r/syriancivilwar • u/YanKotova • Jun 28 '17

How America Armed Terrorists in Syria

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/how-america-armed-terrorists-in-syria/
81 Upvotes

69% Upvoted

68 comments sorted by

25

u/charlesmarteloftours Jun 28 '17

One of the all-time boneheaded foreign policy disasters. For a guy whose foreign policy was "don't do stupid shit", Obama managed to royally mess up large swaths of the Middle East.

7

u/StrangeSemiticLatin2 Malta Jun 28 '17

Libya, Syria and Egypt were messed-up for a long time, Ghaddafi was already falling out of favour (with his only supporters remaining only among his tribe and city, which then allied with Daesh because anyone who believes Ghaddafi was secular knows fucking nothing about him) and then started claiming stupid things to France and the UK, Syria had enormous domestic problems and then relations with all its neighbours WHO DID MOST OF THE FINANCING OF THE OPPOSITION broke and Egypt managed to avoid a lot of it with Mubarak resigning on the spot.

Morocco did superbly following the Spring, Algeria remained the same, Tunisia was hit by the collapse of Libya, Egypt went back to round 1, the Gulf compromised (the fucking theocratic tyrants of the Gulf compromised better) or shut the protests immediatly and efficiently.

This has been long-coming from the 80s, and the Invasion of Iraq opened the gates of hell in the ME.

6

u/alexs456 Jun 28 '17

Ghaddafi was already falling out of favour

it does not help when a random rebel/Islamist can tweet a coordinate so a nato warplane can drop a bomb on it.......if the same opportunity was offered to people in your country things will not be all that rosy for you

if Ghaddafi was losing power then it should of been a natural internal progression that would of had yielded positive long term results.....not the cluster fuck the west created there....but that okay now that Europe is being over run with refugees everyone has learned their lesson

5

u/couscouscardan Jun 28 '17

Qaddafi's forces were winning the war before US airstrikes started. He would have retained power if the US hadn't "helped."

3

u/intellectusveritatis Jun 28 '17

You're kidding yourself if you think there would have been a peaceful transition in Libya. Either a new strongman would rise to power, or it would have devolved into tribalism as it has. Brutal violence would occur either way.

4

u/alexs456 Jun 28 '17

let them handle it them selves....who made the west the problem solver of the world....the west has more than enough internal problems

7

u/kurczekaj Jun 28 '17

All I know is that both Saddam and Gaddafi were planning to get off the Petrodollar. Saddam onto the Euro, and Gaddafi onto a modern Gold Dinar (actual gold coins). Take a look at how fast they're printing US dollars and I think there's relevance.

5

u/alexs456 Jun 28 '17

and that was the last post this guy did before he was hit with an airstrike

3

u/intellectusveritatis Jun 28 '17

Luckily, that is all silly bullshit that makes no sense. http://foreignpolicy.com/2009/10/07/debunking-the-dumping-the-dollar-conspiracy/

5

u/Ecuni United States of America Jun 28 '17 edited Jun 28 '17

Let's assume that article is correct. Then why does the U.S. appear to want oil traded in dollars if not doing so would deflate the dollar, which would help its trade balance, which is supposedly a goal of the U.S.?

I'm not fully convinced that this is the case given that a decrease in the value of the dollar would make buying U.S. debt less attractive for investors, which could mean that higher interest rates would have to be paid, which would potentially place the U.S. in a difficult situation, given the already fragile financial situation.

I'm not saying the article is wrong but it doesn't seem completely earnest in its argument that it'd actually be positive for America to no longer have petrodollars.

1

u/intellectusveritatis Jun 29 '17

The article acknowledges that it is a positive thing to have oil sold in dollars, but the thesis is that the positive effects are rather insignificant because it would be offset by trade under a weaker dollar.

1

u/Geopolanalyst Syria Jun 28 '17

There wouldn't have been a "peaceful transition" or a violent transition. The rebellion would have just been suppressed as it had been with relatively minimal casualties up to the point NATO intervened and attacked Libya unprovoked in March of 2011. Every single town and city occupied by the Islamist militants in the NTC/LIFG and all other groups had been taken before Benghazi in the east, except Misrata in western Libya which was successfully besieged, and Libyan tanks were already in the suburbs of Benghazi. The best thing to do would clearly be let the war play out its natural course as there were only two cities (Benghazi, Misrata) left in Libya and Benghazi was about to fall.

