The US Wants the Islamic State Group to Win in Syria

[eridani]

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/36027-focus-the-us-wants-the-islamic-state-group-to-win-in-syria

The U.S. State Department does not want the government of Syria to defeat or weaken the Islamic State group, at least not if doing so means any sort of gain for the Syrian government.

Watching a recent video of a State Department spokesperson speaking on that subject might confuse some U.S. war supporters. I doubt many residents of Palmyra, Virginia, or Palmyra, Pennsylvania, or Palmyra, New York could give a coherent account of the U.S. government's position on which enemy should control the ancient Palmyra in Syria.

The U.S. government has been arming al-Qaida in Syria. I doubt many people in the United States, of whatever political persuasion, could explain why. In my experience, having just begun a tour of speaking events, very few in the United States can even name the seven nations that President Barack Obama has bragged about bombing, much less explain which parties he is or is not bombing in those countries. No nation in the history of the world has had so many enemies to keep track of as the United States has now, and bothered so little about doing so.

The particular problem with Syria is that the U.S. government has prioritized one enemy, whom it has utterly failed to scare the U.S. public with, while the U.S. government has made a distant second priority of attacking another enemy that most people in the United States are so terrified of they can hardly think straight.

[Nitram]

1. Ha, ha, eridani, you are such a card!

The IS is rapidly losing ground in Syria, in spite of a Russian air campaign that primarily targeted anti-Assad rebels. The US strategy is working.

[eridani]

2. So why is the US supporting Islamists at all? n/t

[Nitram]

5. Eridani, are you saying the rebels who want to overthrow Assad are Islamists?

That their goal is to establish an Islamic Caliphate? I believe the peaceful protests that Assad originally put down with extreme violence were for a more democratic state, not an Islamic one. Have you forgotten how the civil war in Syria started?

[eridani]

6. A lot of them are. In this case, the US is siding with Al Qaeda over ISIS

Sort of like trying to decide whether to promote syphilis or gonnorhea.

[Nitram]

8. The Sunni people in villages and towns that rebelled against Assad were citizens...

...suffering discrimination and a refusal to let them participate in the political process. They started a nationwide movement of peaceful demonstrations for change. They were met by violent repression. Al Qaeda had absolutely NOTHING to do with it. I don't know if you are misinformed or just a propagandist, but what you write is historical revision of the worst kind.

[bhikkhu]

3. There's a good BBC article on the whole fiasco

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33997408

...needless to say, its more complicated than the op-ed in the OP.

[eridani]

4. The complications are exactly why we shouldn't be fucking with the country n/t

[Odin2005]

7. Is this an April Fools joke?