McCain Invades Syria to Back Rebels

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**WarOne**

Soooo....someone says we need to fund rebels in a Middle Eastern country in order to back a side that we want to win?

Seems legit.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/27/exclusive-john-mccain-slips-across-border-into-syria-meets-with-rebels.html

Sen. John McCain Monday became the highest-ranking U.S. official to enter Syria since the bloody civil war there began more than two years ago, The Daily Beast has learned.

McCain, one of the fiercest critics of the Obama administration’s Syria policy, made the unannounced visit across the Turkey-Syria border with Gen. Salem Idris, the leader of the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army. He stayed in the country for several hours before returning to Turkey. Both in Syria and Turkey, McCain and Idris met with assembled leaders of Free Syrian Army units that traveled from around the country to see the U.S. senator. Inside those meetings, rebel leaders called on the United States to step up its support to the Syrian armed opposition and provide them with heavy weapons, a no-fly zone, and airstrikes on the Syrian regime and the forces of Hezbollah, which is increasingly active in Syria.
John McCain

Idris praised the McCain visit and criticized the Obama administration’s Syria policy in an exclusive interview Monday with The Daily Beast.

“The visit of Senator McCain to Syria is very important and very useful especially at this time,” he said. “We need American help to have change on the ground; we are now in a very critical situation.”

Fighting across Syria has increased in recent weeks, with new regime offensives in several key areas, such as Damascus and the strategic border town of Qusayr. Thousands of soldiers serving Hezbollah—the Lebanon-based and Iran- and Syria-backed stateless army—have joined the fight in support of the regime, as the civil war there has threatened to ignite a region-wide conflagration and amid new reports of chemical weapons attacks by forces loyal to embattled president Bashar al-Assad this week that might cross President Obama’s “red line” for the conflict.

McCain’s visit came as the Obama administration is once again considering an increase of support to the Syrian opposition, while at the same time pushing the opposition council to negotiate with the regime at an international conference in Geneva in early June.

How do John McCain and his colleagues feel about the war in Syria?

“What we want from the U.S. government is to take the decision to support the Syrian revolution with weapons and ammunition, anti-tank missiles and anti-aircraft weapons,” Idris said. “Of course we want a no-fly zone and we ask for strategic strikes against Hezbollah both inside Lebanon and inside Syria.”

There’s no assurance the Obama administration will be able to convince the Syrian opposition to attend the Geneva conference, and Idris said the conference would only be useful if there are certain preconditions, which the regime is unlikely to agree to.

“We are with Geneva if it means that [Syrian President] Bashar [al Assad] will resign and leave the country and the military officials of the regime will be brought to justice,” he said.

“We need American help to have change on the ground; we are now in a very critical situation.”

Prior to his visit inside Syria, McCain and Idris had separate meetings with two groups of FSA commanders and their Civil Revolutionary Council counterparts in the Turkish city of Gaziantep. Rebel military and civilian leaders from all over Syria came to see McCain, including from Homs, Qusayr, Idlib, Damascus, and Aleppo. Idris led all the meetings.

The entire trip was coordinated with the help of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, an American nonprofit organization that works in support of the Syrian opposition. Two leaders of the group attended all of the McCain-Idris meetings and discussed them with The Daily Beast.

The rebel troops are running low on ammunition and don’t have effective weapons to counter the regime’s use of airpower, the FSA and civilian leaders told McCain. They also said there’s a growing presence of Russian military advisers in Damascus as well as growing numbers of Iranian and Iraqi fighters.

Hezbollah has taken over the fight for the regime in Homs, they said. Estimates of Hezbollah’s presence there ranged from four to seven thousand fighters in and around city, outnumbering the approximately two thousand FSA fighters in the area.

The rebels also told McCain that chemical weapons have been used by the regime on multiple occasions.

**Jihadin**

No....just NO.....NO....NO NO NO....

**Relapse**

Well crap, now we've got politicians going in there. Who will believe that we don't want to interfere in a major way after this trick?

