In Syria, rebels backed by the Pentagon are fighting rebels backed by the CIA. Yet more proof, says Jonah Goldberg channelling Kevin Williamson, that the government should be in charge of everything.
Less sarcastically, it is proof of the incoherence of our foreign policy, the ineptness of the current administration’s attempts at intervention, and our inability to impose our will in a chaotic civil war.
From In Syria, militias armed by the Pentagon fight those armed by the CIA – LA Times
Syrian militias armed by different parts of the U.S. war machine have begun to fight each other on the plains between the besieged city of Aleppo and the Turkish border, highlighting how little control U.S. intelligence officers and military planners have over the groups they have financed and trained in the bitter five-year-old civil war.
The fighting has intensified over the last two months, as CIA-armed units and Pentagon-armed ones have repeatedly shot at each other while maneuvering through contested territory on the northern outskirts of Aleppo, U.S. officials and rebel leaders have confirmed.In mid-February, a CIA-armed militia called Fursan al Haq, or Knights of Righteousness, was run out of the town of Marea, about 20 miles north of Aleppo, by Pentagon-backed Syrian Democratic Forces moving in from Kurdish-controlled areas to the east.
