Congress moves to stop military aid to Syrian rebels

Though the Obama administration has authorized military aid to the rebel opposition currently engaged in a civil war with the government of Bashar Assad, it now appears that the US Congress has essentially blocked that move over terrorism fears.

Michael Thompson from One Love, Earth via wikimedia commons

Members of both the House and Senate intelligence committees have moved to enact stringent restrictions on funding the Syrian rebels, a move sufficient to prevent the White House from delivering on arms shipments according to sources who spoke with The Hill.

“It’s not clear to me that the administration has a workable policy,” said Maine Republican Susan Collins, a member of the Senate intelligence committee.

Videos of violence, the beheading of Catholic priest, acts of cannibalism by the rebels, have all fueled critics calling into the question the Syrian rebels. This includes the hosts of Dispatch Radio who asked if we should arm these rebels.

“I would say we should tread very carefully here,” Robert Herriman declared.

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“Whatever we do, we have to make sure we do it right,” said Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, Tuesday.

“If we are going to arm, we have to make sure we have control of what arms are out there and how people are trained to use those arms so they don’t fall into the hands of our enemy al-Qaeda,” added Ruppersberger.

Since the mid-June announcement that the Obama administration would seek to funnel military aid to Syria’s insurgency, it had set out to sell that plan to members of Congress. Both Secretary of State John Kerry and Vice President Joe Biden briefed the intelligence panels in June.