Rand Paul: US interventionists abetted rise of ISIS

[bedstuy]

It's a huge oversimplification.  What exactly did the Obama administration do to destabilize the Assad regime in the first place?  This all came out of years and years of corruption, oppression and mismanagement by the Assad family.  This came out of the organic political movement of the Arab spring.  If we can fault one big decision, maybe you can point to the Iraq War, but Obama didn't create this situation in any meaningful way. 

Next, how did our involvement abet the rise of ISIS?  This statement:

We trained and armed jihadist rebels in Syria, something that Paul was strongly opposed to.

is certainly wrong.  The US did not arm ISIS, we sluggishly aided the FSA mostly with CIA advisors and non-lethal aid.  We also ended that program when ISIS began to truly expand and we had the concern that our aid could fall into their hands.  Some people just want to paint all the anti-Assad forces as Islamic radicals, but that's just not factual.

I think it's actually more likely that we gave ISIS a chance to fester because we didn't intervene with enough gusto at the beginning.  Obviously, politics played a huge role there with Obama's reelection creating an air of restraint in committing to any large role in brining down Assad.  But, you could make the argument that we were actually too timid as an international community and too willing to allow this disaster to continue.  If we had gotten behind the FSA with full force we might have a unified transitional government in Syria instead of the 30 years war style failed state we see right now.

This debate just reflects the provincial worldview of most Americans.  We always see America as the crucial player, either because we're intervening too much or not enough.  Here, I don't think there are any easy answers and anyone who is peddling them is not to be trusted.

[bedstuy]

Next, how did our involvement abet the rise of ISIS?  This statement:

We trained and armed jihadist rebels in Syria, something that Paul was strongly opposed to.

is certainly wrong.  The US did not arm ISIS, we sluggishly aided the FSA mostly with CIA advisors and non-lethal aid.  We also ended that program when ISIS began to truly expand and we had the concern that our aid could fall into their hands.  Some people just want to paint all the anti-Assad forces as Islamic radicals, but that's just not factual.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/15/world/middleeast/jihadists-receiving-most-arms-sent-to-syrian-rebels.html?pagewanted=all

Did you read that article?

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[bedstuy]

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The US facilitated weapons shipments from Gulf states to Syrian jihadists. That easily meets the definition of "armed" to me. But, if you want something more concrete, here are a few more links:

http://www.ibtimes.co.in/iraq-crisis-isis-terrorists-were-trained-by-us-2012-syria-conflict-602594
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/09/syrian-rebel-aid-handwritten-receipts
http://www.worthynews.com/12470-free-syrian-army-massacre-christian-village

What does that mean?  And, none of those are very informative articles or really to the point.  If Saudi Arabia sends arms to ISIS, why are we responsible for that?  I don't really understand your point, nor do I think it's clear what the CIA is doing in Syria anyway.

It's sort of a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.  If we don't arm the non-ISIS opposition, ISIS continues to rampage around.  If we arm the non-ISIS opposition, some of that aid might actually go to Islamist nuts or ISIS itself. 

[bedstuy]

The first article talks about the US training the Free Syrian Army which is not ISIS.  And, then it says:

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That is categorically false, so it discredits the whole article.  That false point also leads to this leap in logic that the US is supporting ISIS.  It's just a silly article with no credibility.

The third article is just strange and somewhat unrelated. 

The second article just reflects that it's difficult to verify where supplies from the US were going.  And, if I'm not mistaken, the US has ended shipments to Syria over those concerns.