8 Reasons Why Congress Would Have to Vote No on Training and Funding Syrian Rebels

8 Reasons Why Congress Would Have to Vote No on Training and Funding Syrian Rebels

by Dennis J. Kucinich

Former U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich rails against the Congressional vote to fund, train and arm the "rebels" in Syria. In this post, he doesn’t look into the validity of such policy, which seeks to paint foreign fighters as "rebels" on the basis that they are supported by a bunch of domestic quislings, but underscores its consequences for the American people.

VOLTAIRE NETWORK | WASHINGTON D. C. (ÉTATS-UNIS) | 21 SEPTEMBER 2014

The Congress voted on the McKeon Amendment, a piece of legislation most Americans haven’t heard of. But the consequences of the vote today are grave: funding Syrian "rebels" will precipitate a new and wider war in the Middle East. Here are eight reasons why Congress would have to vote NO on the McKeon Amendment:

1. It is a waste of money.

We’d be on the hook for a projected $21 billion price tag over three years. The Pentagon plans to train 5,000 rebels in the next year, which at $1 million for each soldier could cost up to $15 billion dollars over the three-year war. The nearly 2,000 U.S. troops in Iraq will cost $6 billion over three years.

The last Iraq War added at least $5 trillion to the long-term deficit.

2. There are no "moderates"

Historian Alastair Crooke, writing about the connection between Saudi Arabia and ISIS, recently described "moderate" insurgents in Syria as being "rarer than a mythical unicorn." "Moderates" have a non-aggression pact with ISIS. "Moderates" captured an American journalist and sold him to ISIS, who beheaded him. Saudi Arabia, which, with Qatar funded the jihadists in Syria, is now offering to "train" the rebels. Congress is being asked to swallow this concoction: the sponsors of radical jihadists are going to train "moderate" jihadists.

3. The truth is, we don’t know who we are training.

The so-called "rebels" are mercenaries who come from over 20 countries. They constantly organize and reorganize into new groups with allegiances to whoever is paying them or supplying them with arms at any given moment. The U.S. has supplied weapons to the Iraqi government and to Syrian rebels which have ended up in the hands of ISIS. As a result, the U.S. Air Force has been bombing Humvees and armored troop carriers purchased with U.S. taxpayer money. ISIS has large quantities of U.S.-made assault weapons and ammunition. Is the U.S. Treasury now their piggy bank?

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