Matt Davies for September 19, 2014

Brilliant.

This plan was always a little sketchy, but it is more so now as radical elements comprise a much greater part of the Syrian opposition.

We should be giving the aid to the Assad regime. It’s not much different than the Saudis or Kuwait and it was very successful keeping everybody on line . Some people can’t handle democracy and tent to abuse it once they got it. Just observe Dubai, Saudi Arabia or Kuwait. They don’t have or need a democratic regime.

Giving guns and other arms to rebels?

Why not, I mean it worked out so well giving weapons to Osama bin Laden.

the scales seem to have fallen from some eyes.

We learned SO much from Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Iraq, and a bunch of other places. Hmm, it’s the NRA proposal to end all violence, right? (more guns bring a “peaceful populace”)

The winner! → Gun manufacturers.

And where’s the money coming from? Since Republicans won’t allow tax increases… U.S. infrastructure and the poor and the elderly and veterans and …

Can’t we just send them those guns that pop out a little flag that says “BANG”?

Once everyone out there is armed, the shooting will stop. Everyone knows the way to stop shootings is to ensure everyone is armed, duh.

Michael wme: Sweet. You threw in a reference to the Sykes-Picot artificially-constructed nation states. For those who are unaware, that happened in 1916!

And we’re STILL having to deal with them.

BrassOrchid, in your last paragraph you appear to be channeling Michael wme. “the oil companies have the moral high ground and the ethical approval of the masses they serve”?

Nevertheless, your comment led me to find an interesting article which points out the long history of a separate Iraq and Syria, http://nationalinterest.org/feature/isis’-desire-erase-sykes-picot-rooted-fiction-not-history-11293

From the article, I conclude that the Sykes-Picot map is a bone of contention, but probably isn’t as significant, at least regarding Iraq and Syria, as I thought.

BrassOrchid: or we could send weapons to the “good guys”, who either turn out to not be so good, or sell them, or run away and leave all the weapons to people like ISIS. Where do people think ISIS got a big chunk of their weapons – and money?