Arming Syrian Moderates? They Are No Syrian Moderates Except In McCain's Twisted Mind

The House leaders-- afraid of midterm voters-- avoided voting for war in the Middle East yesterday and instead voted to fund what McCain insists are "moderate" Syrian rebels… you know, the ones who have been selling arms and captives to ISIS (the "non-moderates") for months. Do we never learn? Anything? Buck McKeon's slippery slope amendment passed 273 to 156 with 85 Democrats and 71 Republicans voting against it. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) has learned history's lessons. Like most progressives, he voted NO-- and made the case why all Democrats should have:

If we’ve learned one thing in the thirteen years since we rushed into wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, it is that wars cannot be rushed. Conflicts cannot be won through cut corners and half-measures. We must be deliberate, and have a clear depiction of our allies and enemies alike. We must have assurances and participation from other nations in the region. We must have a clearly defined-- and achievable-- mission. Most importantly, it must be clear in our minds how we will bring hostilities to an end.

On every one of these thresholds, the arming of Syrian rebels to confront ISIL fails to reach the mark. While I am deeply troubled by the violence spreading in the region, I will not cast a vote that only further complicates and intensifies the fight.

Syrian rebels are not loyal to our flag, and they will not do our bidding. They will pursue their own interests, and while allied today, they may be a sworn enemy tomorrow. We have seen time after tragic time that the weapons we provide will be aimed at our own troops if that comes to pass.

A successful response to this crisis can only come with the significant involvement of other nations in the region. They have the most to lose if ISIL remains unchecked, and they have a vested interest in the social, political and economic implications of this conflict. If we proceed despite the tepid response from nations like Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, we will be taking sides in a civil war and welcoming the perception that we’ve adopted the conflict as our own.

This is not a strategy for victory or a roadmap to peace. It is a prescription for more war, and I cannot in good conscience support it.

Republican Justin Amash also voted NO, not because he's a deranged, obstructionist Obama-hater (like, say, Michele Bachmann) but for very similar reasons to the ones Grijalva gave. He explained why he voted against it to his constituents very thoroughly. Did yours reach out to you this way?

What have we learned from the last decade of war?

Those years should have taught us that when going to war, our government must:

(1) be careful when defining a military mission,
(2) speak forthrightly with the American people about the sacrifices they will be called to make,
(3) plan more than one satisfactory end to the conflict, and
(4) be humble about what we think we know.

These lessons should be at the front of our minds when Congress votes today on whether to arm groups in Syria.

Today’s amendment ostensibly is aimed at destroying ISIS-- yet you’d hardly know it from reading the amendment’s text. The world has witnessed with horror the evil of ISIS: the public beheading of innocents, the killing of Christians, Muslims, and others.

The amendment’s focus-- arming groups fighting the Assad government in Syria-- has little to do with defeating ISIS. The mission that the amendment advances plainly isn’t the defeat of ISIS; it’s the defeat of Assad.

Americans stood overwhelmingly against entangling our Armed Forces in the Syrian civil war a year ago. If Congress chooses to arm groups in Syria, it must explain to the American people not only why that mission is necessary but also the sacrifices that that mission entails.

The Obama administration has tried to rally support for U.S. involvement in the Syrian civil war by implying that our help would be at arm’s length. The amendment Congress will vote on broadly authorizes “assistance” to groups in Syria. It does not specify what types of weapons our government will give the groups. It does not prohibit boots on the ground. (The amendment is silent on the president’s power to order our troops to fight in the civil war; it states only that Congress doesn’t provide “specific statutory authorization” for such escalation.) It does not state the financial cost of the war.

As we should have learned from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we must plan for multiple satisfactory ends to military conflicts before we commence them.

If the Syrian groups that are “appropriately vetted” (the amendment’s language) succeed and oust Assad, what would result? Would the groups assemble a coalition government of anti-Assad fighters, and would that coalition include ISIS? What would happen to the Alawites and Christians who stood with Assad? To what extent would the U.S. government be obligated to occupy Syria to rebuild the government? If each of the groups went its own way, would Syria’s territory be broken apart, and if so, would ISIS control one of the resulting countries?

