By the blacklisting Tuesday, Dec. 11, of the Jabhat al-Nusra group fighting in Syrian rebel ranks as “a foreign terrorist organization” and affiliate of al Qaeda in Iraq, Washington faces four quandaries:
1. The 10,000 fighters of this al Qaeda affiliate are the best-trained and most professional component of the Syrian rebel front;.
2. Jabhat al-Nusra fields 3,000 fighters out of the mostly Free Syrian Army’s 14,000 rebels fighting in and around Aleppo. They also constitute the assault force’s spearhead.
3. The Islamists are at the sharp front edge of the rebel force battling for control of the Syrian army’s biggest chemical weapons store at Al Safira, near Aleppo. Thursday morning, Dec. 12, they were just a kilometer from the base’s northwestern perimeter fence and advancing fast. By week’s end, Jabhat al-Nusra jihadis may have smashed into the base and seized control of the chemical stocks and Scud D planes standing there armed with chemical warheads.
The imminence of this peril forced Bashar Assad’s hand into sending Scud jets against rebel-held areas in an effort to stop their advance on the base.
4. This al Qaeda affiliate is also better armed and equipped than any other Syrian rebel force, thanks to the generous financial and logistical aid laid on by Persian Gulf sources, especially in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait.
The difficulty here is that those three Gulf Arab stats are also American allies in the war against Assad and the most important contributors to the US-sponsored Friends of Syria, a forum which met in Marrakesh Wednesday and formally recognized the umbrella Syrian opposition coalition of exiled groups as the legitimate government of Syria.
Reporters inside Syria reported that when the Jabhat al-Nusra fighters heard this news, they declared 700 of their number had died… laughing.
But as the vicious civil war of nearly two years and more than 40,000 dead approached another dangerous peak, no one was laughing in Damascus or Washington.
debkafile’s military sources point to the next crisis looming ahead: If Assad fails to stop the al Qaeda fighters from reaching Al-Safira and its poison gas stores - and an al Qaeda affiliate succeeds for the first time in arming itself with chemical weapons - the United States will have to mount an air assault – not on Assad’s army but on the Syrian rebel forces fighting him, because if they do manage to seize control of the base, rebel fighters may decide to send the chemicals-tipped missiles against Assad regime centers in Damascus.
The fall of al Safira would then transform the Syrian civil conflict into a chemical missile war.
We always try to arm both sides and call it foreign aid. Look at Egypt and Israel, 3 billion apiece a year, almost all used to buy our weaponry. Gives new meaning to "met the enemy and it is us." Rome got so rotten that it hired the barbarians to protect it, who soon overthrew it. We are not quite there yet. In "Church History for the Masses" I read this.
ReplyDelete"Barbarians moved south for various reasons. First, the Empire continued its internal disintegration. Most barbarians respected Rome and desired to enjoy its living standards. Rome's decline continued in four areas. The family continued to disintegration. By 400, the Empire's population stood at 70 million but only 6 million were Italian. Fewer Italians meant mercenaries made up most of the army. The middle class decreased in size. No society lasts long without a strong middle class. Rome faced increasing balance of payments deficits. Declining agriculture required Rome to import food and pay the price. Industry, never popular in Italy, offered no tax base. Soon the middle class bore the heaviest tax burden. Those living off taxes outnumbered those paying them and corruption ate up even more of the revenues. Some middle class citizens fled north passing barbarians heading south. There was a decline in slavery. Owners freed slaves because of economic problems but most came as small farms continued to be eaten up by larger ones. A crumbling Empire had little "fiber" to keep out encroaching barbarians."
If this isn't America in 2012 it sure is close.
"Those living off taxes outnumbered those paying them and corruption ate up even more of the revenues."
f this isn't America in 2012 it sure is close.
ReplyDelete"Those living off taxes outnumbered those paying them and corruption ate up even more of the revenues."
Amen.