France: 'Our military researchers, unlike our economy, are full-speed-ahead to arm Syria's rebels!'

"The lone idiot travels to Mecca when all the pilgrims are returning!"

(AP) — France's government is investigating high-tech methods to prevent terrorists from using any weapons that Western governments send to Syrian rebels, such as gadgetry that tracks the movement of anti-aircraft missiles or shuts them down from a distance, officials say.
Such controls could be crucial to overcoming fears about arming the rebels — and to shifting the balance in Syria's civil war ...
Experts and officials say that no technological tricks to remotely track shoulder-fired missiles will be 100 percent fail-safe, and it may be a while before they're ready to use. Still, studying them is one more indication that France is moving closer to supplying arms and getting the West more deeply involved in the war....
Speaking before a parliamentary panel last week, Fabius said: "There is, in some cases, a technical possibility.." He didn't elaborate, and — like some other diplomats grappling with the crisis — could simply be posturing to try to give a jolt to prospective peace talks.
But a French diplomatic official, speaking on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, told The Associated Press that three main options are being considered ....  French Defense Ministry and Foreign Ministry spokespeople declined to comment ......  British officials declined to comment on the types of weapons that could be provided .....
A representative of MBDA, one of Europe's top missile makers, said that missiles aren't manufactured with such controls, but once sold, the buyer — usually governments — could carry out such alterations. She spoke on condition of anonymity because of company policy......
Anthony Cordesman, a national security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says governments would likely be quiet about any technological tinkering that could help keep MANPADs from falling into criminal hands.
"As far as I know, the actual production of such systems has certainly not taken place in the U.S.," he said by phone from Washington. "But this is an area where if it is done, the activity, the production and the design would be kept classified ... You don't want to give the slightest indication to anyone in advance of what technology you use, because there are always countermeasures."...
Some MANPADs are believed to have made their way out of the arsenal of former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi into the open market, and the CIA has sought to keep the weapons away from al-Qaida sympathizers throughout the region, including the Al-Nusra Front in Syria — the most potent force fighting Assad's troops...."