David Petraeus' Bright Idea: Give Terrorists Weapons to Beat Terrorists

[eridani]

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/32173-david-petraeus-bright-idea-give-terrorists-weapons-to-beat-terrorists

The latest brilliant plan to curtail Isis in the Middle East? Give more weapons to current members of al-Qaida. The Daily Beast reported that former CIA director David Petraeus, still somehow entrenched in the DC Beltway power circles despite leaking highly classified secrets, is now advocating arming members of the al-Nusra Front in Syria, an offshoot of al-Qaida and a designated terrorist organization. Could there be a more dangerous and crazy idea?

Petraeus was forced to respond on Tuesday, the day after his article provoked a firestorm, telling CNN’s Jake Tapper that he doesn’t want to arm al-Nusra itself, just “some individual fighters, and perhaps some elements, within Nusra”. He thinks the US could somehow “peel off” these fighters and convince to join the much weaker rebel army that al-Nusra recently decimated. Oh okay, then. He’s in favor of arming only the “moderate” members of al-Qaida: that sounds so much better.

Let’s put aside for a second that there’s not much difference between arming al-Nusra and arming “some individual fighters, and perhaps some elements, within Nusra.” How the US can possibly “peel off” fighters from a terrorist group is a complete mystery. In Iraq – Petraeus is apparently using part of the largely failed Iraq “surge” as his blueprint here – he convinced some Sunni tribes to switch sides temporarily, but that was with over 100,000 US troops on the ground to do the convincing. Does Petraeus think we should invade Syria to accomplish the same feat?

The idea that we should add more weapons to the equation, let alone give them to militants who the US considers terrorists, is preposterous at this point. Depressingly, escalating our involvement is the dominant talking point in Washington’s foreign policy circles these days.

History could not matter less to war planners, as the dangerous cycle of arming dangerous factions in the Middle East and escalating US involvement is about to start anew. The CIA armed the Mujahideen in the 1980s in their guerilla fight against the Soviets, many members of the Mujahideen would end up forming the core of al-Qaida in the 1990s.

[ZM90]

1. The definition of insanity:

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result...

[FlatBaroque]

13. Recommend a slight adjustment in perspective

the WANT the results that they are getting. That's why they keep doing it. This keeps the MIC drowning in money.

[tecelote]

2. This is all assuming we want peace in the middle east.

Otherwise, it makes perfect sense. More war. More profit.

[LuvNewcastle]

6. It might not be what you or I want,

but we don't count when they're making those decisions. Even the people who get to die in the wars for profit don't get a say.

[Scuba]

9. Bingo!

[Fumesucker]

3. Reality once again crowds satire...

http://www.duffelblog.com/2015/06/pentagon-to-supply-isis-directly/

WASHINGTON — Recognizing the need for a new strategy to fight ISIS, the Pentagon announced today that it would no longer supply the Iraqi Army with American vehicles, artillery and rifles, and instead would supply materiel directly to ISIS.

CENTCOM spokesman Air Force Col. Patrick Ryder says the idea “would be a game changer.”

The plan has its roots in Army Capt. Noel Abelove’s PowerPoint briefing, which was hailed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, sources said. Abelove, a supply officer on the Joint Logistics Staff (J-4), realized that cutting out the Iraqi Army middlemen had numerous advantages.

“They taught me at West Point that ‘amateurs talk strategy but professionals talk logistics,’” Abelove told reporters. “The most important advantage is, we only supply about 40 percent of each ISIS requisition.”



Read more: http://www.duffelblog.com/2015/06/pentagon-to-supply-isis-directly/#ixzz3cgJsijXb

[JDPriestly]

5. Surely this is a joke.

Surely we don't arm people who go around beheading others based on religion.

You've got to be kidding about this.

[LuvNewcastle]

7. Why not?

We arm the Saudis, and they behead plenty of people. I'm sure there are others. The question is, why aren't Americans saying anything about it? Plenty of us know we arm the Saudis and they know the Saudis behead people. Why, then, do we stay mute on the subject?

For some fucked up reason, a lot of Americans would rather keep arming the bloody Saudis and get their cheap oil instead of developing alternative forms of energy. They would rather keep polluting the planet, too. Why is that? Is there anyone on DU who knows? Is it a religious reason, because I've got nothing.

[JDPriestly]

18. I have told this story over and over.

I was at the alternative energy session of the First International Energy Conference in London in January 1974.

