In long-awaited move, Obama recognizes Syrian rebels

There are many encircled Alawite villages like this. Terrible choices for the inhabitants. No-one on the ground can escape the changes in a civil war.

The USA can recognize the opposition and supply it just as long as USA troops are not on the ground. The troops are busy protecting the countries that have constitutions that refuse to provide self-defense.

Obama's move would appear to indicate that the quest for a negotiated political settlement has been relinquished.

The strike on Alawites came in bomb attacks in the village of Aqrab in the central province of Hama and killed or wounded at least 125 civilians, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

“We cannot know whether the rebels were behind this attack, but if they were, this would be the largest-scale revenge attack against Alawites,” members of a Shiite sect in Sunni-majority Syria, said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.

The West failed miserably in diplomacy before this situation got out of hand. I wouldn't be surprised if the situation deteriorates and becomes an even more horrific region-wide conflagration from this point.

The USA can recognize the opposition and supply it just as long as USA troops are not on the ground.

Troops are definitely out. Heck, the US is in no rush to even supply the rebels because they can't guarantee where the supplies would eventually end up.

What the US would do is bring in intelligence officers. It's a 2-way strategy: the officers would supply the rebels with information and communication, and the officers would also gather information on who the rebels are and which rebels they can work with.

The US should just stay out, in every sense.

The US and NATO should just stop interfering. Both sides in this civil war are as bad as each other.

The US should just stay out, in every sense.

They can't afford to. The US needs information what's happening on the ground as much as the rebels need help getting information provided by the US. That's why they need intelligence officers there.

What if the rebels win? The US would need to know who they are, who they can talk to, which are or are not Al-Qaeda, etc. They're hedging their bets - they can't be in the dark what's happening in Syria. They mustn't wait to gather info when it's already too little too late.

The copy-and-paste crowd has spoken.

Interesting read:

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/12/assadosphere/

"Assad doesn’t have many allies IRL — Iran and Russia are about the only ones remaining. But as the Syrian rebellion stretches into its 20th month, he’s found (and paid for) a whole heap of friends online, who warn of an impending NATO invasion to dominate Syria; secret CIA shipments of weapons to terrorist groups; and, of course, that Assad’s enemies are all really Jews. Welcome to the Assadosphere — on Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and the web."

I don't know, this doesn't bode well as far as I can tell. Annan's plan should have been implemented from the start.

Russia’s foreign minister is criticizing President Barack Obama’s decision to recognize the Syrian opposition, saying “the U.S. apparently has decided to bet solely on the armed victory of this national coalition.”

Sergey Lavrov said Wednesday that Moscow was “somewhat surprised” by Obama’s statement that the U.S. recognizes the Syrian opposition coalition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people, in opposition to the Assad regime.

http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/12/12/russia-criticizes-obamas-decision-to-recognize-syrian-opposition/

There are many different paths this conflict could follow now, and the US decision probably will result in a further escalation of violence, now that the diplomatic avenue has effectively been cutoff.

The West failed miserably in diplomacy before this situation got out of hand.

Seems to me it's Assad who failed miserably at diplomacy before this situation got out of hand. Someone please explain to me why it's the West's fault everytime some country is embroiled in a civil war? We're not your mama. We don't live solely for the purpose of cleaning up your messes.

We're not your mama. We don't live solely for the purpose of cleaning up your messes.

Unless we can sell arms to you after we put you in power...

In regards to your earlier article, Super - I can only assume that in light of his absence, our tinfoil-hat wearing Assad-supporting friend clearly hasn't either received his Pay Pal funds, heh, or the last cheque bounced.

I always figured it was some sad, lonely cry for attention, but I guess I was wrong - the monetary angle makes a lot more sense.