Lopsided bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress have approved the President’s crackpot plan to arm the non-existent “moderate” opposition in Syria; in the Senate the tally of 78 to 22 was identical to the one that body delivered in support if Bush’s Iraq invasion. So much for the value of bipartisanship, as Chris Hayes has pointed out many times. By virtue of this blinkered legislation, we will be providing military training and equipment to many of the same people we profess to despise. (The simple fact that McCain and Graham are in favor of such funding should be enough for any sentient creature to surmise that it’s a bad call. McCain wouldn’t know a member of ISIS if he were inches away.)
The response to ISIS is another instance of decision-making driven by decades of bad policy. We are, in essence, seeking to deal with a mess of our own making, to put it charitably, and in so doing making an investment in future crises while bankrupting ourselves in the present. The money and arms flowing to ISIS emanate from Saudi Arabia, other gulf states, and abandoned resources in Iraq, not to mention oil payments from third countries, like Turkey (our NATO ally). Many if not most of the weapons are stamped “Property of the U.S. Military”. Working with the Saudis to arm and train “moderate” opponents of the Assad regime is akin to working with the Pakistanis to arm and train “moderate” opponents of the Soviets in Afghanistan during the 1980s. How did that turn out again?
Once again, we are pushing towards war and there are few dissenting voices in the conversation. NPR’s Cokie Roberts had spoken of a major “educational” initiative by the Administration on fighting ISIS that would be rolled out after summer, just as the Bush charge to invade Iraq was stoked prior to the 2002 election. No real alternatives are presented; only deviations in degree from what we are doing now. Trial balloons are being floated by General Dempsey and others on the deployment of U.S. ground troops. We have seen with Libya how what started as a “humanitarian” effort morphed into a more determined campaign towards regime change. The current Iraq drive began with a mostly bogus story about impending genocide; next comes increased air strikes, then arming and training rebels. What’s next?
Obama fans: Think twice about supporting this. It is a really, really dumb idea.
luv u,
jp
I can’t say which part of Obama’s proposed campaign against ISIS seems the most confused and misguided. It may be the notion that we should fund the training of “moderate” Syrian opposition forces in Saudi Arabia, of all places. First of all, there is no meaningful moderate opposition in Syria. The lead forces opposing the Assad regime are hyper-religious extremists. They have walked off with many of the weapons we have dropped on the so-called moderates, just as billions of dollars worth of weapons have gone missing in Afghanistan (probably falling into the hands of the Taliban or worse). Any effort to train the “moderates” will be symbolic at best and will likely result in yet another stream of jihadist heading from the gulf to the conflict zone.
I’ll be clear, for what it’s worth: firing rockets into southern and central Israel is not only wrong, it’s strategically idiotic. But this nearly uncontrolled act of violence is a response to the ongoing assault against Palestinians, from the massive crackdown in the West Bank on the pretext of the 3 Israelis being kidnapped and murdered, to the continual expansion of settlements and other occupation infrastructure, to the steady incarceration, wounding, and yes, killing of Palestinians, young and old, in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.