I warned you to vote against Bucky McKeon's amendment because I'm not very impressed by the man. But you are the Ranking Member on the House Armed Services Committee and you've got these undying loyalties to Raytheon, Northrup Grumman, Boeing, etc.
Since you've signed on to spend my tax buck on a God damned bunch of pigs in a poke (We don't have a God damned clue as to whether they're two-headed pigs, have 20 legs each, or whatever, we have to buy these God damned pigs in a poke called the Syrian Rebels.) and you supposedly represent my interests, I'd just like to know exactly where the money is going that Bucky McKeon wants to spend, what groups we are funding, their histories, memberships, political leanings. I'm sure you have all that information easily available to you since you are so eager to spend my tax buck on them, just like you were ready to blindly follow George Walker Bush into his merry and happy invasion and occupation of Iraq that has made life so wonderful for all those folks in the Middle East.
Also, keep me briefed on the strategy for deciding who to fund -- are you going to make a dartboard target with all the groups on it and throw darts at it to randomly choose a group. From what I've seen on the intelligence on that region, that might be the best strategy:
After more than three years of civil war, there are hundreds of militias fighting President Bashar al-Assad — and one another. Among them, even the more secular forces have turned to Islamists for support and weapons over the years, and the remaining moderate rebels often fight alongside extremists like the Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria.
“You are not going to find this neat, clean, secular rebel group that respects human rights and that is waiting and ready because they don’t exist,” said Aron Lund, a Syria analyst who edits the Syria in Crisis blog for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “It is a very dirty war and you have to deal with what is on offer.”
Analysts who track the rebel movement say that the concept of the Free Syrian Army as a unified force with an effective command structure is a myth.
Where I'd place my bets ... below the fold.
Frankly, I'd put my money on pesh merga, the armed Kurdish fighters. At the very least, the Kurds have a thin sliver of ethnic cohesion and I'm impressed that they do not go around bombing the religious houses of their fellow congregants (the Sunni-Shia stupidity), to the best of my knowledge. Also, I am touched by the way they offered sanctuary to the besieged and very obscure sects of Iraqi Christians: Chaldean Catholic Church, Syriac Orthodox Church, Syriac Catholic Church, Ancient Church of the East, Assyrian Church of the East, The Churches of the Armenian rite, Armenian Apostolic Church, Armenian Catholic Church, Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch, Melkite Greek Catholic Church (Byzantine rite), and the Roman Catholic Church (Latin rite).
Also the even more obscure Yazidis.
I'm in favor of the creation of the independent nation of Kurdistan. The creation of such a state assuredly cannot make the chaotic situation in the Middle East any worse than it presently is -- and I kind of like the Kurdistan flag, apart from one little quibble, red for martydom (No! Guys! Enough damned martyrdom in the Middle East, how about red for courage?); green for the beauty and landscapes of Kurdistan; white for peace, equality and freedom for all those who live in Kurdistan no matter of ethnicity or religion; and a yellow sun with 21 rays symbolizing something obscure and mysterious.
Now, I realize that various nations would not like the creation of Kurdistan, which requires hacking off chunks of Iraq, Syria, Iran, Turkey and a little island of land in Armenia, most of all the U.S. because the Kurdish region holds a humongous chunk of oil reserves, but tough! I'm totally in love with the idea of Kurdistan the nation.
Admittedly, the Kurds better be good on the issue of women -- or it's no go.