Supplying Arms to Syrian Rebels is not Policy but Lunacy

Against expectations, against experts advice, and against commonsense, Britain and France bullied the majority of European foreign ministers to lift the sanctions on supplying arms to Syrian “rebels” ( if indeed we know who they are), in a move which majority of sane observers see as escalation. pouring oil on fast spreading fire with real possibility that missiles would fall into te hands of terrorists to be used against us.

The Anglo-French pressure, which was mainly pushing an American agenda, lead the European nations to drop their wise caution and accept lifting the embargo on supplying arms to the rebels, in a move, which will only lead to escalation, prolonging the conflict, and turning it into a proxy war between Russia on one side and America and Europe on the the other, with almost certain fall out that would suck in Syria neighbours directly or indirectly.

Only days after the Russians announced publicly that they would suspend supplying missiles S-300 to the Assad Regime in Syria, which, combined with pressure behind the scene pressure on Damascus to accept negotiating directly with the rebels in an international conference following a Russian American meeting on the Syrian crisis in Geneva on June 12.  In response to the announcement from Brussels in the early hours today, the Russians declared they’d supply sophisticated air-defence systems to Assad.

Having been warned by experts against the repeat of the mistakes of Afghanistan War against Soviet Presence ( 1980-1989), when anti-aircraft missiles supplied to Afghan  Mujahdine ( against experts advice – including this writer – at the time) which ended in the hands of Taliban and al-Qaeda to be used against civilian  aviations and against our own forces; Foreign Secretary William Hague claims the anti-aircraft missiles will be controlled and supplied to restricted groups . As we learned from Afghanistan, when arms were given to Pakistan military intelligence  who were our allies in the war, and missiles ended in the hands of Bin Laden and Talbina,  and from history of all civil wars, unless our own special forces are involved on the ground and in charge of those wepaons, there is almost 100% chance of some finding their ways to the wrong hands, nearly half of the most effective opposition fighters or rebels are Islamists pro-al-Qaeda groups.

So either Mr Hague know of a secret plan to deploy SAS and some of our special forces and not telling us, or his assurance are more of a wishful thinking than real policy. He thinks that ‘ selected, moderate rebels’ can be trained on sophisticated missiles inside the  Turkish borders. He says there is a sophisticated guidance system and traceable circuits in heads of the missiles enabling us to track them and know where they are going.

What makes him sure that when missiles, as they would do, fall into the hands of terrorists, they wouldn’t simply pull out the circuits and turning the missile into a blunt  more crude tool of destruction, is not clear.

It took us in the west about 10 years to regret supplying the afghan Mujahidine with anti-aircraft missiles, it will take us much shorter time to regret the folly of supplying arms to rebels we hardly know who they are and the strongest of them openly hostile to our values and our way of life.

And if we, as the lesser of two evils choice wisdom requires, need to send experts and special forces to make sure missiles don’t fall into the wrong hands, the first envoy will be bombed by many parties, and the last envoy leaving ina hurry will also be bombed by more parties.

It seems that Mr Mr Hague’s latest ‘ success’ in lifting the embargo on supplying arms to the Syrian rebels is not policy, but sheer lunacy.

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