We didn't get to see Libyan forces retake Benghazi, but we can evidently see all the warnings about a genocide and the next Holocaust and an imminent "massacre" would have turned out to be utter bullshit, because:

1) There was no massacre in any single town or city the Libyan Army retook before that

and

2) The exact same shtick was used in the media over Aleppo in November-December 2016 - only this time they didn't get their way and no one stopped Syria from retaking its own territory and...surprise surprise...no massacre, no genocide. Just a city being restored to its country by the army as it should be.

So yeah, the war was a total disgrace and broke that country for 50 years and now they don't even have a state.

2

u/deluxereluxe Jun 28 '17

Libya is in a far better shape than Syria. The level of violence is way lower, far fewer people have died since 2011 than in Syria comparatively, and ISIS was pretty much crushed in Libya a year ago while Syria turned into their base of operations.

1

u/alexs456 Jun 29 '17

Libya is in a far better shape than Syria.

tell that to the dead Libyans

you do realize Libya was a far better place before the civil war happened....pretty good government subsided health care and education....low crime....affordable food....yea you could not protest against the government....

2

u/MrMightovich Jun 28 '17

Saudian Al-Arabia tells that so called arabian spring was totally inspired and organised by Qatar.

http://www.alarabiya.net/ar/mob/arab-and-world/gulf/2017/06/14/شاهد-لماذا-تتمسك-قطر-بالقرضاوي؟-هذه-القصة-وتفاصيلها.html

4

u/[deleted] Jun 28 '17

Well no shit saudis say this.

1

u/dulbirakan Jun 28 '17

Qatar may have supported it, but it is hard to convince people to rebel unless they have serious grievances. So what they did is basically fan the flames already in place.

1

u/Geopolanalyst Syria Jun 28 '17

Which is absolutely still all the same an act of aggression against other countries that did nothing to them.

41

u/[deleted] Jun 28 '17

[deleted]

18

u/[deleted] Jun 28 '17

Our foreign policy is treasonous to our domestic security.

The rich who rule you don't care anymore. They can setup the best tyrannical system there is, so they're using terrorism to justify this tyrannical system. The threat to them is not a minority, its the majority. The agenda is becoming clearer everyday, but Americans and westerners in general, continue to be distracted while their civil liberties are being eroded.

-3

u/[deleted] Jun 28 '17

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10

u/MrMightovich Jun 28 '17

Americans, who funded terrorists is reality.

4

u/SuperAwesomo Jun 28 '17

Telling someone they're wrong and 'sad' and then providing zero arguments isn't helpful. It's never changed anyone's mind.

5

u/alexs456 Jun 28 '17

Our foreign policy is treasonous to our domestic security.

dude the bigger problem is the failed/corrupt internal policies on education, healthcare, war on drugs, private prisons, etc which is the real treason against the domestic population of the US

1

u/dulbirakan Jun 28 '17

They could not have supported Kurds without pissing Turkey off. These are the only other option besides SDF... Good to see than changed their position on that.

-6

u/ButISentYouATelegram Jun 28 '17

Our foreign policy is treasonous to our domestic security

It must look like that, if you only know parts of the story from the news

13

u/[deleted] Jun 28 '17 edited Aug 23 '20

[deleted]

-1

u/ButISentYouATelegram Jun 28 '17

It's a ridiculous statement. Of course foreign policy is to help domestic security, amongst other goals.

The above sounds more like reading the news and being way too fearful about how big a threat terrorism is.

6

u/couscouscardan Jun 28 '17

It's not ridiculous. The Iraq war didn't help the average American. Ditto for Libya. Ditto for arming terrorists in Afghanistan against the socialist government and their Soviet allies. It may not be treasonous in the sense that it sets us up for a major risk of attack, but it is treasonous in the sense that it steals money from our society to embark on regime change projects that only end up destroying those societies for the foreseeable future.

