Thursday 21 August 2014

What should be done about ISIS after the beheading of James Foley?

James Foley


Owen Jones' turn to lay on the bullshit.
"The counter-history favoured by supporters of western intervention is that these are the grim consequences of failing to support “moderate” Syrian rebels. Given that weapons provided by the CIA to such groups ended up in Isis’s hands, this is surely naive."
I followed the link*, and then followed the link** they gave [it was actually a broken link with the Washington Post's story link pasted on the beginning. I don't expect Owen Jones got that far]. Eventually you end up at the Wall Street Journal***, which does report that one lot of light weapons was seized by ISIS from the FSA. Weapons you can get anywhere in the Middle East, that the lightly armed FSA couldn't protect. And alongside repeated stories of ISIS and the real rebels fighting, we have this, "ISIS fighters have adopted a strategy of dropping back—taking rear positions—as rebels with the FSA alliance leave for front lines to fight government forces, allowing ISIS to build a presence in towns and villages left without security or services." Owen Jones is wilfully ignorant of what is going on in Syria. And is a bit gutless in hinting that we should ally with Assad, but only openly arguing for a "rational" debate.
"As for Syria: well, it is no longer far-fetched to imagine a rapprochement between the west and the Assad dictatorship.
Because Isis has proved so successful in spreading terror, it will be difficult to have a rational debate about how to defeat them. But a rational debate is exactly what we need."
*[http://www.washingtonpost.com/…/mosul-is-burning-and-iraq-…/]
**[www.longwarjournal.org/…/…/report_american-supplied_arms.php]
***[http://online.wsj.com/…/SB100014241278873248077045790829241…]

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