College of Political Knowledge
Subject: Middle East
No, Irene…all is NOT well in the Middle East! And NO….it has not gone away!
There is a discussion or even a debate going on about the possibility of arming the Libyan rebels in their fight against the Qaddafi regime and all its military might……some are remembering our other “arming” of rebels fighting a militarily superior force……..We’ve been down this “old, dark path” before, and it rarely ends well, says Max Fisher in The Atlantic. From Afghanistan to Nicaragua, U.S.-armed insurgencies usually “create instability and violence” that add to a country’s problems. Britain and France may send weapons to Libya even without the U.S., but America, at least, shouldn’t add another chapter to our “sordid history” of arming insurgents.
No, we can’t risk arming jihadists: With the rebels apparently in a “disorganized, panicked retreat” once again, it’s tempting to want to do something, says Doug Mataconis at Outside the Beltway. But giving them weapons “poses at least two problems”: Key coalition allies would defect, and we’d be arming a rebel force that contains “flickers” of potential al Qaeda and Hezbollah fighters, according to NATO. It “seems rather inadvisable” to arm our enemies.
I am old enough to remember the disaster of arming the Contras and rebels in El Salvador…..there were many massacres done with American weapons and with American training….it was NOT a pretty policy and we should NOT allow this again….look at Afghanistan…..we armed and trained the rebels during the Russian invasion of the country…..and that turned out fairly crappy….AQ received a lot of assistance from the US and we had to pay for it later…..I do NOT want to relive that horrendous act! How about you?
We definitely do NOT need another Iran-Contra Affair…..But then when has the US ever butted out of another country’s internal situations?
