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Here's Why Arming the Syrian Rebels Is a Bad Idea

TheDemSocialist

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Ah crap. A couple of months ago, President Obama caved in to the hawks and announced $127 million in "nonlethal" aid to the Syrian rebels. Today he caved in again and trotted out Ben Rhodes to announce a further escalation. We'll now be sending some decidedly lethal aid to the rebels:

Great. So now we're committed to continuing escalation until Assad cries uncle and agrees to come to the table. That strategy doesn't have a sterling track record.
This seems like a good time to embed this video of Fareed Zakaria explaining why it's such a bad idea to intervene in Syria. This isn't just the usual anti-intervention shtick, either. It's a broad overview of who's who and why Syria's civil war is likely to last a very long time indeed. It's well worth five minutes of your time.


Read more @: Here's Why Arming the Syrian Rebels Is a Bad Idea | Mother Jones

Do we really wanna get involved in a civil war? Both sides clearly are not good. If Assad falls the coalition of parties against Assad are gonna just fight against each other most likely for power, no matter what even if they are elections. Can we not learn from history!? This is clearly just gonna become more and more a bigger mess.
 
Of course, it's an awful, short-sighted decision.

How does a new Syrian government controlled by Al-Qaeda benefit American interests?
 
Lets see, Assad, Iran, Hezbollah and the Russians on one side and rag tag AQ-led resistance on the other willing to take them on. I say give them a hand. Dont give them enought to win or weapons they might later use against us, but just enough to keep a stalemate of slaughter going on indefinitely. All of the globes bad guys in one area killing one another isnt such a bad thing.
 
Of course, it's an awful, short-sighted decision.

How does a new Syrian government controlled by Al-Qaeda benefit American interests?

We dont know for sure if they will be controlled by Al-Qaeda. Al-Nursa front is not the largest group but they certainly do have a good chunk of support in Syria currently.
 
Lets see, Assad, Iran, Hezbollah and the Russians on one side and rag tag AQ-led resistance on the other willing to take them on. I say give them a hand. Dont give them enought to win or weapons they might later use against us, but just enough to keep a stalemate of slaughter going on indefinitely. All of the globes bad guys in one area killing one another isnt such a bad thing.

And ehhh **** the 100k civilians who have been killed by this civil war right? Or are they included in the "bad guys"?
 
If Assad falls the coalition of parties against Assad are gonna just fight against each other most likely for power, no matter what even if they are election

True, but the FSA stands a solid chance at victory.
 
Assad is no Hitler and no Saddam.

We need stability in that region and the rebels winning will only bring more instability.

This may end up being Obama's greatest mistake.
 
True, but the FSA stands a solid chance at victory.

Saying that the FSA has called the Al-Nursa front the "elite group of the 'revolution'", i bet its gonna be a long tough battle. Plus havent we learned about the unintended consequences from this stuff? You know the arms ending up in the hands we dont want to like it has happened in the past?
 
Saying that the FSA has called the Al-Nursa front the "elite group of the 'revolution'", i bet its gonna be a long tough battle. Plus havent we learned about the unintended consequences from this stuff? You know the arms ending up in the hands we dont want to like it has happened in the past?

The FSA outnumbers the Al-Nursa front by nearly 4 times, and the FSA already knows that if Assad falls, they have to fight the Jihadists. If anyone is getting the weapons, it's the FSA.
 
The FSA outnumbers the Al-Nursa front by nearly 4 times, and the FSA already knows that if Assad falls, they have to fight the Jihadists. If anyone is getting the weapons, it's the FSA.

Have we not learned from the past on how easy it is for these arms to end up in the "wrong hands"? Have we not learned from the past on how easy it is for this to blow up into something else with a influx of "jihadist" fighters coming into the country?
 
Have we not learned from the past on how easy it is for these arms to end up in the "wrong hands"?

We're not giving them wonder weapons that can change the face of the battlefield. Hell, we're not even giving them anti-aircraft weapons.

And even if they fall into the wrong hands, that doesn't change the massive imbalance of manpower.
 
We're not giving them wonder weapons that can change the face of the battlefield. Hell, we're not even giving them anti-aircraft weapons.
We dont know what we are "giving them yet"

And even if they fall into the wrong hands, that doesn't change the massive imbalance of manpower.
We dont know that yet cuz we dont know what we are giving them.
And part of that doesnt even matter because we are pretty much allying ourselves with someone and supporting them.
 
We dont know what we are "giving them yet"
We dont know that yet cuz we dont know what we are giving them.

Smalls arms, ammunition, and few anti-tank weapons.


And part of that doesnt even matter because we are pretty much allying ourselves with someone and supporting them.

Better the FSA than the SIF.
 
So now we have Obama supplying al Qaeda with supplies Hmm..., will man-pads also be distributed?
 
So now we have Obama supplying al Qaeda with supplies Hmm..., will man-pads also be distributed?

He can borrow them from Reagan, who gave weapons to Islamic extremists 20 years ago.
 
We dont know that they have not released any specifics

The Obama administration has stated they're sending small arms (Rifles and such), Ammunition (Bullets), and Anti-Tank weapons (Anti-Tank weapons).


You have committed war crimes

I did what now?
 
The Obama administration has stated they're sending small arms (Rifles and such), Ammunition (Bullets), and Anti-Tank weapons (Anti-Tank weapons).
We sent "small arms" to the Mujhadeen how that turn out?


I did what now?
Meant "who". My apologies
 
Assad is no Hitler and no Saddam.

We need stability in that region and the rebels winning will only bring more instability.

This may end up being Obama's greatest mistake.
--------

It seems that "stability" always involves propping up a dictator.
This civil war seems to offer only bad and less bad choices.
It appears the die have been cast.
All we can do is hope for the best.
 
We sent "small arms" to the Mujhadeen how that turn out?

We sent Stingers to the Mujaheddin. That's anti-aircraft equipment, which we are not sending to the Syrian rebels.



Meant "who". My apologies

Oh good. For a moment I thought you had discovered the truth about me.
 
We sent Stingers to the Mujaheddin. That's anti-aircraft equipment, which we are not sending to the Syrian rebels.


Would a stinger missile not be considerd small arms? Same with an anti-tank weapon?


Oh good. For a moment I thought you had discovered the truth about me.
:lol:
 
Read more @: Here's Why Arming the Syrian Rebels Is a Bad Idea | Mother Jones

Do we really wanna get involved in a civil war? Both sides clearly are not good. If Assad falls the coalition of parties against Assad are gonna just fight against each other most likely for power, no matter what even if they are elections. Can we not learn from history!? This is clearly just gonna become more and more a bigger mess. [/FONT][/COLOR]



Personally I wish we'd just stay out of it. Whichever side wins, they are not going to love us and be our friends.
 
By that definition then anti tank weapons arent considerd small arms as well.

Yes. Which I stated in nearly every post I've made in this thread.

Although the 'small arms' is subjective to the military. Some consider the Soviet RPG variants a small arm, which is a tank weapon.
 
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