The U.S. Capitol Building is pictured in Washington, February 27, 2013. REUTERS/Jason Reed
Michael Brendan Dougherty, The Week: The weird kabuki of Democrats and Republicans lying about the Middle East
This week the United States and United Kingdom suffered a major setback in their war against ISIS. One of the "moderate rebel" groups that the U.S. has been arming and supporting, the New Syrian Army, tried a daring attack to seize the al-Qaim border crossing from the Islamic State. They were crushed. The best available report on this, from Conflict News, reiterates that this campaign even received air support in the form of propaganda leaflets announcing this attempt at liberation from ISIS. Also, it seems that the rebel forces were dropped in behind ISIS positions by U.S. helicopters.
This small force seems to have been almost willed into existence by Western policy elites dreaming of a more competent version of the previous favorites, the Free Syrian Army. And ISIS seems to have utterly routed it, perhaps killing nearly all of its members.
You probably haven't heard much about it. Washington has discovered that Americans are tired of battle after the Iraq War. When Americans were polled and prodded in 2013 on whether the Obama administration should intervene directly to remove Bashar al-Assad's government from power in Syria, they came out against it so overwhelmingly that even hawkish Republicans who had been taunting Obama for his "inaction" in Syria decided to vote against formally joining the conflict. The continued chaos and fallout from the shorter intervention in Libya did not boost public confidence in the benefits that accrue from Washington's war making.
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WNU Editor: Could not have said it any better.
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