TOO OFTEN, WE JUST DON'T KNOW WHAT WE'RE DOING

Despite good intentions, our intervention in Syria is looking like a FAIL. I'm not an isolationist but after the last 12 years, that strategy is starting to make more sense.

Rebel Arms Flow Is Said to Benefit Jihadists in Syria
By DAVID E. SANGER
Published: October 14, 2012
NY Times

WASHINGTON — Most of the arms shipped at the behest of Saudi Arabia and Qatar to supply Syrian rebel groups fighting the government of Bashar al-Assad are going to hard-line Islamic jihadists, and not the more secular opposition groups that the West wants to bolster, according to American officials and Middle Eastern diplomats.

The officials, voicing frustration, say there is no central clearinghouse for the shipments, and no effective way of vetting the groups that ultimately receive them.

According to American and Arab officials, the C.I.A. has sent officers to Turkey to help direct the aid, but the agency has been hampered by a lack of good intelligence about many rebel figures and factions.