**whembly**

Jihadin wrote:
No....just NO.....NO....NO NO NO....

^ what he said.

McCain... dude...

**chaos0xomega**

Can we afford it? No. Is it the right thing to do? Yes, very much so, and if nothing else it will do a lot to improve the internationally held view that the US only ever gets involved when it has something to gain (like oil). Being that Syria isnt really an oil producing state and doesnt have any other resources we really need, itd be a good place to make the point.

**MeanGreenStompa**

No, absolutely not.

Whichever side wins, whichever side we fund or tinker with, we will be blamed and hated by them.

Just leave them to it. No one more of our soldiers for them, let them fight it out, let them fight it out themselves. This is not our conflict. Mujahadeen on one side, Al Qaeda on the other, bah, let them do as they wish.

**sebster**

MeanGreenStompa wrote:
Whichever side wins, whichever side we fund or tinker with, we will be blamed and hated by them.

And if you do nothing then you'll be blamed just as much. It isn't particularly fair, but life isn't fair.

Just leave them to it. No one more of our soldiers for them, let them fight it out, let them fight it out themselves.

I don't see why you'd be putting troops on the ground. They don't exactly lack for willing soldiers.

This is about supplying weapons, and maybe having US pilots enforce a no fly zone, and maybe, maybe having US air assets hit critical sites.

And I'm still fairly certain the US is already supplying the rebels, because those Syrian helicopters didn't just fall out of the sky - it's just that the likely supply route was through third party amouries, much like those used to supply the Afghanis against the Soviets.

**Relapse**

sebster wrote:
MeanGreenStompa wrote:
Whichever side wins, whichever side we fund or tinker with, we will be blamed and hated by them.

And if you do nothing then you'll be blamed just as much. It isn't particularly fair, but life isn't fair.

Just leave them to it. No one more of our soldiers for them, let them fight it out, let them fight it out themselves.

I don't see why you'd be putting troops on the ground. They don't exactly lack for willing soldiers.

This is about supplying weapons, and maybe having US pilots enforce a no fly zone, and maybe, maybe having US air assets hit critical sites.

And I'm still fairly certain the US is already supplying the rebels, because those Syrian helicopters didn't just fall out of the sky - it's just that the likely supply route was through third party amouries, much like those used to supply the Afghanis against the Soviets.

I just keep thinking it's not going to make any difference. I got soured on helping in these countries since we got 9/11'd after helping in Afghanastan and Croatia.

**Jihadin**

Syrian rebels have SA missiles...I think their SA7's Man packs. Actual Heat seekers. Sebster you remember the type of Helo's? The questionable one is the actual SA missile site that took out the Turkey F4 being that it was equipped with a ALQ133 same as US fighters that are equipped. As for US assistance.....cell phones and a cell phone network

I kid you not. Something that was mention once in the news about 7 months back I leave it at that. Oh and medical supplies.

**whembly**

sebster wrote:

And I'm still fairly certain the US is already supplying the rebels, because those Syrian helicopters didn't just fall out of the sky - it's just that the likely supply route was through third party amouries, much like those used to supply the Afghanis against the Soviets.

Yup... remember Bengahzi and what the feth why Amb Stevens was there in the first place?

Why is that?

**Ahtman**

whembly wrote:
sebster wrote:

And I'm still fairly certain the US is already supplying the rebels, because those Syrian helicopters didn't just fall out of the sky - it's just that the likely supply route was through third party amouries, much like those used to supply the Afghanis against the Soviets.

Yup... remember Bengahzi and what the feth why Amb Stevens was there in the first place?

Why is that?

I get the feeling you'll be on your deathbed in 100 years (thanks science!) and your last words will be "Benghazi..."

**Valion**

sebster wrote:
And if you do nothing then you'll be blamed just as much. It isn't particularly fair, but life isn't fair.

Yes, but if we're going to be blamed no matter what we do, then 'nothing' is the correct course of action, as it's cheapest.

