Exclusive: Obama authorizes secret U.S. support for Syrian rebels

[Poll_Blind]

Source: REUTERS

(Reuters) - President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing U.S. support for rebels seeking to depose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his government, U.S. sources familiar with the matter said.

Obama's order, approved earlier this year and known as an intelligence "finding," broadly permits the CIA and other U.S. agencies to provide support that could help the rebels oust Assad.

--snip--

Precisely when Obama signed the secret intelligence authorization, an action not previously reported, could not be determined.

The full extent of clandestine support that agencies like the CIA might be providing also is unclear.

White House spokesman Tommy Vietor declined comment.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/01/us-usa-syria-obama-order-idUSBRE8701OK20120801

---

Quite a bit more at the link!

PB

[morningfog]

1. If the CIA is given the nod, drone strikes are probably on the way.

[nanabugg]

24. True. How do you think the uprising really began? nt

[sabrina 1]

2. He might want to rethink that. Reports today about those 'rebels' killing each other

executing members of the 'rebel' forces. But then, this is how we fight wars now, according to Clinton. It is so clever. We don't need to send in a regular army. They use proxy armies, posing as 'rebels' who then beg for help from the West, which is when they get NATO to give them 'air cover' to protect 'civilians' etc. etc. How many wars are we engaged in now? I'm losing count and whatever happened to the anti-war movement?

[liberal N proud]

3. Guess it's not a secret any more.

[xxqqqzme]

9. Bingo!

How, exactly does reporting this event, qualify as 'secret'?

[XemaSab]

13. Exactly

[agent46]

4. Proxy wars everywhere

...and the American public doesn't have to know a thing. One of these days we'll wake up in the middle of WWIII and no one will have even bothered to mention it to "us people."

[may3rd]

6. "black water" private army moves on its stomach, snake like

while the major US cuts defense spending get triggered in January, causing hundreds of thousands to lose jobs due to the trickle down effect,
private for profit armies will fill the void.

How many weeks til the endgame ?

I'm sure the righteous will rise and win the day

[JDPriestly]

27. And if the 14th century is any basis for prediction,

we will eventually be the victims of the mercenary armies we now employ to pillage and kill in other countries.

Read A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchmann. It was published in 1979, but more than ever the 14th century is a Distant Mirror.

[coalition_unwilling]

35. All we need is another Black Death (Global Climate Change?) to kill off 1/3

of the world's population.

[JDPriestly]

42. Many of our densely populated cities are very dependent on a complex

system of water and waste disposal. If you have widespread poverty, that all becomes too expensive for many people.

We are a long way from that, but it is never as far away as you would hope. I don't think we will have a plague, but it is very important that we maintain our urban sanitary facilities.

[coalition_unwilling]

43. I read somewhere here on DU that most American cities have about a 7-day food

supply. Any serious disruption and you'll be seeing cities go feral. (Think Katrina writ large.) I did not think to bookmark the thread where that post appeared and it may have been back in DU2 (at the time of Katrina).

As far as public health is concerned, I think a far more threatening prospect than plague is antibiotic-resistant bacteria like TB and other such 19th-Century scourges, especially when the public health sector is so ad hoc.

But I never tire of re-reading A Distant Mirror. One of Tuchmann's finest works, imho.

[JDPriestly]

44. Thanks. Good points.

[leveymg]

7. Recced for visibility. Why am I not surprised we were lied to again about this.

Obama's foreign policy is nothing but a series of secret findings (not to be found out).

Just another form of getting into a war by deception. As if that worked out well for America, the last couple of times.

Same people running the show with less scrutiny these days.

[frylock]

8. what could possibly go wrong?

[Purveyor]

10. Wonderful. Another clusterfuck... eom

[billky]

11. Secret support

Doesn't seem so secret to me.

[elleng]

12. Some 'secret!'

[dtom67]

14. Looks kinda iffy ...

Syria is kinda important to Iran...

Iran is kinda important to China and Russia....

We can't afford to take care of our own citizens ( that's bullshit, but that is what they tell us )...


We can't afford a war with Iran.


we have to finish the 1% War first...

[inwiththenew]

15. 4 More Wars!

How could we possibly cut the defense budget now in a time of expanding war???

[Jessy169]

16. Machiavellian techniques in action

Keep in mind that the Syrian regime is a dictatorship, and a very brutal one at that. If Assad was my dictator, I'd be joining the resistance and looking for weapons to fight him with too. That would not be because I like war or want war, it would be because my sense of right and wrong compels me to fight extreme and brutal injustice. If Assad is going to go, and he is, then it wouldn't be a bad idea to get in good with the side that his fighting him -- the side that yearns for democracy and a say in their own government. Yeah, it's more war, more death. But I don't fault Obama and the CIA for covertly helping the Syrian resistance. Flame me if you want, but there are times when you have to pick sides and times when you have to fight.

[Kolesar]

17. That was well stated...eom

[Posteritatis]

18. Agreed. (nt)

[Igel]

32. Assumptions.

That there's just one side fighting him.

That that one side yearns for democracy and to allow (all) others a say in their own government.

Syria wasn't deemed so brutal back in 2007 and 2008 when Assad was a "partner for peace" and a "reformer." When the protests went to sedition he cracked down. That's a no-no, but the alternative is the same with pretty much any protest movement: if 1-5% protest and overthrow the government, is that really a democratic revolution? Hard to know. Most go with who's in power. Even in Syria, most aren't rebelling.

