US Considers Directly Arming Syrian Rebels

[Brian4Liberty]

http://www.thenational.ae/thenationa...er-after-assad

Syria's Kurds also sit on most of the country's oil resources.


Arm the rebels - hu? That sounds like a BRILLIANT plan! Lets do Afghanistan all over again! I'm sure they need some shoulder launched surface to air missiles!

-t

That link is also talking about the oil in the Kurdistan Region (formerly northern Iraq). I will add it to the thread about the brewing war between Kurdistan and Iraq.

Edit: Found the reference to Syria:

If the Assads do fall, Syria's Kurds will be indebted to Mr Barzani. They could emerge as a major force in Syria, largely because of their numbers. They may also be better organised than other Syrian groups caught up in infighting. Syria's Kurds also sit on most of the country's oil resources.

Read more: http://www.thenational.ae/thenationa...er-after-assad

[paulbot24]

So, how do we give our soldiers posing as "Syrian Freedom Fighters" guns, without also arming the militant groups we say we don't like, who we're fighting side by side with? Now that is a damn good question, and one they deserve to be agonized by for a long time since they created the damn mess. At the very least, they escalated it way out of their control, and the answer is.....possible further escalation?

[kcchiefs6465]

I wonder what they would do should (I say should and not when because you never really know nowadays) Congress not approve funds?

[kcchiefs6465]

Arm the rebels - hu? That sounds like a BRILLIANT plan! Lets do Afghanistan all over again! I'm sure they need some shoulder launched surface to air missiles!
-t

Did you know we attempted to buy back the Stingers we gave them for $183,000 a piece? You really could not make this shit up.

[paulbot24]

That link is also talking about the oil in the Kurdistan Region (formerly northern Iraq). I will add it to the thread about the brewing war between Kurdistan and Iraq.

Edit: Found the reference to Syria:

What does oil have to do with what is going on over there? That is ridiculous! /s

[HOLLYWOOD]

History does repeat...

Shukri al-Quwatli

His major preoccupation was to conclude a treaty with France, which had exercised control over Syria for more than two decades. This was accomplished with British help, and by 1946 all foreign troops had evacuated. In 1947, Quwatli enacted an amendment that removed a one-term limit from the constitution and was reelected in 1948.
Using the pretenses of the Israeli victory over Arab forces in 1948 and popular dissatisfaction, Quwatli was overthrown in a CIA backed military coup in March 1949. The CIA's purpose was to install someone who would allow the construction of the Quwatli opposed Saudi Arabian oil pipeline to be built, open a dialogue with Israel and rid the country of the Communist Party which Quawtli had tolerated. The CIA's candidate, Husni al-Za'im, who had been released from prison eight years earlier, having served time for corruption, rapidly implemented his US controller's program. Quwatli, after a short imprisonment, went into exile in Egypt, waiting for an opportunity to regain his position, while a series of coups paralyzed Syrian political life. Free elections under the auspices of the venerable Hashim al-Atassi finally took place in 1955, and Quwatli, at the head of the National Party (the successor to the National Bloc), was elected president.
By then, his post was largely ceremonial, however, and he had little influence on Syria's domestic politics thereafter. Towards the close of the decade, pan-Arab nationalism had swept Syria, and Quwatli presided over the union with Egypt, which formed the United Arab Republic, headed by Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser. By 1959, he had quarreled with Nasser and was forced into exile once again. This marked the end of his political career.
When he died in 1967 in Beirut, after the Syrian authorities initially almost refused to allow his body burial at home, he was interred in Damascus in a lavish state funeral, which adequately reflected the ambitious posturing that marked the course of his life.

