UK Has Not Decided on Whether To Arm Rebels in Syria

Credit: Reason

The U.S. is going to provide military aid to rebels in Syria. The decision came shortly after the White House confirmed that the Assad regime has used chemical weapons against Assad's opposition, thereby crossing the "red line" Obama mentioned in August last year.

While the U.S. might have committed itself to sending military aid to rebels, the U.K. has yet to decide if it will arm Assad's opposition.

From the BBC:

The UK government has still not decided whether to arm the Syrian rebels, Downing Street has said.

The White House has announced it will supply direct military aid, having concluded that the Syrian regime is using chemical weapons.

Tory MP John Baron urged David Cameron not to rush to follow suit and Labour says efforts should be on peace talks.

Downing Street said on Friday "no decision has been taken" on supplying arms but "nothing is off the table".

The prime minister's spokesman did not rule out the introduction of a no-fly zone over Syria, or any other measure, adding: "We are in urgent discussions with our international partners".

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Comments

[PS]

David Cameron is not Obama's bloody lapdog!

[Let Me Ride]

Misleading headline. "Rebels in Syria" is actually spelled "A-L--Q-A-E-D-A"

[Heroic Mulatto]

I know! The U.S. government seems to be under the delusion that the Free Syrian Army is still running the show. The al-Nusra Front, as a vanguard group, successfully took the lead (militarily and ideologically) in the Syrian rebellion ages ago.

The very same al-Nusra Front that the State Department declared to be in cahoots with al-Qaeda.

Is the US government so committed to the myth of the Arab Spring that they are willing to support a faction of the same globalized organization they are fighting in another region of the world?

Bizarre isn't strong enough a word to describe the situation.

[WTF]

We have always been at war with Eastasia!

[Brandon]

Barack Obama has already declared the Arab Spring a good thing. Therefore, the government, NY Times, Washington Times, MSNBC, etc., will never believe anything else, and any action taken in support of these valiant rebels is nothing less than sacred.

[LTC(ret) John]

So, in effect, we have declared war on Syria.

I wonder what they will do to retaliate?

[Almanian!]

Nothing - they will welcome us a liberators!

/Cheney

[LTC(ret) John]

Some of the people might, but I suspect the Assad regime will have quite a different reaction.

[Brandon]

Whatever they do, I bet it will justify escalating the War on Terror. For our safety, of course.

[Fist of Etiquette]

But they're still shunning NSA whistleblowers, right? They're not totally slapping our president in the face.

[Aresen]

How many Vietnamese Syrians fought in the US Civil War?

[Heroic Mulatto]

Are we counting zouave regiments?

[BigT]

Brits have no reason to Wag the Dog.

[tarran]

Beautiful. McCain is now creaming his pants, because he gets that proxy war against Russia he's been so desperate for.

The U.S. will give weapons to an Al Queda franchise and piss off the Russians who will naturally be pouring arms in to support the Allawites.

And right next door is Nato ally Turkey! Which lies between the Russians and the Navy base they want to protect!

I remember going through something like this, where the Russians were trying to destabilize Turkey for their own nefarious purposes, and the result was lots of assasinations, one of my playmates being blown up by a bomb, and my family fleeing to the U.S.

TOP..... MEN.......

[tarran]

Remember when I said Obama was less bad than McCain because McCain would get the U.S. into a military conflict with Russia and Obama wouldn't be that stupid/crazy?

Boy have I got egg on my face about that one!

[LTC(ret) John]

In your defense, who knew they would collaborate?

[jesse.in.mb]

Yeah, I really wasn't expecting McCain and Obama to be bosom buddies like this. It's rather impressive that they're reinforcing each other's worst tendencies though.

[Episiarch]

Bipartisanship: the worst of all worlds!

[Anonymous Coward]

Point 33 of my plan to repair America after I am elected temporary emergency dictator of the republic:

All federal elections shall have a "none of the above option." If "none of the above" receives a greater percentage of the vote than any other candidate, it triggers a re-election with the previous candidates removed from candidacy.

[Dr. Frankenstein]

Are we counting registered but non-voting voters in that count?

[tarran]

We totally should.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, registered non-votes will be counted in "none of the above"'s tally.

[Brandon]

who knew they would collaborate?

South Park did.

[John Galt]

Obama has McCain "creaming his pants."

TMI

[Fist of Etiquette]

Am I crazy or did reason disappear a post?

[LTC(ret) John]

Why not both?

[Fist of Etiquette]

But it just may be a lunatic you're replying to.

[Sevo]

"did reason disappear a post?"
The one in which John was arguing 'commerce clause'?
Yep.

[jesse.in.mb]

FUKUS (France, UK, US) will do it just to piss off the Russians, because it's always about the Russians.

I need to stop driving traffic to Pravda, they're hilarious, but I don't really want them to earn money off of being horrible human beings.

[Aresen]

*looks*

Oh, THAT Pravda.

I thought you meant the one in NYC.

[John Galt]

I remember reading an article in Pravda about Russian women who have sex with their cats. The journalist detailed a few cases where things had gone terribly wrong. One female who had stuffed a little ground meat into her vagina expecting a "purr job" had instead had her labia clawed to shreds and ended up in the hospital.

Russian news is often a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma stuffed into a kinky porno magazine.

