US to move forward on arming Syrian rebels, after congressional hurdles lifted - Polidicks

[url]http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/23/us-usa-syria-arms-idUSBRE96L0W520130723[/url] [quote]President Barack Obama will move forward with a plan for the United States to arm the struggling Syrian rebels after some congressional concerns were eased, officials said on Monday. "We believe we are in a position that the administration can move forward," House of Representatives Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers told Reuters. The White House announced in June that it would offer military aid to vetted groups of Syrian rebels after two years of balking at directly sending arms to the opposition.[/quote]

Glad we got plenty of money to spend on this while the rest of America is fucked. Can't ever learn....

Because we definitely have the money for it.

Morally bankrupt

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;41565307]Because we definitely have the money for it.[/QUOTE] well you kinda do tbh

Yeah, the 'money" for it. What a joke. "Let's spend our time and energy on making guns" Yay!

[QUOTE=MR-X;41565304]Glad we got plenty of money to spend on this while the rest of America is fucked. Can't ever learn....[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;41565307]Because we definitely have the money for it.[/QUOTE] Are you guys saying that helping out people in need is only okay when the budget is flexible? 'Sorry we can't spend a few million to give you some of our overflowing stockpiles of useless weapons, just try to deal with the brutal repression until it's more convenient for us'.

Give them all 30-30 lever actions. Fight tyranny with class

[QUOTE=catbarf;41565750]Are you guys saying that helping out people in need is only okay when the budget is flexible? 'Sorry we can't spend a few million to give you some of our overflowing stockpiles of useless weapons, just try to deal with the brutal repression until it's more convenient for us'.[/QUOTE] but catbarf isilumasts be der

That's all we need to be doing. Continuously sticking our fingers in the butthole regions of the world. We should just let them kill and maim each other because we all know that any extremists will use this as a reason to hate the west.

Ok, have fun when these guys turn on us, GG you fucking idiots. Its not like this hasn't happened before...

[QUOTE=Jetblack357;41566589]Ok, have fun when these guys turn on us, GG you fucking idiots. Its not like this hasn't happened before...[/QUOTE] Like the South Koreans, right? We can vet the groups before we give them guns. It might not keep all of them out of the hands of insurgents and it always runs the risk of harming us later, but believe it or not the policymakers in charge of these decisions are not completely ignorant of history.

[QUOTE=catbarf;41566674]Like the South Koreans, right? We can vet the groups before we give them guns. It might not keep all of them out of the hands of insurgents and it always runs the risk of harming us later, but believe it or not the policymakers in charge of these decisions are not completely ignorant of history.[/QUOTE] You can't compare a first world country like South Korea to a third world like Syria at all.

[QUOTE=DigitalySane;41567008]You can't compare a first world country like South Korea to a third world like Syria at all.[/QUOTE] south korea wasn't a first world country you're going to have to find another pedantic reason to dismiss him.

[QUOTE=catbarf;41565750]Are you guys saying that helping out people in need is only okay when the budget is flexible? 'Sorry we can't spend a few million to give you some of our overflowing stockpiles of useless weapons, just try to deal with the brutal repression until it's more convenient for us'.[/QUOTE] I'm all for helping people but this does jack shit but make things worse. we've been trying to help countries from "brtual repression" for years now and where has that gotten us? Hated, broke, and thousands dead. We've spent enough money and blood on war, why help others continue it? We've tried helping others in similar ways and it only back fired on us, ultimately these weapons will be used against us.

no stop

They'll kindly return those when asked.

For those of you who haven't been paying attention to US foreign policy since the '50s this is the norm. The CIA has overthrown more countries for their own (perceived) gains than you can probably name.

Dear US: [B]Stop[/B]

Remember what happened last the US armed some rebels? Yeah.

[QUOTE=catbarf;41566674]Like the South Koreans, right? We can vet the groups before we give them guns. It might not keep all of them out of the hands of insurgents and it always runs the risk of harming us later, but believe it or not the policymakers in charge of these decisions are not completely ignorant of history.[/QUOTE] It worked pretty well for Iran too, huh?

[QUOTE=catbarf;41566674]Like the South Koreans, right? We can vet the groups before we give them guns. It might not keep all of them out of the hands of insurgents and it always runs the risk of harming us later, but believe it or not the policymakers in charge of these decisions are not completely ignorant of history.[/QUOTE] Korean war was a different boat. Difficult to make real comparisons there.

Iran - Contra affair Mujahideen GG Obama, you're the Democratic Reagan.

aren't we in the hole? how does one spend negative money sign me up for that shit, I too want to spend money recklessly without worrying about debt [editline]23rd July 2013[/editline] also like the government I too would like to spend it all on stupid shit

Speaking of how USA can't afford it; Doesn't USA have a [I]massive[/I] military surplus of pretty much everything while trying to cut down the upkeep, scaling the entire thing down and so on? I can imagine that a lot of the support they gonna get might be mostly unneeded surplus rather than stuff bought for them.

[QUOTE=Trunk Monkay;41567922]It worked pretty well for Iran too, huh?[/QUOTE] 'sometimes it doesn't work out so let's never ever ever do it again' Is that what you're getting at? No kidding, some groups we've given weapons to have ended up using them against us. But the Mujahideen and the Iranians are not the only entries on the list of groups we've supported. This isn't the 70s anymore, we have much better intelligence on who the equipment goes to and we have enormous stockpiles of guns we don't need. What better way to downsize than to support groups that are acting in our interests?

[QUOTE=Awesomecaek;41568364]Speaking of how USA can't afford it; Doesn't USA have a [I]massive[/I] military surplus of pretty much everything while trying to cut down the upkeep, scaling the entire thing down and so on? I can imagine that a lot of the support they gonna get might be mostly unneeded surplus rather than stuff bought for them.[/QUOTE] That [I]would [/I]make sense, but they probably won't. They rarely supply these types of things with their own stuff, they usually get it through an intermediate.

[QUOTE=catbarf;41568408]'sometimes it doesn't work out so let's never ever ever do it again' Is that what you're getting at? No kidding, some groups we've given weapons to have ended up using them against us. But the Mujahideen and the Iranians are not the only entries on the list of groups we've supported. This isn't the 70s anymore, we have much better intelligence on who the equipment goes to and we have enormous stockpiles of guns we don't need. What better way to downsize than to support groups that are acting in our interests?[/QUOTE] This wasn't the just 70's when we were throwing weapons at people who eventually decided to hate us, the Muj funding lasted to the early 90's. People aren't against this just because we have a shit track record when it comes to us giving and selling weapons to insurgents and dictatorships, they're against it because of how the FSA is built. We all know how the FSA works, and when we give weapons to the groups we like, the weapons will eventually end up in the hands of those we don't like. If we decide to let someone else to distribute the weapons like we did with Afghanistan and Pakistan, then that will most definitely happen. Another issue with this is that it will be wildly expensive. Operation Cyclone was one of the most expensive CIA operations ever. It cost $600 million a year during the late 80's. We'll most likely be paying a shit ton of money to shoot ourselves in the foot, it's very reckless. If we wanted to do something about the Syria crises, we should have done it 2 years ago.

[QUOTE=Awesomecaek;41568364]Speaking of how USA can't afford it; Doesn't USA have a [I]massive[/I] military surplus of pretty much everything while trying to cut down the upkeep, scaling the entire thing down and so on? I can imagine that a lot of the support they gonna get might be mostly unneeded surplus rather than stuff bought for them.[/QUOTE] You don't try to tear down the military industrial complex.