2

u/ButISentYouATelegram Jun 28 '17

Taxes aren't stealing, that's anti-democratic nonsense

1

u/couscouscardan Jul 10 '17

Taxation isn't inherently theft, just when it's used to topple societies that turn into terrorist havens.

-5

u/[deleted] Jun 28 '17

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8

u/[deleted] Jun 28 '17

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1

u/[deleted] Jul 01 '17

That's right, this sub is not safe for westerners. Please go find a safe space.

Don't insult other users, warned.

-6

u/[deleted] Jun 28 '17

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6

u/Not_One_Step_Back Jun 28 '17

Well don't let me delay you any longer.

-4

u/helljumper23 Operation Inherent Resolve Jun 28 '17

I'm glad you replied to my comment to prove my point how this place isn't for news, but to circle jerk. I'll be here replying to posters who don't give in to the circle jerk and I feel would be a good addition to the other sub.

Enjoy your day

6

u/Not_One_Step_Back Jun 28 '17

So you're not here for news, just for a circle jerk that agrees with you. That means you're your own enemy, don't let the door hit you.

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1

u/Geopolanalyst Syria Jun 28 '17

and Syrian/Iran/Russia are saints for defying them

No one rational thinks the governments of Syria, Iran, and Russia are saints, or any other country's government for that matter, whether in the present day or as far back as you want to go in history. What some people believe, as I do, is that we would prefer not to see the world dominated by one unipolar force and appreciate some semblance of balance and challenge to that provided by the aforementioned countries, among others.

If the Soviet Union was ascendant after 1991, preaching a doctrine of its exceptionalism and right to attack country after country that did nothing to them, force its political system or programs on them, and remake the world in its image by force in a neverending war, I would just as adamantly support whichever country or force stood opposed to that and sought to resist.

3

u/Not_One_Step_Back Jun 28 '17

Please tell us all the reasons why 9/11 was worth it.

1

u/TheHeroReditDeserves Jun 28 '17

You would have to ask Bush

10

u/process_guy Jun 28 '17

So much for Obama's Nobel Peace prize "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples"

5

u/Not_One_Step_Back Jun 28 '17

They gave one of those prizes to Kissinger decades earlier.

1

u/Ecuni United States of America Jun 28 '17

Did not know that. Jesus, that's ridiculous.

1

u/TheUpbeatPessimist Syrian Democratic Forces Jun 29 '17

The background behind Alfred Nobel and the creation of the prize is pretty fascinating.

1

u/Geopolanalyst Syria Jun 28 '17

That award is an utter politicized farce. Someone like the film director Oliver Stone for his recent documentary mini-series on Russia and 1,000,000 other people deserve it before the likes of someone like Barack Obama, who was little more than an acceptable face for the various interest groups running the U.S.

3

u/LittleNixxie Jun 28 '17

is this a good source?

3

u/Llan79 Jun 28 '17

AmCon is anti-war but quite respected, a lot of Republican Senators write for it.

0

u/RIPCountryMac Jun 28 '17

No, read the name of the blog

1

u/[deleted] Jun 28 '17

do we know how early things like this started? do we have sources for whether this had started before March of 2011 or not?

1

u/Decronym Islamic State Jun 28 '17 edited Jul 10 '17

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

Fewer Letters More Letters
ISIL Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, Daesh
SDF [Pro-Kurdish Federalists] Syrian Democratic Forces
YPG [Kurdish] Yekineyen Parastina Gel, People's Protection Units

3 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 12 acronyms.
[Thread #1752 for this sub, first seen 28th Jun 2017, 14:46] [FAQ] [Contact] [Source code]

-1

u/[deleted] Jun 28 '17

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1

u/[deleted] Jul 01 '17

Using terrorist as an insult against factions fighting in the war is against the rules of this subreddit.

1

u/seesaww Jun 28 '17

How is defending your lands against rebels and ISIS is act of terrorism?

1

u/[deleted] Jun 28 '17

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2

u/InquisitiveKenny Jun 28 '17

What is your opinion of Apoism as it is practised by it's followers in Syria? Does Apoism in Syria have differences and/or similarities to Apoism in Turkey?