Cost of Scandals: US To Supply Arms To Rebels, Do You Trust That Move? - Granite Grok

Cost of Scandals: US To Supply Arms To Rebels, Do You Trust That Move?

U.S. will supply arms to Syrian rebels. CBS reports:

The Obama administration has concluded that Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government used chemical weapons against the rebels seeking to overthrow him and, in a major policy shift, President Obama has decided to supply military support to the rebels, the White House announced Thursday.

Okay, wait. Aren’t these the same rebels that are loyal to Al-Qaeda? Does that really seem like a wise move? From my reading of the news and observing the on-goings over the past few years, I think the USS Rebel Assistance might have sailed a while ago. You know, before the rebels were inundated with Al-Qaeda. Hey, what do I know. I only read the same news sources as this president to find out what’s going on, but I do readily admit that maybe there were some otherwise private emails sitting on someone’s laptop he was able to read that contained pertinent information, information of which I’m not privy.

The cynic in me wonders if this is a convenient distraction or another looming serving of hapless incompetence.

What’s a more attractive and seducing nut to toss to the nightly news squirrels than rockets, explosions, bullets all belched from U.S. war machines? Especially since, if we’re providing the arms, we’re officially involved. That’ll take up nice chunks of media time, leaving less, and probably much less time, for the current disasters detonating as Big Gov lumbers through its historical mine field.

IRS, DOJ, Benghazi, HHS, EPA, NSA, yada yada yada you know the appallingly sad list of scandals beleaguering this country and the White House. What’s an administration to do? Well, get involved in a bloody foreign skirmish. That’ll take the edge off.

Also, the dire troubles palled over the country didn’t simply blow away or deteriorate during the scandal fest. They’re still there and, I’d say, even more dire now that nobody seems to be paying attention.  We’re still steeped in enormous debt; real unemployment remains gargantuan; the deficit lauded as it is only in the high hundreds of billions instead of trillions (a fact that will reverse over the long term if things remain the same) is still growing daily by the country. The American government, like its people, are living beyond its means and too many are quite sanguine about it.  So, why disrupt them?

Reminds me of the boy getting a free ride through government school, smiling daily at no homework, skipping tests and still passing. Only to realize the cost of that free ride after he graduates and finds he can’t read or write let alone understand simple arithmetic. So, it will be with the American populace when the payment comes due on all of our delinquencies. That bitter, visceral cringe in the gut, when all realize that the times is gonna be painful.

Why not provide a distraction, when faced with all of that?

And there’s the incompetence issue we must grapple with.

The One did put down a Red Line, though I think it was more of a smudge or smear. And it appears that the Syrians crossed it, so he does have cover. Which is what bothers me. His “Red Line” was so opaque and loosely defined that it could have meant anything. I wrote about this a few months back when the images of frothy mouthed Syrian corpses were swirling around the internet. The Red Line is:

So opaque that it means nothing. That could mean withdrawing diplomats and assets from the region, closing embassies, moving assets to the region, war, a strongly worded letter, ordering deep dish instead of thin crust etc.

This is why the cynic in me is winning. Given the way that this administration is so deeply and politically charged, so much so that politics always fits into its calculus, probably more so than the righteousness of the subject, do we really trust it to do the right thing? Like the possibility of supplying weapons to Al-Qaeda?

As was demonstrated by the spate of the previously mentioned scandals, I think all of us are forced to really question the motives of this administration. As well question their competence in not only carrying out the decision, but question their ability in actually making the correct decision. Because if you believe this administration innocent of these scandals, then you must believe their story that they’re simply incompetent. If you don’t believe them innocent, then there’s the Machiavellian question that must be answered. Either way, trusting this administration is not easy to do.  The cost of the barrage of scandals is high, and I don’t expect it to dissipate soon.

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