**Ouze**

sebster wrote:
And I'm still fairly certain the US is already supplying the rebels, because those Syrian helicopters didn't just fall out of the sky - it's just that the likely supply route was through third party amouries, much like those used to supply the Afghanis against the Soviets.

Which is another awesome reason we shouldn't intervene at all, since that sentence would also be accurately rephrased as

it's just that the likely supply route was through third party amouries, much like those used to supply the Taliban against the Soviets.

I was on the fence about this is earlier posts* because if they use chemical weapons, it seems like a "with great power comes great responsibility" type situation. But I'm increasingly thinking it's just not that way - you once said that it's foolish to conflate kitchen table economics of credit card debt etc with the way a government runs it's spending. I agree with that, and am also starting to think that applies to personal responsibility as well.

I just think our responsibility in this case has to be towards the men and women we'd send over there instead of being with their families here, and we have little duty to the people in a land far away who I think everyone will likely safely agree will be burning American flags in the streets to protest the Great Satan in a few years regardless of what we do.

*if someone wants to call me a flip-flopper on this, it's a reasonable rap. I am torn.

**Ahtman**

Valion wrote:
sebster wrote:
And if you do nothing then you'll be blamed just as much. It isn't particularly fair, but life isn't fair.

Yes, but if we're going to be blamed no matter what we do, then 'nothing' is the correct course of action, as it's cheapest.

You haven't convinced me, or Kant, that that is the right.

**sebster**

Relapse wrote:
I just keep thinking it's not going to make any difference. I got soured on helping in these countries since we got 9/11'd after helping in Afghanastan and Croatia.

Heh, my wife's second generation Croatian, I'll tell her you said that

**whembly**

Ahtman wrote:

I get the feeling you'll be on your deathbed in 100 years (thanks science!) and your last words will be "Benghazi..."

I like the way you think!

I'd be the oldest chap evar!

**sebster**

Jihadin wrote:
Syrian rebels have SA missiles...I think their SA7's Man packs. Actual Heat seekers. Sebster you remember the type of Helo's?

No idea on the types of helicopters, sorry. I leave that kind of specifics to you guys that really know your military hardware.

I just read a few pieces talking about the collapsing morale in the Syrian armed forces, including pilots refusing to undertake operations in certain areas after several helicopters were shot down.

As for US assistance.....cell phones and a cell phone network I kid you not. Something that was mention once in the news about 7 months back I leave it at that. Oh and medical supplies.

Yeah. And that's kind of why this thread is very weird - people keep saying 'we are not getting in to that'... well you're already in it, the question is only how much.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

whembly wrote:
Yup... remember Bengahzi and what the feth why Amb Stevens was there in the first place?

Why is that?

Because the USA has a long history of active diplomacy in the region... Do you think its strange that the USA would have diplomats in the region?

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Valion wrote:
Yes, but if we're going to be blamed no matter what we do, then 'nothing' is the correct course of action, as it's cheapest.

Costs aren't measured only in the cheques you write.

**whembly**

Ouze wrote:

*if someone wants to call me a flip-flopper on this, it's a reasonable rap. I am torn.

I think most of us are torn for many reasons...

One of my biggest beef is that once we do go in, we tend to go in half-assed because we're afraid of what the world reactions would be, or disportionate amout of force, or whateve...

The "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario.

My take...

We stay out...

If we're asked to intervene? We'd consider it.

If we do go in, we go balls-out-muther-F'n that would be an awesome display of force, that the NEXT time a situation would arise, the bad guys would think twice. I want them to say, "oh gak, remember what happened when the last time that intervene?? feth that.".

**Valion**

sebster wrote:
Costs aren't measured only in the cheques you write.

Fortunately, I wasn't referring only to financial costs.

I'll also point out to our non-American friends who seem to be so stridently in favor of intervention that there's nothing at all stopping you guys from having your own adventure.

**whembly**

sebster wrote:

Because the USA has a long history of active diplomacy in the region... Do you think its strange that the USA would have diplomats in the region?

Diplomacy in Libya. Nope.

But, the events on 9/11/12 within Benghazi. Yup... that was strange.