[John]

IF getting Assad out of power and ending this war is so important, then do it with NATO troops and be done with it. I am all for people fighting their own wars. And if the Syrian rebels were anything but insane, it would be for sending them arms. But they are not. What we have here is two groups who hate us and want to kill us fighting it out over Syria. And that makes it a good idea to arm one side why?

[tarran]

history has shown time and again that unless conservatives The United States Government offer the public a plausible plan more in line with free market thinking intervenes in the conflict, that the activists will eventually be able to get their regulatory nightmares enacted winners will not feel beholden to the United States.

It's a stupid argument, but that seems to be it.

[John]

How is that working out in Libya?

[tarran]

Really great!

The U.S. ambassador is regularly consulted for his insights on local issues, and has been treated as an honored guest there ever since Khaddafi took that knife up the ass.

[tarran]

Speaking of Libya, remember this blast from the past (2009)?

A delegation of US senators led by John McCain met with [Moammar Khadafy] yesterday to discuss the possible delivery of nonlethal defense equipment. The visit and Washington's offer of military equipment was another sign of the improving ties between the former longtime adversaries.
...

The American delegation also included Senators Joseph I. Lieberman, Susan M. Collins, and Lindsey O. Graham.

TOP MEN!

[John]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....-computer/

Looks like Sharyl Attkisson's computer was hacked in late 2012. Who would have possibly done that?

[WTF]

Ooh! I know!
Top Men?

[WTF]

Actually, shreeky will be along to explain how it was all Bush's doing.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Our friends the Saudis, Islamist Syrian rebels, Islamist Egypt:

A German author of Egyptian origin has gone into hiding after having recieved death threats from Islamists. Hamed Abdel-Samad is one of Germany's highest-profile experts on Islam.

Abdel-Samad said that his dream was for an "enlightened" Islam, "without sharia or jihad, without gender apartheid." He also admitted to not praying regularly or fasting during the month of Ramadan.

Why aren't we giving the Abdel-Samads of the world military aid?

[John]

I am convinced it is because secretly Obama and his people love the Islamists. I think they understand that the days of keeping the Arabs down with secular dictators is coming to an end. So now they hope to buy off the Islamists to do it. It sounds like an odd pairing. But remember, both the Islamsists and the Obamaites are both fascists. So they respect each other at some level.

[tarran]

I've long held that the U.S. government should treat the people living in those hell holes like it treats Cubans: let them in. The smart, productive people will flee here and do productive stuff that makes everyone better off, and the nutjobs will fight over their patch of hell.

Giving one nasty group weapons and hindering their victims from escaping in the name of stability is just depraved.

[John]

You watch. They will prop up the Muslim Brotherhood just like they did Mubarak. And when the Brotherhood attacks us, it won't be their fault.

[tarran]

It never is.

Actually, I doubt the Brotherhood will attack the U.S. directly. That would be biting the hand that feeds it.

What will happen, though, is that the Egyptian government will give money/training/weapons/safe havens to some group like Syria/Iran with Hezbollah or Saudi Arabian royal family and the Taliban, and those guys will massacre americans/europeans as part of their jihad/crusade.

And nobody will be willing to do the punitive thing because it would mess up the web of relationships like throwing a spark into a just emptied granary.

There is merit to the notion that the U.S. government be neutral in conflicts in general, but be willing to launch the most vicious regime destabilizing punitive military operations when one of its citizens or nationals is the victim of some state-sponsored crime. It's how Reagan dealt with Libya, and Khaddafy's ambitious project to end colonialism by terrorising the West was reduced to a pale shadow of its former self.

[John]

The problem with neutrality is that we don't control it. We are only neutral if our enemies agree to let us be so. People like the Muslim Brotherhood will never let us be neutral.

And if you think they will not directly attack the US, you are very naive and are attributing a level of rationality to them they do not deserve.

[Heroic Mulatto]

What what it's worth, I am currently teaching one Libyan (and newly American) student and one Syrian student.

*shrugs*

[DJF]

Or we get the Mariel boatlift where Cuba dumped their criminals and crazies on the USA.

Also I don't think the problems of the world can be solved by the problems all moving to the USA.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Or we get the Mariel boatlift where Cuba dumped their criminals and crazies on the USA.

You realize that Scarface is fictional, right?

[DJF]

You do realize that the Mariel Boatlift was real don't you?

[Heroic Mulatto]

Yes. And I also realize that most of those "criminals and crazies" were enemies of the Cuban state. That is homosexuals and outspoken critics of the Castro regime.

Or do you think homosexuality is a crime?

[John]

Yeah, but more than a few of them were actual criminals and committed crimes after getting here.

[jesse.in.mb]

That is homosexuals and outspoken critics of the Castro regime.

Miami makes so much more sense now.

[DJF]

""""without sharia or jihad, without gender apartheid."""'

So what he wants is what Atat?rk did in Turkey, but that was only maintained by the threat of force from the non democratic military and a turn toward nationalism, not religion.

[Heroic Mulatto]

So what he wants is what Atat?rk did in Turkey, but that was only maintained by the threat of force from the non democratic military and a turn toward nationalism, not religion.

And what they did in France, and England, and Prussia (cum "Germany), etc.

[Anonymous Coward]

A sterling example of bully international politics. Nothing says tough on Syria like a gang of the biggest, most heavily armed nations on Earth threatening to flood Syria with free weapons, not one of which will end up in the hands of Sunni jihadists, I am sure.

[jesse.in.mb]

flood Syria with free to them weapons

Stimulus for weapons manufacturers!