[lib2DaBone]

19. These "Rebels" are the same Al Queida fighters who fought in Lybia.

NATO just transported the same Al Queida fighters and now calls them "Syrian" Rebels.

So we are spending Billions to fight Al Queida in Afghanistan .. yet we are now going to arm and give $25 MILLION to Al Queida in Syria? WTF? Why is Mr. Obama silent on this.. where is the MSM?

--------------------------------------------
http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/01/us/syria-rebels-us-aid/index.html


During the war in Libya, Obama signed a similar directive authorizing covert assistance for rebels in the battle against Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.

The State Department said Wednesday the United States has set aside $25 million for "nonlethal" assistance to the Syrian opposition

The Obama administration has resisted arming the opposition, in part, because U.S. officials don't know enough about the rebels.

[Posteritatis]

20. lol (nt)

[cqo_000]

21. What the hell is the Obama administration thinking?

There are rebel groups all over Syria slaughtering innocent civilians. The group that claimed responsibility for killing the Syrian defense minister have also been murdering whole families of defenseless Christians.

http://www.fides.org/aree/news/newsdet.php?idnews=31978&lan=eng

No one in their right mind would consider supporting Assad's opponents.

[Comrade Grumpy]

22. Great. Now watch us get sucked into a mess that's going to make Iraq look pleasant.

And we find ourselves on the same side as the jihadis.

[geek tragedy]

23. Lmao at the pro-Assad talking points some are offering up in this thread

Some real winners.

[Poll_Blind]

25. These people are anti-war not pro-Assad. Why are you attempting to smear other users?

You sound exactly like the same people who called us all "Saddam-Lovers" because we were against the war in Iraq.

Why would you choose to denigrate other DUers like that?

If you really think people are supporting Assad in this thread, by all means actually alert on their posts. I have little doubt the MIRT or the Administrators would ban them in a heartbeat, just like they ban the pro-North Korean loons.

But I don't think you've alerted on jack shit and I don't think you're going to. I think you're pleased and happy to disrupt this thread with a nasty smear.

PB

[treestar]

39. When the rebels started in Libya

the President was said not to be helping the freedom fighters enough. Egypt, too. Then when he does, he's guilty there too. If we are involved, aren't we supposed to be on the not-dictator side? If these people aren't "pro-Assad" they are at least against us helping the rebels.

[Drunken Irishman]

45. I'm glad DU wasn't around during WWII...

Because I know there would be a lot of DUers here saying what was going on in Germany was none of our business and the idea of war should be completely off the table. Isolationism is good ... unless the alternative is absolutely brutal and a complete massacre.

It's easy to sit in your living room and dismiss the thousands of lives of Syrians when your position amounts to nothing - but there are people dying for freedom ... there are people being brutalized by a government. This isn't Iraq, this isn't even Egypt - we're seeing a full fledged extermination of a people.

To sit back and let that happen, to do nothing, would be positively morally bankrupt.

[AlphaCentauri]

36. Humans rights, anyone?

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2012/08/02/world/middleeast/20120812-aleppo-5.html

[Moltisanti]

26. how many countries has the administration directly killed people in?

Can a Nobel Prize be rescinded?

Afghanistan
Iraq
Yemen
Somalia
Pakistan
Libya
Ethiopia (rumored-have a predator base)
Others?

[Monk06]

28. That will be four states that the US has created, by overt invasion or covert interferance

since the second invasion of Iraq. Syria is right next to Israel so the danger of the whole region blowing up, from Egypt to Afghanistan has just come closer to fruition.

The neocons are still controlling things, with a Democratic president yet.

This will not end well. Lebanon will go up in flames again after Syria falls to the 'rebels'.

[Igel]

33. We truly live in a multipolar world.

We're jabbing Afghanistan with one pole, Syria with another, Iran with a third, Iraq with a fourth ...

Lots and lots of poles there to jab other countries with.


Well, at least we're making history. As though we wouldn't be in any case. (Ooh, there goes another minute. More history!)

[Monk06]

40. Eventually the US foreign policy crazy train will set the world on fire from Morocco across North

Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia all the way to the Indian border. As far as I can tell for no useful reason other than an obsession to manipulate the internal affairs of islamic countries.

Islam, the new cold war enemy. But no fear Romney is keeping Russia hate alive just in case peace breaks out.

[woo me with science]

41. Note here:

"Seven countries in 5 years"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=1062459

[grasswire]

29. how do we know this report is true?

maybe it isn't so.

[Igel]

34. Let's hope.

Probably is true, though. If not in fact, then in a tacit allowing of the CIA to be there. Who needs written records when they can be unearthed later?

[David__77]

30. I sincerely hope this is disinformation.

It would be shameful to be, behind the backs of the people, funneling resources to terrorists. Leave that to the Republicans.

[Poll_Blind]

31. There were a total of 3 different reporters and two editors who worked on this story for...

...Reuters. Based on the "Exclusive" tag, which I hardly ever see a place like Reuters use, I have a feeling they're pretty confident in their information. Not to mention that a couple of the folks who worked on the story have well-established reputations on the line.

My 2 cents.

PB

[woo me with science]

37. Of course he does.

Economic, war, and police state policies are shared by Republicans and the Third Way. That is why they don't change from administration to administration.

Wake up, America. Stop the blood for profit. Get the damned corporate money out of both parties.

[truebrit71]

38. So by publishing it it's till "secret"?

How, exactly??