    “This exercise is an investment. The best investment we can do,” he told
    reporters.

    In response to a question on the use of chemical weapons in the exercise,
    Gen. Damen said: “No chemical weapons were used in 2013 and 2014, only
    training on how to deal with chemical agents

    =====================================================
    Sue Lerner - Associate, IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis
    ___________________________________________________________

    And you have the temerity to emphasize the US friendship to Israel?
    If I had the time for researches I would declare here, how this judgement of yours is flawed to the core... One case that pops up like a sore thumb was when PM Netanyahu (invited by Obama to the white house) was ushered through the employees doors and left stewing while Obama went to have dinner with the family... This is the most disgraceful, lack of decor, lack of friendship by a President that has shown how to destroy his friends by putting enemies in control... and here I must emphasize Jordan, Egypt and Libya... and now Syria... surely his lack of leadership on the subject of Iran is going to hit him back when the US and Europe would be under an Iranian Atomic attack.
     
  5. HBendor

    HBendor New Member

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    Another good post by Jonathan Spyer that would have the tendency to back my feelings ( a future preparation for a confrontation on the Golan) and lately the Joint 20 Countries coordinating their training that started on May 25 and will end on June 10, the aim of this exerciseand is to strengthen military cooperation and coordination between participating countries,Gen. Damen said.

    A Most Discreet Israeli Intervention in Syria
    ~by Jonathan Spyer
    The Jerusalem Post
    May 29, 2014

    http://www.meforum.org/3835/a-most-discreet-israeli-intervention-in-syria


    Since the outbreak of the civil war in Syria in 2011, Israeli officials have observed events to the north with caution and concern. The concern has derived from the presence of anti-Israel paramilitary and terrorist elements on both sides of the fighting lines in Syria.

    The caution, meanwhile, relates to the very deep aversion felt in the Israeli system toward the possibility of Israel's being sucked in to the morass of the Syrian war. Israel's Lebanon experience has left a deep institutional memory warning against overly ambitious incursions into the affairs of neighboring states.

    Nevertheless, evidence is emerging of an increasing, though still modest Israeli involvement in events beyond the separation of forces line on the Golan Heights.

    The least ambiguous evidence of Israeli activity related to Syria is the series of air raids against weapons convoys headed for Lebanon. These have been attributed by foreign media to Israel, and were carried out to prevent the transfer of certain weapons systems from Syria to Hizballah.

    However, the latest emerging indications relate not to activity deep within the skies above Syria. Rather, the contacts in question are happening, discreetly, very close to the ground, and very close to the border.

    Israeli officials have observed with concern the recent ebb and flow of the fighting in the Deraa and Quneitra provinces in southern Syria. The rebel fighters in this area, as elsewhere, are a varied and disparate group. The southern front is the focus of the limited western and Arab support offered the rebels.

    A western command center at which US, Jordanian, Saudi, British and French personnel are present has been established to coordinate aid to the rebels in the south.

    But the 'moderate' rebels of the Supreme Military Command and the related Syrian Revolutionaries Front, who benefit from the modest flow of western and Saudi aid, are not the only anti-Assad fighters in the south.

    Jabhat al-Nusra, the official Syrian franchise of al-Qaeda, is also playing a major role in the fighting in the south. The Salafi Ahrar al-Sham group is also present in force among the southern rebels. These groups operate in coordination with the western supported fighters.

    In recent weeks, forces led by al-Nusra have made major territorial advances. In late April, these forces captured eastern Tel al-Akhmar (the red hill). This hill is situated five kilometers from the Israeli border on the Golan Heights. Western Tel al-Akhmar, which is just 2km from the first Israeli positions, was captured earlier in the month.

    Rebel forces hope to push on to Quneitra itself. Their intention is to establish a contiguous strip of rebel-controlled territory in across western Deraa and Quneitra provinces – just 100km southwest of Damascus.

    For Israel, the possibility that al-Qaeda linked jihadis should establish themselves along one of its borderlines represents a nightmare scenario. In a video released after the capture of the hill, a Nusra spokesman was heard to praise Osama Bin-Laden as the 'lion of Islam', and to vow continued war on 'Jews and crusaders.'

    So the problem is clear. What is Israel doing to respond to it?

