The only thing surprising is that Lyndsey wasn’t with them:
Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) visited a Syrian refugee camp on the Turkey-Syria border Tuesday, as they accused the international community of failing the people of Syria and called for military action against President Bashar al-Assad’s forces.
***The senators have led the call for more action in Syria, including supplying arms to the opposition and air strikes. The Obama administration has opposed supplying arms to the rebels, warning that it could cause further militarization.
McCain and Lieberman said that the international community is “failing the people of Syria” by only providing humanitarian aid. While they acknowledged that the Obama administration was now providing communications equipment to the opposition, they said, “that doesn’t do much against tanks.”
Putting aside the fact that these warmongers think the solution to everything is air strikes, what is horrifying is how irresponsible it would be to do what they want. Arm the rebels? They can’t be serious. Here is the rundown on the current Syrian military:
10,885 Armoured Fighting Vehicles:
4,950 Main battle tanks (including 1,150 in storage)
1,125 Amphibious Armoured Scout Cars
2,950 Infantry fighting vehicles
1,860 Armoured personnel carriers
4,815+ Towed Artillery Pieces:
1,010+ Mortars
2,130+ Gun/Howitzers (400 in storage)
1,675+ Anti-aircraft guns (300+ in storage)
1,136 Self Propelled Artillery Pieces:
485 Self-propelled howitzers
650 Self-propelled anti-aircraft guns (240 in storage)
6,890+ Anti Tank Guided Weapon Launchers (4,290 in storage)
500+ Multiple Launch Rocket Systems
102+ Surface to Surface/Ship Missile Launchers:
86+ Tactical ballistic missile launchers
16+ Anti-ship missile launchers
4,235+ Surface to Air Missile Launchers:
4,000+ MANPADS
235 Self-propelled air-defence systems
Clearly, chucking a few arms and tanks (that they would not know how to use, would have no resupply or logistics, and so on) would really be useful.