John McCain leads US delegation of senators on tour to train Syrian rebels

[G_j]

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jan/18/john-mccain-senators-saudi-arabia-tour-syria-rebels

A delegation of senators led by John McCain have met separately with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Salman and the emir of Qatar, as part of a regional tour focused on training Syrian rebels. As they met, hundreds of civilians fled rebel-held areas near Damascus that had been blockaded for over a year.

A message on the official Twitter feed for McCain, Republican of Arizona, said the US delegation met the commander of Saudi Arabia’s training and equipment programme and with Ahmed al-Jarba, whom it identified as the president of the Western-backed Syrian National Coalition (SNC). Al-Jarba stepped down as SNC president in July 2014. The current SNC president is Khaled Khoja. The reason for the discrepancy in McCain’s tweet was not immediately clear.

The senators also met in neighbouring Qatar with Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the country’s emir. The delegation included Senators Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina; Joe Donnelly, Democrat, Indiana; Angus King, an Independent from Maine; and Tim Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia, the state news agency reported. All sit on the Senate’s armed services committee, which McCain chairs.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar are staunch supporters of Syria’s opposition, which is mired in a nearly four-year civil war to oust President Bashar Assad.

The meetings took place on Saturday, a day after the Pentagon said that as many as 1,000 US troops and support personnel would be sent to Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar to help train vetted Syrian rebels. Rear Admiral John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman, said the training by a mix of US special and conventional forces could begin as early as this spring.

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[tularetom]

1. Wow, what could possibly go wrong with THAT

In a year, McCain will be having a hissy fit, insisting that we must bomb the Syrian rebels because they didn't quite turn out to be the good guys he thought they were.

[Fred Sanders]

2. He is now Pretend President in his decaying mind....and Palin is in France soon pretend thinking.

[Manny Man]

3. Here's where McCain went wrong...