RE: "Arm The Rebels!!"
November 16, 2014 at 8:36 am
(This post was last modified: November 16, 2014 at 8:41 am by Thumpalumpacus.)
(November 15, 2014 at 8:17 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: There's nothing wrong with arming rebels, as long as you're willing to train them how to use the arms you give them. Dumping weapons on a mob doesn't create an army, it simply creates a better armed mob.
Boru
Our aid doesn't seem to buy us any influence. The weapons we gave the Afghan jihadis installed a government which gave ObL a base of operations.
The moderates in Syria, as the article pointed out, are in some cases defecting. No amount of training will dampen the will to survive, and on the battlefield, weaponry is only as good as the soldier wielding them. That includes not only training, but more importantly, motivation. History is rife with examples of motivated warriors defeating better-equipped enemies.
Those are the two reasons I think my original point sound.
(November 16, 2014 at 1:42 am)Chuck Wrote: Either way, it now benefits the U.S. to let other take the lead, or let no one take the lead and have shit hit the fan.
And even if ISIL wins out, they'll find that governance is a vastly different kettle of fish than fighting a war, and most likely to their detriment. Unlike the Taliban winning in Afghanistan to govern an agrarian country, Syria is a bit more modern, and Syrians themselves more sophisticated.
