Speaking to Senators on Tuesday, Centcom Commander Gen. Joseph Votel said that the US needs to “look more closely” at reports that arms sent to Yemen to back the Saudi invasion ended up going to al-Qaeda and other Islamist factions.
The US gave the arms to the Saudi-led coalition for the protracted ground war in Yemen. They neglected to note that this Saudi coalition was a series of Sunni Arab states looking to oust a Shi’ite political movement in Yemen, and unsurprisingly had domestic allies that included very hardline Sunni groups, including al-Qaeda and other Salafist Islamists.
Exactly as happened in Syria, the US started arming the side they wanted to back, and it never occurred to them that the arms would be shared around to the various other allies within that coalition, including groups the US definitely wouldn’t be allowed to directly arm.
As with many other wars in the region, US-made military vehicles have been lost from coalition custody, and US-made arms are readily available on the black market. The State Department downplayed this, saying they expect countries to get US authorization before transferring the arms.
What?!?! The US is arming and supplying a terrorist outfit through a proxy? OMG, this is sooo new and unusual. We simply must conduct an investigation…
*swoons*
Convinced? Yeah, I didn’t think so…
“it never occurred to them that the arms would be shared around to the various other allies within that coalition, including groups the US definitely wouldn’t be allowed to directly arm”
I’m sure that occurred to them. They are not naive, just lawless. See Iran-Contra as an example that just keeps happening.
They are more than lawless. They know that arming up the enemy sells weapons. You get more contracts and kickbacks when the enemy has more than rocks and spears as weapons.
The US militants couldn’t care less who ends up with the arms, as long as ME nations continue to bleed and burn, and the check clears.
General super- neocon Votel knows really well that Al-Qaeda is not living off thin air, and has real weapons not bows and arrows. For years we had uncotested reports of both Pentagon and CIA trainining, “vetting” and arming Syria’s “rebels” . Islamists, Salafists, Al-Qaeda, Nusra, ISIS — all distinctions withouth difference, and plentiful arms for all!
Or shall we ask General Votel about deals with East European countries to lurchase their old weapons and supply “democracy” loving death squads — from Midfle East to Africa and Latin America. And just hkw much from Croatia, Bosnia and Albania. In fact, Albania as a whole has become one giant black site, for anything shady — shipping prisoners, collecting terrorists and arms — and now bringing terrorists back through Albania into Bosnia, Kosovo and through Crostia into Europe. So war on terrorism bsn go on and on and on… I have heard one speech he made in Congress about a year ago and it was an incredibly delusional globalist agenda. So, now he is acting innocent? Or nust acting incompetent — nobody cares anyway.