US Ambassador Deane Roesch Hinton

US Foreign Service Officer, Deane Hinton, who was working in the US legation at the time of Quwatli's overthrow, insisted his dissenting view be put on record and presciently remarked that the coup was "the stupidest, most irresponsible action a diplomatic mission like ours could get itself involved in, and that we've started a series of these things that will never end." As a result Hinton was ejected from the plotter's group and ostracised. ^[3]

Deane R. Hinton (born March 12, 1923) is a career U.S. diplomat and ambassador. CFR member

US Ambassador Deane Hinton seen in Karachi, 1984

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Husni_az-Zaim
Husni al-Za'im

(1897–1949) (Arabic: حسني الزعيم‎) was a Syrian military man and politician. Husni al-Za'im, whose family is of Kurdish ancestry, had been an officer in the Ottoman Army. After France instituted its colonial mandate over Syria after the First World War, he became an officer in the French Army. After Syria's independence he was made Chief of Staff, and led the Syrian Army into war with the Israeli Army in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The defeat of the Arab forces in that war shook Syria and undermined confidence in the country's chaotic parliamentary democracy.
On April 11, 1949, al-Za'im seized power in a bloodless coup d'état. The coup, according to declassified records and statements by former CIA agents, was sponsored by the United States CIA

Raising taxes also aggrieved businessmen, and Arab nationalists were still smouldering over his signing of a cease-fire with Israel, as well as his deals with US oil companies for building the Trans-Arabian Pipeline. He made a peace overture to Israel offering to resettle 300,000 Palestinian refugees in Syria, in exchange for border modifications along the cease fire line and half of Israel's Lake Tiberias.^[5] Settling the refugees was made conditional on sufficient outside assistance for the Syrian economy. The overture was answered very slowly by Jerusalem and not treated seriously.

Trans-Arabian Pipeline
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Arabian_Pipeline

The Trans-Arabian Pipeline (Tapline), was an oil pipeline from Qaisumah in Saudi Arabia to Sidon in Lebanon. In its heyday, it was an important factor in the global trade of petroleum—helping with the economic development of Lebanon—as well as American and Middle Eastern political relations.

History
Construction of the Trans-Arabian Pipeline began in 1947 and was mainly managed by the American company Bechtel. Originally the Tapline was intended to terminate in Haifa which was then in the British Mandate of Palestine, but due to the establishment of the state of Israel, an alternative route through Syria (via the Golan Heights) and Lebanon was selected with an export terminal in Sidon. Oil transport through the pipeline started in 1950.

Since the 1967 Six-Day War, the section of the pipeline which runs through the Golan Heights came under Israeli control...

[Brian4Liberty]

History does repeat...

Wow. "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it".

It seems that the intended end-game here is a Kurdish-led Syria, doing business with western oil companies and friendly to Israel. Not that doing business and being friendly with neighbors would be a terrible thing, but does the ends justify the means? And what type of oppression will be required to maintain that state?

[kcchiefs6465]

History does repeat...

Thank you very much for taking the time to post this epic response. There are reasons to why we pick and choose a country to "help." I feel for those oppressed in Syria as much as the next person but our involvement is not on moral grounds and is not random. We will undoubtedly choose a C.I.A. backed puppet or the country will be constantly warring with different warlords assuming and losing power. Either way, the country's average people will blame us and more 'extremists' will be bred. Who knows what new terror organization they are creating just by supplying the S.L.A. with weapons. (Which I am sure they already have.. flown out of another country with no ties to America- AK47s and such labeled as humanitarian aid) All of this shit needs to stop. Not now, yesterday. And people scratch their heads when planes are blown up and embassies attacked. History does repeat itself. And it seems we haven't learned a damn thing. I've been disappointed to see a few RPF members fall for the propaganda being spewed. We do this shit every year.

[HOLLYWOOD]

Yes we all know the end game here... it's those that are zombized by the US government's public relations departments aka US corporate media by airwaves or rag print.



Syria is the primary target of the Arab Spring scheme due to its support to Lebanese Hezbollah and Palestinian Hamas, who oppose and resist the Israeli occupation and expansions in the region. Besides weakening these resistance groups the collapse of Syrian Al-Assad's regime would open not only Kurdistan region, but the road to Iran and closing any Russian marine access to the Mediterranean Sea.