As we go on, we'll find out more what really happened and why.

All I can say is... stay tuned.

**Ahtman**

Ouze wrote:
*if someone wants to call me a flip-flopper on this, it's a reasonable rap. I am torn.

It really isn't reasonable, tbh. I understand why it is a rhetorical weapon used against politicians, but in general we shouldn't be attacking people for considering a subject and being able to change their minds as they know more/think on it more.

**Relapse**

sebster wrote:
Relapse wrote:
I just keep thinking it's not going to make any difference. I got soured on helping in these countries since we got 9/11'd after helping in Afghanastan and Croatia.

Heh, my wife's second generation Croatian, I'll tell her you said that

That'll no doubt go over like the proverbial turd in a punch bowl!

**Breotan**

MeanGreenStompa wrote:
Whichever side wins, whichever side we fund or tinker with, we will be blamed and hated by them.

Got news for ya. This is going to happen no matter what we do or don't do. Just accept it.

**dæl**

Breotan wrote:
MeanGreenStompa wrote:
Whichever side wins, whichever side we fund or tinker with, we will be blamed and hated by them.
Got news for ya. This is going to happen no matter what we do or don't do. Just accept it.

Well the US sits at the top of a unipolar system where it has far more power than any other state, when the decision was taken to invade Iraq without the backing of the UN Security Council it basically gave up the ability to claim that any authority above itself existed. If the authority of the UN was properly recognised then any decision whether to take action or not would rest with the UN and all permanent members of the security council, rather than the US being seen as the superpower which dictates what action will be taken and where.

**KalashnikovMarine**

Ah Charlie Wilson:s War 2

**sebster**

whembly wrote:
I think most of us are torn for many reasons...

One of my biggest beef is that once we do go in, we tend to go in half-assed because we're afraid of what the world reactions would be, or disportionate amout of force, or whateve...

The "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario.

My take...

We stay out...

If we're asked to intervene? We'd consider it.

If we do go in, we go balls-out-muther-F'n that would be an awesome display of force, that the NEXT time a situation would arise, the bad guys would think twice. I want them to say, "oh gak, remember what happened when the last time that intervene?? feth that.".

It really isn't just an issue of the amount of force used. I mean, the problem with Iraq was not the lack of extremely powerful weapons of war you put in the country.

The success of any operation isn't just 'did we drop enough bombs or did international pressure make us wuss out too early?' Success involves aligning yourself with a viable alternative government. The issue with Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan was never a lack of explosions, but with the alternate governments you were proposing - a lot of people in country weren't too happy with those governments, and were willing to continue the violence to prevent that alternative.

The issue in Syria is if any of the rebel forces are materially better than the current regime, and also popular enough to be a viable government, and also military capable of winning the war (with outside hardware support). I have no idea if any of that is true. I suspect McCain probably knows a little better if its true, than he would have this time last week.

**Andrew1975**

Still say we should stay out of it, let the Muslims make war or peace with each other, we don't need to perpetuate this idea that the west is the problem or the solution. They really need to handle this themselves.

**sebster**

Valion wrote:
Fortunately, I wasn't referring only to financial costs.

I'll also point out to our non-American friends who seem to be so stridently in favor of intervention that there's nothing at all stopping you guys from having your own adventure.

You might not be familiar with the military capabilities of my country, and our military strategy, so to sum it up for you - we don't have the force projection to go about invading any country on our own, but we are conscious of the need to play an active part in world affairs, and so our strategy is basically 'if the Americans go we'll go as well'. You might have noticed us turn up to Vietnam when you asked us to go, and to Iraq (twice), and Afghanistan.

And on the first part of your answer, well it's good that you didn't consider only financial costs. But I suspect your view of costs is still very narrow (and likely only includes bodies as well as money paid out), and that's why you've not expanded on your argument at all.

