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Paul: US has been arming ISIS in Syria

donsutherland1 said:
If Paul were to argue that arming the rebels increases the risk that weapons could wind up in the hands of ISIS, increase the kind of unstable situation that ISIS can exploit, etc., that would be technically correct. His claim that the U.S. is "arming" ISIS has no basis in fact.
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Direct or indirect through our arming of other militant Islamic groups who have succumbed to IS is a HUGE problem that won't be repaired dwelling on technicalities.
 
https://public.isishq.com/public/about/default.aspx
"ISIS is headquartered outside Fort Huachuca in Sierra Vista, Arizona. Our Washington D.C. office is located in the Ronald Reagan Building. We are dedicated to supporting our national defense and security departments, as well as government contractors and private business, with mission-critical services performed by highly skilled experts in their fields. ISIS professionals can be found working side by side with the U.S. Armed Forces, U.S. Government and Prime Contractors on the ground in such strategic environments as the Middle East. See Our Locations Map at the bottom of the page.
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Montecresto said:
Whether Paul is wrong about that particular brand, I don't know.
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Well, I do know. It is not exactly a secret, either, it is known and knowable by anyone willing to spend longer than 5 minutes either reading or hearing about the situation in Syria/Iraq. Paul is either demonstrating that he cannot be bothered to study foreign policy prior to pontificating on it, or that he does not care about accuracy, and prefers instead to grandstand in order to charge up responses from those already predisposed to agree with him.
 
Ikari said:
No it's not. You claim that we're not doing this and that Paul is lying, but offer no proof.
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You cannot prove a negative. However, it is possible to highlight the groups that did receive US support - such as the Libyan groups (who aren't ISIL, but who at worst now have aligned themselves with AQIM, who is beholden to AQSL, and is thus currently in a state of conflict with ISIL, as they back ANF, which launches attacks against ISIL) who received lethal aid, and the non-lethal aid that went to non-aligned Syrian groups such as the Free Syrian Army, who also ended up fighting ISIL. So all of our aid thus far has generally gone to groups who kill and die fighting ISIL.

Your statements had come off as rather absolute. I was merely pointing out that arming rebels is what we do, we'll do it secretly and against the directives of Congress if we must. We've trained and armed organizations which have turned around and fought us. It seems quite possible that we could have been buddy, buddy with ISIS at their start.
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No it is not. Firstly, ISIL is old AQI. That's why Maqdisi's remonstrance of the Caliphate is so salient. You will recall that we bombed AMZ after he started an Iraqi civil war that cost us thousands of soldiers and Marines, and that we spent several years and created tribal militia's specifically to destroy them? These are the guys who left Al-Qaeda because it wasn't extreme enough, and they were that way back in 06-08 as well. This is the group that was originally founded explicitly to wage war on the US and try to destroy our efforts in Iraq.

Again, this stuff isn't exactly hidden, secret knowledge - it's the basic map for anyone who spends a few minutes actually looking at this problem set, which should include senior US legislators who wish to shape foreign policy. It's sort of the organization equivalent of saying that Iraq is the country located to the west of Iran that features the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Anyone who pontificates on Iraq that doesn't know that will and should be dismissed out of hand.

But you have the knowledge that says otherwise, so why don't you detail how you came about this knowledge.
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Firstly, no. But I've served in this area before, and continue to watch it.

Secondly, it's not exactly as if this stuff can't be found on teh open interwebz with incredible ease. A simple 30-second google search could have saved Paul, if he was intending to honestly present US foreign policy towards ISIL.
 
cpwill said:
Well, I do know. It is not exactly a secret, either, it is known and knowable by anyone willing to spend longer than 5 minutes either reading or hearing about the situation in Syria/Iraq. Paul is either demonstrating that he cannot be bothered to study foreign policy prior to pontificating on it, or that he does not care about accuracy, and prefers instead to grandstand in order to charge up responses from those already predisposed to agree with him.
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Paul has demonstrated that he's a politician like the rest. The fact remains, that at least back to the Carter administration, the US has been supporting militant Islamic groups, and this needs to be exposed and corrected.
 
Montecresto said:
Paul has demonstrated that he's a politician like the rest. The fact remains, that at least back to the Carter administration, the US has been supporting militant Islamic groups, and this needs to be exposed and corrected.
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Not really. For example, the Kurds are both militant and Islamic, and they deserve our support - they are probably the only stable portion of that particular region.

