U.S. Secretly Shipping Weapons to Syria

Though it’s been well documented that opposition forces in Syria are mostly run by Islamic terrorists—mainly Al Qaeda—Congress has secretly approved U.S. weapons flow to what officials describe as “moderate” Syrian rebel factions.

The problem with this is that there are no “moderate” rebel forces in Syria, according to a number of reputable news reports, both domestic and international. In fact, the New York Times published a piece last spring that confirms Islamist rebels—including the most extreme groups in the notorious Al Nusra Front, an Al Qaeda-aligned force—are running the show in Syria. “The Islamist character of the opposition reflects the main constituency of the rebellion,” the story says. “Nowhere in rebel-controlled Syria is there a secular fighting force to speak of.”

It continues: “From the beginning, it was clear to geopolitical analysts that the conflict in Syria was not pro-democracy protesters rising up, but rather the fruition of a well-documented conspiracy between the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia to arm and direct sectarian extremists affiliated with Al Qaeda against the Syrian government.” A few months later a British newspaper reported that in Syria jihadists are the largest and best armed faction in the opposition.

With that said, the Obama administration’s secret operation is essentially forcing American taxpayers to arm the very jihadists that want to murder them. The astounding development of this back-door scheme was reported this week by an international news agency that cites U.S. and European officials. “The weapons deliveries have been funded by the U.S. Congress, in votes behind closed doors, through the end of government fiscal year 2014, which ends on September 30, two officials said,” the report says.

Government officials on both sides of the Atlantic claim the weapons are going to “moderate” rebel factions, not terrorists. The goods include light arms and anti-tank rockets that are being shipped to “non-Islamist Syrian rebels” through Jordan, the story says, reminding that just last month the U.S. and Britain suspended non-lethal aid to Syria because Islamist fighters seized western-backed rebel weapons facilities. Now we’re sending them weapons! Not surprisingly, the “most transparent administration” in history refused to comment when contacted by the news agency.

Here’s some history that could help explain the stealth weapons program. A U.S.-based group that advocates for Syria’s rebels is defining and steering policy in the Obama White House as well as Congress. It’s called the Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF) and last year a 26-year-old SETF Syria expert (Elizabeth O’Bagy) convinced the president, secretary of state and some federal lawmakers that Syrian rebels are mostly moderates and not terrorists. Arizona Senator John McCain even dedicated a portion of a Senate Foreign Relations Committee meeting to an O’Bagy opinion piece calling for U.S. military intervention in Syria and dismissing concerns about Al-Qaeda terrorists running the rebel operations.