{"id":88,"date":"2013-06-15T14:53:00","date_gmt":"2013-06-15T14:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/2013\/06\/15\/arming-rebels-isnt-enough"},"modified":"2013-06-15T14:53:00","modified_gmt":"2013-06-15T14:53:00","slug":"arming-rebels-isnt-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=88","title":{"rendered":"Arming rebels isn\u2019t enough?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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John McCain doesn\u2019t seem to think arming the rebels fighting the Syrian government isn\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n

What does the Republican senator from Arizona want? More troops on the ground? More American blood being spilled?<\/p>\n

http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB10001424127887324049504578545772906542466.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories<\/a><\/p>\n

President Obama has decided to give weapons to the rebels fighting forces loyal to the hated Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. The U.S. national security team has determined that Syrians have used chemical weapons against the rebels, a line that Obama said Assad shouldn\u2019t have crossed. His response has been to become more actively involved in the civil war that reportedly now has killed more than 90,000 people, including several thousand children.<\/p>\n

McCain, who\u2019s been highly critical of the Obama administration\u2019s foreign policy on many levels, believes arming the rebels is insufficient, but he won\u2019t take the next step by declaring categorically what he really seems to want: direct military intervention.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve ended the Iraq War after a decade of fighting there. The Afghan War is drawing to a close, after a fight that\u2019s lasted even longer. We\u2019ve already used air power to help topple Moammar Gadhafi in Libya; indeed, congressional Republicans were critical of that effort, suggesting that the president was \u201cleading from behind\u201d while our pilots were enforcing a no-fly zone over Libyan airspace.<\/p>\n

So what now, in Syria?<\/p>\n

By my reckoning, U.S. arming of forces loyal to the rebels well could turn the tide. I harken back to the 1980s when the late U.S. Rep. Charlie Wilson, D-Lufkin, spearheaded congressional efforts to arm rebels in Afghanistan fighting the invading forces of the Soviet Union. Wilson pursued that effort doggedly and got enough of his congressional colleagues to go along with the effort that the mujahadeen eventually wore down the Soviet invaders and forced them out of Afghanistan. What resulted, of course, eventually would turn out badly for everyone, but the point is that we can provide sufficient firepower to turn the tide of battle in a region that is vital to our national interests.<\/p>\n

And John McCain, of all people \u2013 given his own history of combat and imprisonment as a prisoner of war in Vietnam \u2013 should understand the costs associated with more warfare.<\/p>\n\n

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John McCain doesn\u2019t seem to think arming the rebels fighting the Syrian government isn\u2019t enough. What does the Republican senator from Arizona want? More troops on the ground? More American blood being spilled? http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB10001424127887324049504578545772906542466.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories President Obama has decided to give weapons to the rebels fighting forces loyal to the hated Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. The … Continue reading Arming rebels isn\u2019t enough?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=88"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=88"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=88"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=88"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}