[HOLLYWOOD]

Anytime you hear the words "National Security" or "To Pprotect" from government entities, rest assure, it's BS and trouble is about to be escalated.

Turkey-Syria Standoff: NATO Missiles Readied, Kurdish Fighters On Border
By Russia Today
Global Research



Syria has lashed out at Turkey’s “provocative” request to deploy NATO surface-to-air missiles on the countries’ shared border. The batteries may be installed in a matter of weeks, in a buildup that could further flare tensions in the turbulent zone.

Ankara has asked its NATO partners to station Patriot missile batteries along its southern border, claiming they are needed to protect Turkey’s national security. The system can shoot down aircraft and some missiles at a range of up to 600 kilometers.
The region has seen a number of episodes of cross-border mortar fire in recent months, though Syrian warplanes and gunboats were never reported attacking targets on Turkish territory.

The request was acknowledged by NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Thursday, who said that the possible deployment of the missiles was “purely defensive,” and would “serve as a deterrent to possible enemies even thinking of attacks”.
But the Syrian government sharply criticized the plan on Friday. A ministerial source told Syrian state TV that the deployment would be “a provocative step,” and that Syria would hold Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan “responsible for the militarization of the situation on the Syrian-Turkish border and increased tensions.”

Iran voiced similar criticisms, and sent parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani to visit to Damascus this week in a gesture of support for Tehran’s ally.
“The internal crisis in Syria cannot be solved through the deployment of such weapons,” Larijani said at a news conference in Beirut after his trip to Syria.

“The difference between us and the others when it comes to Syria is that the others want to impose democracy through weapons,” he added. “Iran cannot accept or support such a way.”

Russia also expressed concern that the military buildup along the Turkey-Syria border will only further complicate matters, tempting those who seek an escalation of violence in the tensions.

Turkish media speculates that the Patriot batteries will be delivered in a matter of weeks. Next week, a group of NATO military specialists will visit the sites to make assessments about potential deployments. The plan will then be reviewed by the US, Germany and Netherlands militaries, which agreed to provide the weapons.

Fears are being raised that the missiles would be used to create a de facto no-fly zone inside Syrian territory without a UN mandate. So far, Syrian air forces have been a key factor in Damascus’ fight against rebel troops.
Ankara has supported the rebels for months, allowing them to regroup inside Turkish territory and turning a blind eye to weapons smuggling.
Kurds take up arms against rebels

Turkey’s support for rebels is also viewed with suspicion by Syria’s Kurdish population, the majority of which lives in the northern border region. On Friday, two of the main Kurdish groups in Syria agreed to join forces to fight against anti-Assad Islamist militants, which attacked Kurdish areas this month.

The Democratic Union Party, known by its Kurdish initials PYD, and the Kurdish National Council (KNC) came to an agreement after a meeting in Arbil, the capital of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region. The two factions vowed to jointly defend the predominantly Kurdish towns in Syria and administer them together until an election can be held to form a local government.
The agreement followed fierce clashes between PYD militias and rebels from the Al-Nusra Front and allied Ghuraba al-Sham group in the Kurdish districts of Ras al-Ayn. The violence started in early November with a rebel attack on a small group of government soldiers in the area, escalating into a battle that killed at least five Kurds and 18 rebels.

Since then, Ghuraba al-Sham has called on other rebel groups to attack Ras al-Ayn and the provincial capital, Hasakeh. The rebels said that local Kurds, especially those from PYD, were enemies of the Syrian revolution.
PYD is seen as a close ally of Turkey’s Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Kurdish force that has for decades been fighting a guerrilla war in Turkey in a bid for national autonomy. Ankara is hostile to both parties. Many Syrian Kurds believe that Turkey helped the Syrian rebels prepare their offensive at Ras al-Ayn, or even directly orchestrated it.

There are some 2 million Kurds living in Syrian territory…