March 29, 2024

Obama to Arm Syrian Rebels after They Strike Deal with ISIS

After the beheading of two American journalists and a British aid worker, Barack Obama is pushing Congress to approve spending $500 million to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels. He believes doing so will allow them to help fight the terrorist group ISIS.

Denis McDonough, White House Chief of Staff told Fox News Sunday:

“If it’s not the Syrian opposition, trained and equipped by the United States, authorized by Congress and the president … then it’ll have to be U.S. troops. The president made a decision on that. We’re not going to do that.”

Rep John Boehner, who has a track record of giving Obama what he demands, seems ready to approve Obama’s request to train and arm the moderate Syrian rebels to help fight ISIS. He stated:

“An F-16 i[s] not a strategy. The president has made clear that he doesn’t want U.S. boots on the ground. So somebody’s boots have to be on the ground. … We ought to give the president what he’s asking for.”

Reports from DC hint that Congress could return one day early in order to vote on Obama’s resolution which seems to have little opposition.

I wonder if Obama, Boehner or anyone else in Washington is paying any attention to a recent report that states that ISIS and various moderate and hard line Syrian rebels have agreed NOT to fight each other. They all want to help take down the Syrian government of President Bashar Assad.

Among those Syrian rebel groups who have signed the agreement with ISIS are the Free Syrian Army and Syrian Revolutionary Front. Both groups are believed to be among the groups that Obama wants to train and arm to help fight ISIS. Leaders of the Syrian Revolutionary Front have previously stated that their priorities do not include fighting other Islamic extremists, which includes ISIS. Their goal is solely to over thrown Assad and his government.

Akbar Shahid Ahmed and Ryan Grim with The World Post question the logic Obama’s proposed actions, writing:

“The prospect of a group once supported by the U.S. now sitting down with ISIS raises fundamental questions about U.S. strategy in Syria. Why support Syrians who have a very different, clearly stated goal and who will act as they see fit to achieve it? What assurance does the administration have that fighters it trains and arms in Syria won’t ally with ISIS if it seems like the most effective anti-Assad force?”

According to Ben Rhodes, Deputy National Security Adviser:

“We have been working with the Syrian opposition now for a couple of years, providing them assistance, non-lethal at first but then we [now] provide them with some military assistance, so we know them better today than we did a year, two years ago. There are people who have been vetted who we have relationships with, who we deliver assistance to, so we’re not starting from scratch.”

Isn’t this the same thing we heard from Obama when he armed and trained Libyan rebels to over throw the government of Muammar Gaddafi. It was the same rebels that we trained and armed that stormed the US embassy compound in Benghazi, killing US Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

Is Obama so naïve that he believes the rebels will only fight ISIS, whom they now have an agreement with not to fight? Once armed with US weapons and trained by Americans, who else will these rebels turn their wrath against?

On a side note, I can’t help but wonder what Obama’s brother Malik thinks about his brother wanting to arm the rebels who want to over throw the terrorist Syrian government that Malik works for. Since Malik often wears a Hamas scarf at public events, perhaps he’s ready to jump from the Syrian government terrorists to the Hamas terrorists if Assad is over thrown by US armed Syrian rebels. Either way, Malik will still be associated with Muslim extremists who abdicate the destruction of Christians and the United States.

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