Thursday, September 18, 2014

Congress Votes to Arm Syrian Rebels

It's a genius move; it worked so well in Libya.  My cynicism is really having a hard time keeping up with the government's stupidity. 

Is there an American ambassador in Syria?  Might want to get your flight booked because I wouldn't count on Obama and Hillary dodging sniper fire to rescue you when things go bad.

Now we may know why the White House was so eager to deny the possibility that Syrian rebels sold Steven Sotloff to ISIS.  It would be rather damning to find out that we were arming the allies and fellow travelers of the group we are fighting.

So it appears we have gone Full Retard.

Obama, as our brilliant CinC who engineered and all but carried out the raid that killed Bin Laden, has said this is not a war and ISIS is not Islamic and these Syrian rebels are the Good Muslim Fanatics.  As our generals keep saying that it is not possible to defeat ISIS without a full effort, Obama, with his vast store of military wisdom, denies that we need boots on the ground.

I'm almost as skeptical of our military leadership as I am of Obama's competence and intelligence.  The wisdom of skepticism and cynicism lies in asking questions about occult motives.  The military wants more money and power while the regime wants to cut military expenditures.  I don't want more American lives wasted in a lost cause, and I don't want more money wasted and the debt increased.

The United States cannot be trusted to tell the truth or even face the truth.  It has reached the point where you are closer to the truth believing the opposite of whatever the regime and most of Congress says. 

I am notoriously bad at prognostication, but this is what I expect:  the money and arms we send to these Syrian rebels will be used against Assad.  Assad may be overthrown, leading to further instability.  Iraq will come under full ISIS control, as will Syria and Lebanon, and Israel will be facing a united threat from the north, armed and funded by American dollars.  Kuwait and Jordan will be on the endangered list, and Islamists in Turkey will be encouraged and emboldened.

The only check to a major meltdown is if the Russians aren't too busy with Ukraine and are able to lend sufficient support to Assad or decide to get directly involved to prevent the spread of ISIS.   

Otherwise, at some point, after we have sufficiently mucked it up, we will decide -- probably for the children -- that we need to go in and clean it up.  And the butchers' bill will be high, and we will have to pay.

2 comments:

  1. The 1976 game of 'whack a mole' comes to mind. Lots of aggression, lots of focus, lots of energy, logts of noise, but always more moles.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Good analogy. Localized suppression.

    ReplyDelete