Exclusive: Obama Told Lawmakers Criticism of His Syria Policy is 'Horsesh*t'

[DonViejo]

Josh Rogin

Hillary Clinton and congressmen alike have called on Obama to arm Syria’s rebels. But the president fumed at lawmakers in a private meeting for suggesting he should’ve done more.

President Obama got angry at lawmakers who suggested in a private meeting that he should have armed the Syrian rebels, calling the criticism “horseshit.”

The argument that America should have done more in Syria, made for years by foreign policy leaders in both parties and several members of Obama’s senior national security team, was brought back to the fore this past weekend. Obama and Hillary Clinton gave dueling interviews in which they publicly split on whether the security and humanitarian catastrophe in Syria could have been avoided if the United States had played a larger role. Obama’s outburst on July 31, one week prior, reveals the criticism was already getting to him, even before the White House tried to deflect Clinton’s remarks as pre-presidential political posturing.

Just before the congressional recess, President Obama invited over a dozen Senate and House leaders from both parties to the White House to talk about foreign policy. According to two lawmakers inside the meeting, Obama became visibly agitated when confronted by bipartisan criticism of the White House’s policy of slow-rolling moderate Syrian rebels’ repeated requests for arms to fight the Assad regime and ISIS.

According to one of the lawmakers, Sen. Bob Corker asked the president a long question that included sharp criticisms of President Obama’s handling of a number of foreign policy issues—including Syria, ISIS, Russia, and Ukraine. Obama answered Corker at length. Then, the president defended his administration’s actions on Syria, saying that the notion that many have put forth regarding arming the rebels earlier would have led to better outcomes in Syria was “horseshit.”

more
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/11/exclusive-obama-told-lawmakers-criticism-of-his-syria-policy-is-horsesh-t.html

[cantbeserious]

1. Wonder How The Obama Apologists And Hillary Apologists Will Ever Reconcile

eom

[DonViejo]

3. What a charming and thoughtful way to speak of Hillary and/or Obama supporters on DU

[LordGlenconner]

11. Anything goes now, apparently

Labels. So many labels.

[BeyondGeography]

5. As a lifetime horseshit apologist

maybe you can offer some advice.

[1StrongBlackMan]

8. What are you talking about? ...

Nevermind!

[cantbeserious]

10. Clearly There Is Rift - The Universe For Right Leaning Dems Is Now Unstable

eom

[1StrongBlackMan]

12. Yeah ... Okay. eom.

[A Simple Game]

23. Those Dems and many on DU aren't right leaning. They quit leaning long ago.

Their feet are firmly planted on the right and they are standing straight up.

[stonecutter357]

24. I don't care how much hell you raise, I am going to vote for Hillary.

[cantbeserious]

25. Voting For A War Apologist Is Your Privelage

eom

[stonecutter357]

26. .

[cantbeserious]

27. Glad You Are So Amused

eom

[postulater]

2. I wish he'd call horseshit more often and more publicly.

[KeepItReal]

4. ^^^ That! ^^^

Eom

[frazzled]

6. When we did send arms to the rebels, the R's complained the opposite

From September 2013:

(video clip at link)
The CIA has started delivering weapons to rebels in Syria, making good on a pledge made months ago. Rep. Adam Schiff (R-Calif.) tells On Background that doing so pulls the U.S. further into the conflict and diverts focus from national security interests. (The Washington Post)


The CIA has begun delivering weapons to rebels in Syria, ending months of delay in lethal aid that had been promised by the Obama administration, according to U.S. officials and Syrian figures. The shipments began streaming into the country over the past two weeks, along with separate deliveries by the State Department of vehicles and other gear — a flow of material that marks a major escalation of the U.S. role in Syria’s civil war.

The arms shipments, which are limited to light weapons and other munitions that can be tracked, began arriving in Syria at a moment of heightened tensions over threats by President Obama to order missile strikes to punish the regime of Bashar al-Assad for his alleged use of chemical weapons in a deadly attack near Damascus last month.

The arms are being delivered as the United States is also shipping new types of nonlethal gear to rebels. That aid includes vehicles, sophisticated communications equipment and advanced combat medical kits.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cia-begins-weapons-delivery-to-syrian-rebels/2013/09/11/9fcf2ed8-1b0c-11e3-a628-7e6dde8f889d_story.html

[Unvanguard]

7. That seems to be an apt description to me. n/t

[mehrrh]

9. rebel arms

I thought arming rebels in Syria was not a good idea according to most: they could eventually be used against us -- the rebels were woefully unready to take up arms against Assad -- there was no way to prevent our getting more deeply involved -- only war hawks wanted more Syrian intervention.
They wanted ore intervention in Libya. They wanted more intervention in Egypt. They want intervention in Iran.
There is nothing they think can't be solved with war, death, destruction -- so long as they can still make a profit, at the expense of dead Americans.
Now the same arm-chair warriors think their ideas would have had a better outcome -- that everything would be wonderful -- that is mere speculation based on supposition, and what-ifs -- no basis in fact whatsoever.
How did we get into Iraq? Wasn't it arm-chair warriors who promised flowers strewn in the path of Americans? Yeah. Right.