Anyhow, the thing is, what you lose today isn't the only cost of an action. Consider for instance the shut down in aid to Afghanistan following the retreat of the Soviets, saved you a nice few million in foreign aid at the time. But then when it became a failed state run by crazies and a nice place to train terrorists, well then it ended up costing you a hell of a lot more later on.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Relapse wrote:
That'll no doubt go over like the proverbial turd in a punch bowl!

I think she'll probably agree with you

There are reasons her family isn't there any more.

**Valion**

sebster wrote:
You might not be familiar with the military capabilities of my country, and our military strategy, so to sum it up for you - we don't have the force projection to go about invading any country on our own, but we are conscious of the need to play an active part in world affairs, and so our strategy is basically 'if the Americans go we'll go as well'. You might have noticed us turn up to Vietnam when you asked us to go, and to Iraq (twice), and Afghanistan.

That's what coalition building is for.

Though I would say that if you choose to rely on a foreign power to accomplish all of your expeditionary goals, you've no one but yourself to blame when said foreign power chooses not to do as you like in a given case.

And on the first part of your answer, well it's good that you didn't consider only financial costs. But I suspect your view of costs is still very narrow (and likely only includes bodies as well as money paid out), and that's why you've not expanded on your argument at all.

Anyhow, the thing is, what you lose today isn't the only cost of an action. Consider for instance the shut down in aid to Afghanistan following the retreat of the Soviets, saved you a nice few million in foreign aid at the time. But then when it became a failed state run by crazies and a nice place to train terrorists, well then it ended up costing you a hell of a lot more later on.

That's flawed analysis that suspiciously resembles the final five minutes of Charlie Wilson's War. If the argument is that Syria might become the next Afghanistan, yes, that's possible. It's equally possible if we do choose to intervene, however. 10 years spent in the exemplar has netted us nothing tangible.

We currently have Iran and Russia backing the regime, Saudi Arabia and Qatar backing the al-Qaeda affiliates active in the country, and the West, broadly speaking, backing the "secular" rebels. We've fought enough proxy wars to know that the juice isn't worth the squeeze, and we've wound up in the middle of enough sectarian conflicts in that region recently to know that we are not capable of going in and turning the place into Jefferson's Arabian Dream.

This isn't Libya, where a few air strikes will do the trick. Even if it was, getting into a position where those air strikes can be performed without significant risk would require a hell of a lot more time and effort than either Libya or Iraq ever did. If we want to throw some cash away on guns for the rebels, fine by me, but that's not going to be all that's required.

**sebster**

Valion wrote:
That's what coalition building is for.

There's coalition building and there's taking the dog for a walk. We're in the latter category.

"You've got your car keys and the lead! We going somewhere?! Is it a war? I love it when we go to war!"

Though I would say that if you choose to rely on a foreign power to accomplish all of your expeditionary goals, you've no one but yourself to blame when said foreign power chooses not to do as you like in a given case.

Dude, seriously though, we've got 20 million people. Complaining that we lack force projection is a bit silly.

That's flawed analysis that suspiciously resembles the final five minutes of Charlie Wilson's War. If the argument is that Syria might become the next Afghanistan, yes, that's possible. It's equally possible if we do choose to intervene, however. 10 years spent in the exemplar has netted us nothing tangible.

It likely won't become the next Afghanistan, but if it does collapse will becomes its own unique kind of disaster, with it's own unique set of problems for the rest of the world.

And yeah, maybe that'll happen with or without intervention, but likely intervening or not will shift the odds one way or the other, and possibly by a large amount. The issue is which way they'll move, and that depends on a lot of specifics on the ground. And that's why I react against the 'nope, not never, not again, because of these vague reasons based on what went wrong in some other conflict'. Iraq was a mistake because the reasoning behind it was all high level, geo-political theory stuff, with no attention paid to the realities in the country itself.

People here are making the same mistake, only to come to the opposite conclusion - the reasoning is basically is that they oppose intervention in Syria because they have a generalised world view based on other efforts made at other times.

Note I'm not really arguing for intervention, I was just commenting first on people failing to realise that the US is already giving aid, and then on what I think is fairly faulty reasoning on whether further aid would achieve anything.