From the Nation magazine:
Obama's War in Syria
This is an excellent article that summarizes the new war the Obama administration is slowly but steadily engaging the country into. From the link above:
The Central Intelligence Agency has begun moving weapons to Jordan ....and plans to start arming small groups of vetted Syrian rebels within a month, expanding U.S. support of moderate forces battling President Bashar al-Assad....
Most worrisome is that, with American support, Saudi Arabia is shipping Manpads, shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, to the rebels, despite the risk that those deadly arms could fall into the hands of Al Qaeda and its allies
...
So, for some reason, the Obama administration has accepted as a good idea the suggestions of McCain, Cheney, and other neocons to arm the Syrian rebels. Like we have never learned from the past. Working closely with the "democratic" and "freedom-fighting" countries of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the Obama administration has decided to get involved in the war there by supporting "moderate" rebels.
Never mind that the US-Russia relationship is at a new nadir because of this. Never mind that some of the rebels there are cannibals. No, this is not an exaggeration. We are talking about real cannibals. And it gets even worse. According to the UN, there are instances where rebels have forced children to participate in beheadings of captured syrian soldiers.
From the BBC news link above:
In the most egregious incident near Deir al-Zor, the report cites the participation of a child in the beheading by rebels of two soldiers.
"Video footage emerged showing a child participating in the beheading of two kidnapped men," says the report. "Following investigation, it is believed that the video is authentic and the men were soldiers, killed as depicted."
It is incomprehensible that we would work together with terrible regimes like the Saudi and Qatari regimes (both among the worst human rights violators in the world) to "promote democracy" in another country with a dictatorship. What is even more puzzling is the fact that any regime that would take power if Assad falls would be likely worse than the Assad regime. As terrible and brutal the Assad regime has been, an islamic fundamentalist, taliban-like, regime in Syria would be almost certainly worst and much more dangerous for Israel and the region.
It seems clear that the neoconservative ideas and goals started by Bush and Cheney continue under the Obama administration. And as autocratic as Putin is in Russia, he has a much more rational foreign policy approach than the Obama administration. At the very least Putin is right when he asked Cameron and Obama not to arm cannibals.
Interestingly, the Nation article suggests that there has been a split within the Obama administration on the issue:
From the link above
It’s apparent...... that there are deep splits in the (Obama) administration over how to approach this civil war. As I’ve written repeatedly, Obama resisted going to war in Syria for a long time, though he created a dangerous slippery slope for himself by calling for Assad’s ouster, helping Saudi Arabia and Qatar supply arms to the rebels
.
The vast majority of Americans oppose arming the Syrian rebels. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that anyone would respect the wish of the majority of the country. The neoconservative plan appears to be too strong and the neocons seem to have somehow secured the active participation of the Obama administration in their efforts to "transform the world".