Syria War Skeptics Ask Why Should We Help Al Qaeda?

Opponents of President Obama’s planned missile strike on Syria are wondering why would the US would want to help the Al Qaeda-linked rebels in that country’s ongoing civil war.

The Assad regime has been uniformly denounced across the entire US political spectrum and around the world, but it is widely believed that many of the insurgent groups who would take over the country if Assad is toppled are comprised of extremists and terrorists.

A video emerged this week of one such group executing seven captured Syrian soldiers.

There are even allegations from the Russians that another rebel group allegedly used chemical weapons on at least one occasion.

In commenting about the current debate over bombing the Syria government for its alleged use of poison gas, US Senator Ted Cruz (R – Texas) asserted earlier this week that young men and women volunteer to for the US military to defend America and “not to serve as Al Qaeda’s air force.” He claimed that seven of the nine rebel groups in Syria have ties to Al Qaeda.

Secretary of State John Kerry has tried to convince skeptical or undecided lawmakers are Capitol Hill that only 25 percent or so of the rebel fighters are “bad guys” and the rest of them are so-called moderates.

Kerry’s sourcing for the moderate influences in Syria may be subject to a conflict of interest, however. According to The Daily Caller, Institute for the Study of War analyst Elizabeth O’Bagy “is also a paid advocate for the war-torn country’s rebels… [she is] the political director for the Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF), a group that advocates within the United States for Syria’s rebels.” This fact was not disclosed in her influential Wall Street Journal op-ed about the conflict.

The Five’s Greg Gutfeld quipped that Kerry was right about the moderates, “They’re moderately psycho… our allies in Syria right now are Al Qaeda, highwaymen, kidnappers, and killers… at least we know Ariel Castro isn’t there.”

The irreverent former Huffington Post columnist offered up the opinion that the Syrian civil war is like a reality show. “We can’t confirm anything about this conflict except that it’s a conflict. Essentially it’s like the TV show Storage Wars where you show up and you’re going to buy that locker and you have no idea what’s inside of it.”

Noting that he disagrees with Sen. Cruz on most things, Geraldo Rivera of all people passionately agreed with the senator’s assessment in an appearance on Fox & Friends this morning. “We are picking sides in a civil war where we have no strategic interest in one side or the other prevailing. The rebels are as rife with monsters as the bad guys… this is committing us to a civil war where we don’t want either side to win.”

Calling attention to the rebels who executed the Syrian soldiers on camera, Rivera wondered rhetorically that “those are the good guys? Those are the people that we are risking our GIs to help? When they take over, do you think those seven Syrian soldiers are where their butchery, their revenge will end? There will be a bloodbath…”

The New York TImes is reporting that the potential missile strike on Syria is expanding from the use of cruise missiles launched from ships to the actual deployment of American bombers to go after additional military assets in Syria.

If you were a member of Congress, would vote for or against military action in Syria?

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