Paul's selling point is that he is not a politician like the rest. If he's going to lie to the American people about a major foreign policy issue in order to score cheap thrills from his base, then he has discredited the basis by which he claims the right to political influence.
 
cpwill said:
Not really. For example, the Kurds are both militant and Islamic, and they deserve our support - they are probably the only stable portion of that particular region.

Paul's selling point is that he is not a politician like the rest. If he's going to lie to the American people about a major foreign policy issue in order to score cheap thrills from his base, then he has discredited the basis by which he claims the right to political influence.
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Lots of politicians claim that they're not politicians like the rest. It's a common claim during a political campaign to be an "outsider" to not be a politician when, in fact, they're running for political office.
 
Dittohead not! said:
Lots of politicians claim that they're not politicians like the rest. It's a common claim during a political campaign to be an "outsider" to not be a politician when, in fact, they're running for political office.
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:shrug: and then Paul proceeded to make trouble for his own leadership in order to brand himself that way. I agree you get plenty of folks claiming to be outsiders - but few actually try to craft a complete political identity around that. If the best response is to point out that Paul is really no different from (for example) the current administration, well, :shrug: okay. My point was only that he was either uninformed, or lying.
 
Didn't the FBI or the CIA lose crates of military carbines to Mexican drug cartels in a botched undercover deal? Bottom line on the Middle East: The U.S. does not have a clue on what to do and when and where. Recall WWII when we did not know how we were going to handle the people of Japan when we occupied so we just nuked the twice and all was cool.
 
cpwill said:
:shrug: and then Paul proceeded to make trouble for his own leadership in order to brand himself that way. I agree you get plenty of folks claiming to be outsiders - but few actually try to craft a complete political identity around that. If the best response is to point out that Paul is really no different from (for example) the current administration, well, :shrug: okay. My point was only that he was either uninformed, or lying.
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kind of reminds me of McCain running as a "maverick".
 
rhinefire said:
Didn't the FBI or the CIA lose crates of military carbines to Mexican drug cartels in a botched undercover deal? Bottom line on the Middle East: The U.S. does not have a clue on what to do and when and where. Recall WWII when we did not know how we were going to handle the people of Japan when we occupied so we just nuked the twice and all was cool.
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....wow. I admit, I am somewhat stunned by that intellectual tour de force. The DEA lost track of the guns they were selling to cartels, so obviously we nuked Japan because we didn't know how to occupy them.
 
The Democrats are apparently in their own isolated government operating inside the USA with their aiding of Islamic militants going back to Jimmy Carter, then Bill Clinton. This is one of the main reason I dont vote for Democrats. They always support mujahideen and suchlike. I still feel hostile to Clinton for aiding them in the Bosnian war.
 
michijo said:
The Democrats are apparently in their own isolated government operating inside the USA with their aiding of Islamic militants going back to Jimmy Carter, then Bill Clinton. This is one of the main reason I dont vote for Democrats. They always support mujahideen and suchlike. I still feel hostile to Clinton for aiding them in the Bosnian war.
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The US supported the Mujahadeen during the Soviet war in Afganistan (1978 - 1989)

It's a bit of a revision of history to claim that (1) Clinton aided them in the Bosnian War, and that (2) only Democrats were in power during that time in the USA.
 
Dittohead not! said:
The US supported the Mujahadeen during the Soviet war in Afganistan (1978 - 1989)

It's a bit of a revision of history to claim that (1) Clinton aided them in the Bosnian War, and that (2) only Democrats were in power during that time in the USA.
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Clinton did some suspicious stuff during Bosnian war. He allowed Mujahideen into Bosnia to fight the Serbs. Bin Laden was funding the Muslims in the Bosnian war as well, If you look into it very honestly, you can see how it is easily another game like in Afghanistan where doing a Cold War type trick they use the Muslims to fight communist Serbs.

2 Mujahideen from Bosnian war actually were part of the 9/11 operation. Just research who the suicide bombers were and look at their history. 2 of them fought in the Bosnian war.

Interesting how terrorist attacks always occur in the North East. Ask yourself why they bombed the Boston Marathon. What is the significance? Yankees, Democrats. The Democrats trained them and they always attack the north. Some of them flew out of Portland Maine.

The interesting question is why they turned on the Democrats. I believe I know.
 
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ISIS “Made in USA”. Iraq “Geopolitical Arsonists” Seek to Burn Region | Global Research
ISIS: Made in USA

The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is a creation of the United States and its Persian Gulf allies, namely Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and recently added to the list, Kuwait. The Daily Beast in an article titled, “America’s Allies Are Funding ISIS,” states:

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), now threatening Baghdad, was funded for years by wealthy donors in Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, three U.S. allies that have dual agendas in the war on terror.

