Our moderate rebel friends decapitated a kid

[pottedplant]

Last edited Wed Jul 20, 2016, 07:20 PM - Edit history (1)

And hardly anyone here covers it. There's no public outrage during the nonstop Circus coverage. This is your government sending your money and weapons to lunatics and advocating on their behalf. That poor child. What are we doing?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/20/syrian-opposition-group-which-killed-child-was-in-us-vetted-alliance

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/07/20/gruesome-film-shows-us-funded-syrian-rebel-group-behead-child

A Syrian rebel group once deemed "moderate" by the U.S. was captured on film beheading a child in Handarat, near Aleppo, in a gruesome video that circulated on social media on Tuesday.

The Daily Beast reports: "There are two clips from the unsavory events. One shows five militants surrounding the boy. In the second, one of them stands over him on the truck and cuts the boy's head off with a dull knife, raising it over his head."

In the video, the rebel group accused the boy of being a fighter for the Jerusalem Brigade, a Palestinian militia fighting alongside regime forces, Al Jazeera reports. The news outlet adds that the Jerusalem Brigade issued a statement shortly after the video's release identifying the boy as 12-year-old Abdullah Issah, saying he was not a fighter and condemning the grisly attack.

The group, Harakat Nour al-Din al-Zenki, was reportedly receiving funding and weapons from the CIA until at least December 2014 and using American weapons until 2015.

Critics of the Obama administration's approach to the Syrian conflict have long sounded the alarm about the dangers of arming and funding so-called "moderate" rebel factions in the war-torn country.

[Chasstev365]

1. What exactly are you referring to?

I don't know the story.

[smirkymonkey]

2. Sickening! Their cruelty and depravity knows no bounds.

That poor child! I can't imagine how frightened he must have been at the end.

[840high]

7. .....

[yurbud]

3. edit you OP to include relevant excerpts--I got gist from reading the url you posted

[Matrosov]

4. Not an isolated incident, apparently

http://www.salon.com/2016/07/11/u_s_backed_syrian_rebels_committing_war_crimes_torture_abductions_imposing_harsh_sharia_law_report/

Syrian rebel groups backed by the U.S. and its allies “have committed serious violations of international humanitarian law, including abductions, torture and summary killings,” according to Amnesty International.

A report by the leading human rights organization details how extremist rebel groups have taken over large parts of major Syrian cities, in which they have created repressive theocratic regimes where critics are violently silenced and where religious and ethnic minority groups fear for their lives.

[pottedplant]

5. I called my senators for what it's worth just to let them know I care

I couldn't watch the video but the picture of that kid's face was haunting. He was a poor kid who was snatched out of a medical situation as he still had infusion lines in his arm. That this isn't an isolated event doesn't surprise me... I just haven't seen much in the mainstream press about it.

[Vattel]

6. And yet Clinton has criticized Obama for not sending more weapons to these "moderate" rebel groups.

http://time.com/3097964/hillary-clinton-syria-isis-the-atlantic/

I am afraid I am on Obama's side on tis one. It was naïve to think that a truly moderate rebel force could have successfully unseated Assad and brought something better to Syria.

[smirkymonkey]

8. K&R

I'm sure if the perpetrators were Christian, this thread would have hundreds of replies by now.

[eissa]

9. How frightened he must have been

That poor child. And what unspeakable horror are his parents living through right now? The savagery of these "people" knows no bounds.

And just because it can't be said enough -- there are no moderate fighters. Assad is literally our only hope.

[ozone_man]

10. Give Obama another Peace prize.

It's the new definition of peace, war forever.