"The fact is, the interventionists themselves and the U.S. government don’t know squat about Syria and know even less squat about these rebels"

"...The first slippery slope now is the growing demand from the usual tiny group of interventionists for the U.S. to start supplying arms to the Syrian rebels. On the surface, this seems quite reasonable. President Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian Army is much better equipped, so why not at least equalize the fight against the dictatorial regime? But we must ask ourselves these questions first:Who are those good rebels we want to arm? The interventionists seem to take for granted that we know them well. The fact is, the interventionists themselves and the U.S. government don’t know squat about Syria and know even less squat about these rebels. I don’t care what they say about what they know. They don’t know it. Finally, someone spoke the unmistakable truth this week. Talking to a group of Washington insiders, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey revealed what we really know about these rebels: “About six months ago, we had a very opaque understanding of the opposition, and now I would say it’s even more opaque.”
CIA operatives said they knew the mujahedin (future Taliban) after the war with the Soviets in Afghanistan. They knew almost nothing....
If this line of questioning doesn’t seem dispositive, consider why our good friends neighboring Syria aren’t providing the very arms they’re demanding we provide. After all, they have modern arms and equipment that they could give to the rebels. The fact is, they shy away from what they ask us to do. Why? They don’t want to, because it would only then be they—rather than the U.S.—who would be subject to the inevitable Arab backlash. They know there would be heat to take, and they want Americans to take it. It is they who should step forward. That goes for the Turks, especially. And don’t forget, elements within America’s Arab allies secretly provide arms to jihadis as well. And notice, by the way, that the Israelis are not demanding that Washington arm the rebels. Do they know something we don’t? ..."