Wednesday, March 13, 2013

CSM: "Saudi weapons in Jihadis hands!"

"...So the killing of Syrian soldiers by rebels is good, right? Well, not exactly. Depending on who does the killing it can be labelled as terrorism or the actions of a people striving to be free.Where the weapons are
In this case the killing was done by the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI), an Al Qaeda affiliated group that's been helping its Syrian comrades across the border. Among their friends are Jabhat al-Nusra, one of the most effective rebel military units, which was recently added to the US terrorist list. The militia is largely composed of jihadis, ideologically akin to Al Qaeda, and the US has been worried that the arms and prestige they’re accruing in the fight against Assad will be turned on American interests later....
US officials say the arms flowing into Syria have bypassed Nusra and other jihadi groups, but ... reporters on the ground say they’ve started to see the weapons Saudi Arabia is buying from Croatia to arm the “good” rebels in jihadi hands....
So it's the US position that looks strange. It spent billions of dollars and the lives of nearly 4,500 soldiers in Iraq, fighting to put down a Sunni insurgency that was described as a grave threat to American interests. Today, the US government policy is assisting a Sunni insurgency in Syria that is not only similar in character to the one put down in Iraq, but has surviving Iraqi veterans of the war serving in it. . In essence, the US is pursuing a policy that's harmful to Iraqi interests, can potentially empower people that are hostile to both Iraqi and US interests, and is trying to use language to smooth all this over. ..."

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