If the Syrian groups that we support begin to lose, would we let them be defeated? If not, is there any limit to American involvement in the war?

Perhaps some in the administration or Congress have answers to these questions. But the amendment we’ll vote on today contains none of them.

Above all, when Congress considers serious actions-- especially war-- we must be humble about what we think we know. We don’t know very much about the groups we propose to support or even how we intend to vet those groups. Reports in the last week suggest that some of the “appropriately vetted” groups have struck deals with ISIS, although the groups dispute the claim. The amendment requires the administration to report on its efforts to prevent our arms and resources from ending up in the wrong hands, but we know little about those precautions or their effectiveness.

Today, I will vote against the amendment to arm groups in Syria. There is a wide misalignment between the rhetoric of defeating ISIS and the amendment’s actual mission of arming certain groups in the Syrian civil war. The amendment provides few limits on the type of assistance that our government may commit, and the exit out of the civil war is undefined. And given what’s happened in our country’s most recent wars, our leaders seem to have unjustified confidence in their own ability to execute a plan with so many unknowns.

Some of my colleagues no doubt will come to different judgments on these questions. But it’s essential that they consider the questions carefully. That the president wants the authority to intervene in the Syrian civil war is not a sufficient reason to give him that power. Under the Constitution, it is Congress’s independent responsibility to commence war.

We are the representatives of the American people. The government is proposing to take their resources and to put their children’s lives at risk. I encourage all my colleagues to give the decision the weight it is due.

My own congressman, Adam Schiff, is a warmonger in a peace-loving progressive district he was recently shoe-horned into. He voted for Bush's attack on Iraq and is always, first and foremost a lackey for AIPAC and far right-extremists in Israel. Needless to say, he voted YES. He always votes for war and gore. If I still lived in Brooklyn on East 17th Street between Avenue P and O, my Rep. would be Yvette Clarke, who voted NO. Here's what she told the folks in my old neighborhood after the vote yesterday:

As our recent history demonstrates, armed conflicts in the Middle East and Afghanistan have often resulted in increased-- and unanticipated-- involvement by the armed forces of the United States. Before the War in Iraq, for example, the administration of President George W. Bush assured Congress and the American people that the conflict would end quickly, without substantial loss of life. Yet, American troops remain in Iraq, even after 4,487 were killed and 32,226 wounded. In Afghanistan, the Taliban were armed through the Congressional appropriations process, also known as ‘Charlie Wilson's War,’ in their battle against the Russians, only to become our fiercest adversaries and a breeding ground for terrorists. We cannot risk a similar outcome in Syria. If and when our nation becomes more substantially involved, we must have a comprehensive plan-- from start to finish.

The idea that we can simply train and equip Syrian rebel fighters to combat ISIS/ISAL to eliminate the terrorist threat to our nation flies in the face of the practical realities of the nature of the threat and the realities of the threat to the rebels themselves, that being the Assad Regime. I am deeply concerned that our interests are not necessarily aligned with the Syrian rebels.

Whether these rebels are truly our allies remains to be seen. Those who we train today could ultimately become our enemies, and could deploy the weapons which we have provided them against us and our allies. At a time when Republican leaders in Congress want to eliminate resources for job training programs and social services for families, I cannot in good conscience, given the current conditions in Syria of an ongoing civil war and a failed state, support the diversion of hundreds of millions of dollars from much needed domestic priorities into this precarious situation.

Most of the good Democrats-- like Alan Grayson, Mark Pocan, Donna Edwards, Jim McGovern, Barbara Lee… voted NO. Pelosi joined the worst Democrats-- Steve Israel, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, John Barrow, Scott Peters, Kyrsten Sinema, Steny Hoyer, Joe Crowley, Patrick Murphy, Henry Cuellar… voting YES. And, once again, we saw the contrast in New Hampshire, where the progressive, Carol Shea-Porter, voted against this foolish and dangerous policy and the clueless conservative New Dem, Ann Kuster, betrayed her constituents and voted for it.