McCain Spends Memorial Day with Al-Qaeda Allies

by | May 27, 2013

Senator John McCain snuck into Syria this Memorial Day to spend the day with the terrorist-affiliated Free Syrian Army, in violation of both Syrian Law and likely of international law. While meeting with the Syrian insurgents and FSA Commander, Gen. Salem Idris, McCain likely assured his allies that it was only a matter of time before the US began overtly transferring the weapons it is currently facilitating covertly.

Gen. Idriss is the conduit for hundreds of millions of dollars in US aid, and untold millions in covert CIA and US Special Forces assistance. He swears he does not cooperate with the terrorist-designated Al-Nusra Front, but he only coordinates with the Al-Nusra-allied Arhar al Sham.

About McCain’s meeting partner:

“Idriss said his group didn’t work with al Qaida-affiliated rebels who belonged to the Nusra Front. But he said the military councils worked closely with another Islamist rebel faction, Arhar al Sham, that’s known to coordinate its actions with Nusra and shares many of Nusra’s beliefs about how Syria should be governed if Assad is vanquished.”

But Idriss makes no secret of his admiration for Al-Nusra. He said recently:

“Jabhat al-Nusra has proved to be the most effective in fighting the Syrian army.”

During McCain’s secret and illegal visit, Idriss called for even more US intervention on the side of the insurgents:

“The visit of Senator McCain to Syria is very important and very useful especially at this time. We need American help to have change on the ground; we are now in a very critical situation. What we want from the U.S. government is to take the decision to support the Syrian revolution with weapons and ammunition, anti-tank missiles and anti-aircraft weapons. Of course we want a no-fly zone and we ask for strategic strikes against Hezbollah both inside Lebanon and inside Syria.”

As the New York Times has reported, the existence of a secular Syrian opposition force is a fantasy. We can extrapolate, therefore, that McCain either was duped into participating into a Potemkin-like excursion into an “It’s a Small World” ride, or he knowingly met with extremist forces bent on exterminating what little is left of Christianity in Syria and imposing extreme Islamist rule over once-secular Syria.

For his part, McCain urges the US to become even more entangled in the insurgency against the Syrian government, all the while complaining about Russian involvement. He said not long ago:

“I’ve been known to be an optimist, but here are the Russians sending them up-to-date missiles, continued flights of arms going into Syria, Putin keeps our secretary of State waiting for three hours… It doesn’t lend itself to optimism, all it does is delay us considering doing what we really need to do. The reality is that Putin will only abandon Assad when he thinks that Assad is losing. Right now, at worst it’s a stalemate. In the view of some, he is succeeding.”

No word as to whether while meeting with the Free Syrian Army, McCain also sat down with FSA Commander Abu Sakkar, recently famous for his ability to turn the organs of a dead Syrian soldier into a battlefield snack

Author

  • Daniel McAdams

    Executive Director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity and co-Producer/co-Host, Ron Paul Liberty Report. Daniel served as the foreign affairs, civil liberties, and defense/intel policy advisor to U.S. Congressman Ron Paul, MD (R-Texas) from 2001 until Dr. Paul’s retirement at the end of 2012. From 1993-1999 he worked as a journalist based in Budapest, Hungary, and traveled through the former communist bloc as a human rights monitor and election observer.

    View all posts
Copyright © 2024 The Ron Paul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.