[HoosierCowboy]

13. The Nobel Peace Prize payed forward

Look at it this way, Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize for all the wars we didn't get into, Syria, Ukraine and ISIS.

[DonCoquixote]

20. I can get down with that

though I would rather he added afghanistan to that, and gotten us out of Iraq sooner.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

14. Hopefully, he cc:d his comment to Hillary in her hawk's nest.

[riqster]

15. The Prexy can do no right.

As LBJ pointed out, he could walk on water - and people would say "The President can't swim."

[DRoseDARs]

16. "carefully vet, train, and equip early on a core group" - Hillary Clinton

Oh really?

---
“Well, I did believe, which is why I advocated this, that if we were to carefully vet, train, and equip early on a core group of the developing Free Syrian Army, we would, number one, have some better insight into what was going on on the ground,” Clinton said.
---

Oh, like we did in Iraq and Afghanistan? Like the troops and police we trained that, among many previous incidents, just got through killing a 2-star US general? That kind of careful vetting, training, and equipping? I've been on the fence on this subject for a long time with regards to arming Syrian rebels. This comment from Clinton, and this from Obama:

---
"“This idea that we could provide some light arms or even more sophisticated arms to what was essentially an opposition made up of former doctors, farmers, pharmacists and so forth, and that they were going to be able to battle not only a well-armed state but also a well-armed state backed by Russia, backed by Iran, a battle-hardened Hezbollah, that was never in the cards,” Obama said."
---

has made me agree with the president on the matter.

[JDPriestly]

21. That would have been more than very, very risky.

The carefully vetted group could have been infiltrated, misjudged, beaten and robbed of their potent American weapons. What a foolish idea.

Where is ISIS getting its weapons or perhaps better said, its money for weapons? That is the question. Is it from our ally Saudi Arabia. Or did we leave the weapons behind. They aren't from Russia I presume since Russia I think likes Assad. Am I wrong about that?

Hillary Clinton and the Obama-critics are wrong on this one. Too many ifs in supporting any rebels in Syria.

[riderinthestorm]

17. Nobody, not even Obama, can predict which rebels are "moderate" in these conflicts anymore

The alliances are shifting (daily), the politics of the region are fluid, the old tribal alliances can't be dismissed as inconsequential.

I find it laughable that anyone believes we "know" for certain who is a "moderate" anymore.

It is horse SHIT. I'm an expert at horse shit and I know it when I see it.

[tblue37]

18. Those arms would eventually have ended up in the possession of

the most violent and extreme factions among the rebels.

Arming the opposition forces during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan worked so well for us, didn't it.

[agentS]

19. Dammed if you do. Dammed if you don't.

Obama and Hillary Clinton gave dueling interviews in which they publicly split on whether the security and humanitarian catastrophe in Syria could have been avoided if the United States had played a larger role.

This statement is kind of a 'wash' by all sides. If you look at everything closely, you'll find that the same # of people would have died no matter what we did.

We COULD have intervened "more"...but because of the actions of a certain idiot CIC (Bush) we didn't have the resources available to invade Syria in force, which is what would have been the way to prevent the current massacre. HOWEVER, given what happened in Iraq, an UN-US interventions/invasion would probably have caused a smaller number, but still egregious number of casualties. Plus, there were protests from Syrians for us to NOT invade, so the US listened. And now some of them are mad at us (and want to attack us) because we didn't go after Assad with air strikes or special forces. Obama, Assad, and Putin did work together to dispose of the chemical weapons, so we got what WE wanted most. Regime change is a different story, which thanks to foreign fighters, doesn't seem like a good deal anymore. It's like The American Revolution, only King George is supported by Ivan the Terrible, the rebels are supported by Napoleon, and a bunch of weirdos are showing up from Texas supported by Atilla the Hun and Dracula-literally because a few of them are eating hearts to impress their oil baron donors in Saudi.

Iraq would still have had another Sunni uprising thanks to the actions of Maliki (attacking protesters, not listening to the UN, etc). So, 4 years on from 2010, we would still find ourselves in this situation, fighting ISIS in Iraq, Assad in Syria, and militants all over the place.

Seriously, what do these people want the President to do? Use teleporters? ODSTs (Halo game I think)?

[Spitfire of ATJ]

22. Republicans LOVE the idea of "Rebels"...

Makes em think of the ol' Stars and Bars.

.....idiots.....