A team from MIT presented on solar energy, said they were heating and providing electricity to a house in Massachusetts (cold state, I do believe) with solar most of the year and supplementing with gas when solar could not do the job. THAT WAS 1974. That is 40 years ago. 40 years. I repeat yet again. 40 years ago.

After the inspiring presentation, a man right behind me stood, a chubby guy probably in his 50s then (once again, 1974, 40 years ago) and explained that he represented the Canadian nuclear energy system and that they did not want solar energy because it would not give them "a product they could sell."

A product to sell. That is the end-all and be-all of high finance and enterprise.

They live to sell us what they control and have.

Solar energy, wind energy do no require us to constantly return to thier trough and buy more, more, more of their product from them.

That is why nuclear energy, gas, oli and coal are still the monkeys on our backs.

That is why Saudi Arabia has so much influence in our country. That is why we wanted Iran in the first place.

It is for oil -- for a product that the 1%, the Koch Bros., etc. can sell to us -- that we send our children to die.

This is the true crime against humanity -- the sacrificing of our national and our children for a product that the greedy can sell to us.

This is the golden idol of our day -- the product that we have to have and must buy from that elite group.

We need to forge our own way and become truly energy independent as individuals. We should have our own private generators, solar, wind, whatever or work in cooperatives to produce our energy.

In LA, as I walk around, I occasionally, increasingly, see cars hooked up to the electricity.

We just need to get more personal, human energy behind the project of becoming as families and communities truly energy independent.

Southern California should have solar energy on EVERY ROOF.

[Fumesucker]

12. Saudi Arabia ring a bell?

They are whipping an atheist to death, probably worse than beheading really and they do behead people based on things like witchcraft and so on.

Actually what I posted is satire, Duffelblog is the military version of the Onion.

However, Petraeus is the reality which is why I wrote that reality is now crowding satire.

[JDPriestly]

4. Petraeus' plan is a rather convoluted form of appeasement for hateful, backward,

religious fanatics. In short, it's a stupid idea.

Petraeus wants to buy off people who are at the moment joining with forces that are opposed to our interests by giving them what they want: weapons. That's the worst kind of appeasement.

His solution sounds clever: try to get two competing segments of a large and very dangerous bunch of fanatics to fight with each other, hoping that the one segment will ultimately do the other in.

He seems to think that will either destroy or at least keep busy that bunch of very violent extremists.

It won't work out as he hopes.

It will just help them become better at the violent terrorist schemes they concoct to avoid becoming part of the 21st century. These fanatics will just become better versed at fighting and will have more sophisticated weapons to fight with.

Petraeus misses the point, which is that all these extremist groups want to impose their religion and their backward way of life on others.

Giving arms, selling arms, to any of them is sharing in their cruelty, their crimes and their unrealistic attempt to create an Islamic empire.

Petraeus is a fool if he wants to arm any Muslim fanatics. Not a good idea to arm fanatics of any religion or belief. When they finish killing off the people in their own communities who dare to defy their authority, they will move on and kill people in their neighbors' communities and maybe even us.

Keep weapons out of the hands of terrorists. Try to keep materials they can use to make weapons out of their hands too.

You can't make friends with people who like to kill. It's not smart.

[Helen Borg]

8. Yeah, give them nukes. Problem solved.

[KG]

10. there is no good answer to ISIS. let's stop pretending this or any administration has one.

[JDPriestly]

19. We could maybe begin to find one if we stop worshipping the golden calf of oil

and get serious about alternative forms of energy.

We should add up the amount of money we spend in this country each year on oil, gas, coal and nuclear energy. From mine or well to our homes, cars and industry. And then we should spend a matching amount on alternative energy, research, as well as delivery, use and converting to using cars, etc. that run on alternative energy.

Nothing less than that effort will do.

[merrily]

11. Well, we already sort of do that, don't we. Not necessarily intentionally.

[MisterP]

14. our next glorious reformist Westernizing allies, in order

[Wounded Bear]

15. Hardly a new idea....

We trained bin Laden, and armed Saddam Hussein to fight Iran.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

[MurrayDelph]

16. Republicans keep trying the old canard

"The Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend."

More often, the enemy of my enemy considered us Phase 2.

[nadinbrzezinski]

17. It is the search for the next enemy

good for business... and I am not kidding.