In a 78-22 vote today, the Senate passed the same bill the House of Representative passed yesterday approving the Obama Administration’s plan to train and arm a new faction of some 5,000 “vetted and moderate” Syrian rebels.
The plan is to recruit various existing Syrian rebels to go off and train as a new force fitting the US ideal of a “moderate” rebel faction to back, and then in a year send them back to Syria to fight ISIS.
Despite considerable reticence about the plan apparent during Secretary of State John Kerry’s testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday, the vote was not particularly close.
The vote is expected to be the only ISIS-war related vote the Senate will address before the November elections, with senators very keen to delay any broad resolution on the war itself until after the election.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R – CA) offered the same assessment in his own comments earlier this week, saying that there would likely be some sort of debate on an Authorization for Use of Military Force some time after November.
The Obama Administration insists they don’t need any authorization for the war at all, and by the end of November the war is going to be extremely entrenched and difficult to roll back.
Many Congressmen likely to vote for the war fear a backlash from voters if they do, and so are waiting for the post-election period, in hopes that the vote won’t be a political issue.
Sen. Rand Paul (R – KY) was harshly critical of the plan to arm the Syrian rebels, criticizing the Senate’s “barnacled enables (which) have never met a war they didn’t like.”
Rand Paul may have fallen well away from the tree of Ron, but he is the only Senator who made any sense in this fiasco.
Are you kidding yourself! 5000 "moderate rebels" and billions of dollars against 15-20000 ISIS mercenaries with $3 million dollars income per day! There must be something wrong with the way these people are thinking and making decisions upon their thinking, no wonder the world won't and refuses to look upon USG for anything, everything they do is either wrong, deceitful or something fishy about it.
What is missing here is the fact that a ISIS is a military force, trained by a modern military system/advisers having mercenaries as their solders paid by those who supports them. It is proven that Turkish Erdogan government been involved in training the larger chunk of ISIS so as the Jordanians so as the USG/CIA.
ISIS knew exactly where from Turkey to enter northern Iraq with hundreds of brand new Toyota Tacoma, where to find the USG military equipment and how, where and when to use them, which means a military force still is behind ISIS, in Iraq and in Syria. Saudis/UAE are the main political/economical force behind ISIS success which very well is also them behind theur military success achieved by ISIS. Turkish Erdogan government excuses not willing to cooperate in bombing ISIS is yet another. There is a pattern betweenTurkey-NATO/Saudis/UAE/USG interests to keep ISIS where they are without letting them to achieve their altimate goal which is caliphate regime in Iraq and Syria.
The Syrians "moderate" rebels never had 20-31000 mercenaries on their disposal, if they had then the Saudis/UAE mercenaries would have taken over Syria last year, in the other hand, ISIS already had the estimated CIA (20-31000) of mercenaries before invading northern Iraq from Turkey stationed in Turkish borders ready to invade Iraq.
Turkish/Erdogan government should have known about ISIS gathering in Turkey, even if the amount of ISIS mercenaries being one third of CIA estimated amount.
There are political and economical western force demanding for ISIS success, thus far the evidence proves that Saudis/UAE/Jordanian and Turkish Erdogan government are part of that force. If nothing, the Turkish/European mafia, in business of oil black market making tones of money out of Syrian people's suffering. In political terms the Saudis/UAE/USG/English have managed to brake the unity between Iran, Iraq and Syrian nationals, in keeping the same trend, what is left for these regime to do is for ISIS to succeed and become THE source of a long time war among nations in the region and keep Iran, Iraq, Syria divided as long as possible; therefore Barack Hussein Obama wanted to train the "new moderate rebels", question is, where would he find such polished and innocent "moderate rebels", as long as evidence in last four years provide, these lesser terrorist doesn't grow on trees.
What they really voted to fund is a CIA-directed junta which will attempt a coup after Syria is softened up with the airstrikes being rolled out by Obomber now.
Let's hope these trainees end up as competent as the Iraqi "army".
5,000 more recruits for ISIS! They can take their shiny new U.S. made arms with them.
The American people will one day lose their freedom in exchange for "National Security."
And people who go around putting words into the mouth of their God(s) and claiming to know what their God(s) think are the biggest terrorists of all…and will be, IMO, the downfall of humanity.
Only one year of training? Wow, we must have gotten good at it. Have we finished up our training in Afghanistan or Iraq yet?
What is the REAL reason we are hellbent on more carnage in Syria? US–STAY OUT!