    In addition to increasing drone surveillance and intelligence gathering across the border, the evidence suggests that Israel has established contact with non-jihadi, western supported rebel elements, with the intention of ensuring that the jihadis are prevented from establishing themselves along the ceasefire line on the Golan.

    The medical care afforded wounded Syrian fighters has served to facilitate this process. 1000 or so Syrian fighters have received this, with the more lightly wounded being treated at the IDF field hospital established close to the border, and others in hospitals in northern Israel.

    Colonel Abdullah al-Bashir, who commands the Supreme Military Council, a prominent western backed rebel element, was among the military personnel to be treated in Israel.

    In addition to the direct contacts with the rebels, Israel is also in contact with local leaders across the border, with the intention of offering them inducements to refuse shelter and medical care to the jihadi fighters.

    The Israeli contacts with the rebels are probably coordinated with the western backers of these forces. According to one report, there are Israeli representatives at the western and Jordanian command center coordinating support for the rebels in northern Jordan.

    Israeli support for western-backed rebels in this arena is made yet more necessary by the fact that defeat for the rebellion in Deraa and Quneitra runs the risk of bringing not the status quo ante bellum, but rather Hizballah, to the border.

    Fighters from the Shia Islamist movement are present among pro-regime forces battling in the south. In early March, IDF troops fired at what they said was a Hizballah team trying to place a bomb in the border area.

    So is the southern border coming to resemble south Lebanon in the 1980s? Is Israel being sucked into another commitment across a northern border?

    Precisely because the lesson of Lebanon is so deeply etched on the collective memory of the Israeli system, it is likely that the Israeli footprint in southern Syria will remain discernible, but light. There are no ideal options. Nusra, according to one source, is stronger than it appears, since it has allowed pro-western forces to take credit for a number of operations. It does this so as to keep western support flowing into the area, from which Nusra itself will then benefit. So any strengthening of the rebels in the south carries with it the risk of assisting precisely the enemy that it is supposed to thwart. But the alternative of passive acquiescence to either al-Qaeda or Hizballah assembling along the border is probably worse.

    A complicated political and military eco-system has emerged in southern Syria, just across the ceasefire line in the Golan Heights. Israel will do its best to preserve its vital interests, while avoiding an overt presence in this arena. Maintaining the balance is not simple. As of now, it may be said that Israel is actively, if discreetly, engaged in southern Syria.

    Jonathan Spyer is a senior research fellow at the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and a fellow at the Middle East Forum.

    Related Topics: Israel & Zionism, Syria | Jonathan Spyer

    This text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an integral whole with complete and accurate information provided about its author, date, place of publication, and original URL
     
  6. Imnotreallyhere

    Imnotreallyhere Well-Known Member Donor

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    Sacrifice Syrian rebels? When they pay taxes in the US, failure to arm them will be sacrificing them. As it is, we shouldn't get involved in something that is none of our business. People don't like the US, mainly for that reason. One would think we'd have figured it out by now.

    Why should we give arms to the rebels when the rebels include al Qaeda affiliates? The idea seems self destructive to me.
     
  7. waltky

    waltky Well-Known Member

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    Syrian rebels armed w/ US supplied weapons surrender to al-Qaeda...
    :eekeyes:
    Syrian rebels armed and trained by US surrender to al-Qaeda
    2 Nov 2014 ~ Moderate rebels in Syria that the US have armed and trained to fight jihadists have surrendered to al-Qaeda
     
  8. Thunderbolt

    Thunderbolt Active Member

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    Obama regime "sacrifized" (moderate) Syrian rebels long ago.
    It generally betrays anybody in the Middle East, who backs America or at least does not hate it.
    The "Sons" of Iraq", the Yazidis, the Kurds.
    After all Obama's only "political experience" is 20-years-long brainwashing in Rev. Wright's destructive cult ...
     
  9. waltky

    waltky Well-Known Member

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    Syrian rebels gonna whup up on Russia like the mujahadine did in Afghanistan...
    :wink:
    Rebels see tougher war with Russians in Syria, evoke Afghanistan
    21 Sept.`15 - Rebels who have inflicted big losses on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad say Russia's intervention in support of its ally will only lead to an escalation of the war and may encourage the rebels' Gulf Arab backers to pour in more military aid.
     

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