More Weapons for Syria? No!!!

A terrible atrocity took place in the Syrian province of Latakia last August, reports Human Rights Watch. At least 190 people were murdered, and another 200 taken hostage.

Another vicious attack by the Assad regime? No. It was another vicious attack by our "allies". 

Members of a group called Al Qaeda in Iraq went house to house in approximately 14 Alawite villages in the province, executing all the men and taking women and children as hostages. As Jason Ditz reports for Antiwar.com, "Syrian President Bashar Assad is a member of the Alawite religion, and Sunni Islamist rebel factions have regularly targeted Alawite civilians as presumptive 'sympathizers.'"

Another of our "allies", the Free Syrian Army, was also likely involved.

According to an October 11 report in the Miami Herald, "at the time of the Latakia assault, the two groups cooperated closely." While Human Rights Watch stopped short of directly accusing US-backed forces of involvement, "it noted that defected Syrian army Gen. Salim Idriss, who heads the Supreme Military Command, had issued statements that indicated his fighters were taking part in the offensive."

Ditz reports that Gen. Idriss "bragged of this involvement in a video less than a week after the killings."

"We're not just talking about a few rogue actors. We're talking about the pre-planned, [pre]meditated pattern of abuse that was intentionally undertaken," said Lama Fakih, a researcher for Human Rights Watch.

Typical of America's seemingly whim-driven foreign policy, sides are taken in a dispute of which Americans and their "leaders" are largely ignorant, and more for the sake of grandstanding politicians interested in deflecting attention away from their domestic troubles. Blindly throwing us into this fight, arms, funding and training are provided to violent extremists, contributing to tragic consequences for those unfortunate enough to live in America's playground.

"The individuals or countries that are supporting these groups are now on notice about the types of violations that they are committing, and could be complicit in war crimes and crimes against humanity, if they continue to support them," Ms. Fakih said.

She's absolutely right. Just as in Libya two years ago, American politicians acting with knee-jerk "humanitarianism" were duped (perhaps willingly) into supporting people whose commitment to peace, justice and human rights is questionable at best. Some of them are even outright enemies of the United States.

Standing back and declaring, "We didn't mean for that to happen" may provide some moral evasion for its claimants, but that doesn't mean a whole lot to the people who have to live -- and die -- with their decisions.

President Obama and Secretary Kerry are now quite fond of Syrian President Bashar Assad, a strange turn of events considering they were comparing him to Adolph Hitler not that long ago.

No doubt this is because he has agreed to dispose of his chemical weapons. (Short memories we have indeed; he was prepared to do this over a decade ago. And it's not a little bit hypocritical.)

That job is a lot harder to do with a civil war raging, and naturally raises questions about American politicians' tolerance for massacres committed with conventional weapons. Considering our government's recent complicity in creating exactly those circumstances, we can understand why President Obama might prefer to not talk about that.