Despite the candor of the opening sentence, the article would unravel into a myriad of lies laid to obfuscate America’s role in the creation of ISIS. The article would claim:

The extremist group that is threatening the existence of the Iraqi state was built and grown for years with the help of elite donors from American supposed allies in the Persian Gulf region. There, the threat of Iran, Assad, and the Sunni-Shiite sectarian war trumps the U.S. goal of stability and moderation in the region.

However, the US goal in the region was never “stability” and surely not “moderation.” As early as 2007, sources within the Pentagon and across the US intelligence community revealed a conspiracy to drown the Middle East in sectarian war, and to do so by arming and funding extremist groups including the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda itself.*Published in 2007 – a full 4 years before the 2011 “Arab Spring” would begin – Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh’s New Yorker article titled, “”The Redirection: Is the Administration’s new policy benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism?” stated specifically (emphasis added):

To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran.*The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.
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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/14/america-s-allies-are-funding-isis.html
 
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cpwill said:
Not really. For example, the Kurds are both militant and Islamic, and they deserve our support - they are probably the only stable portion of that particular region.

Paul's selling point is that he is not a politician like the rest. If he's going to lie to the American people about a major foreign policy issue in order to score cheap thrills from his base, then he has discredited the basis by which he claims the right to political influence.
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I don't consider him to have lied. In time, as these things usually do, we'll likely see more evidence to his claims.
 
Montecresto said:
I don't consider him to have lied. In time, as these things usually do, we'll likely see more evidence to his claims.
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If he said something that he knew wasn't true, then he lied.

If he made it up, then he lied.

If he honestly thought we were, then he was amazingly uninformed, and shouldn't have been commenting on something he knew so little about.

If he thinks instead that there is some kind of conspiracy to secretly fund AQI/ISIL/ISI/IS; despite the fact that they are a group literally founded on the intent to kill as many Americans as possible and foment a civil war in Iraq in order to drive us from the region, then he belongs with the 9/11 truthers and birthers.

......and those are kind of sort of your options. None of them are good.





You are letting your personal feelings towards the man cloud judgement here. What he said was and is not only false, but obviously false.
 
24107 said:
ISIS “Made in USA”. Iraq “Geopolitical Arsonists” Seek to Burn Region | Global Research

America's Allies Are Funding ISIS - The Daily Beast
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This is among the dumbest arguments in the world.

Because private citizens in Saudi Arabia funnel money to ISIS, the US is funding ISIS through it's puppet, KSA.

Because that makes obvious sense. Duh.

Hell, I could use that logic to prove that UHC is a terrorist plot. Because former members of terror organizations are politically pro-UHC. So obviously single-payer in the United States is ISIS' plan for world domination.


I swear. There is nothing so incredibly stupid that people who want to believe it won't be able to convince themselves it is true.
 
cpwill said:
If he said something that he knew wasn't true, then he lied.

If he made it up, then he lied.

If he honestly thought we were, then he was amazingly uninformed, and shouldn't have been commenting on something he knew so little about.

If he thinks instead that there is some kind of conspiracy to secretly fund AQI/ISIL/ISI/IS; despite the fact that they are a group literally founded on the intent to kill as many Americans as possible and foment a civil war in Iraq in order to drive us from the region, then he belongs with the 9/11 truthers and birthers.

......and those are kind of sort of your options. None of them are good.





You are letting your personal feelings towards the man cloud judgement here. What he said was and is not only false, but obviously false.
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I will be waiting to see. But US history in supporting terrorist organisations suggest that he is right.
 
Montecresto said:
I will be waiting to see. But US history in supporting terrorist organisations suggest that he is right.
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Actual US history says that he is wrong. You're dodging because Paul so badly F'd up.
 
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Montecresto said:
The history isn't all in on this ongoing situation, and I'm not dodging anything. But I'm sure that what Paul knows will become public knowledge in time. The US has a history of supporting terrorist organisations, and time will tell us if IS is one of them or not.
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Paul doesn't know anything special - he's either making this crap up, or ignorantly repeating what he's heard.

If the best you can come up with is that maybe there is some ridiculous conspiracy theory (and this would be one of the most outlandish ones' I've heard) that will vindicate him, well, then you belong with the 9/11 truthers and perhaps should take this discussion to the forum set aside for it.
 
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