Biden gaffe fingers Obama for arming jihadists?

By Aaron Klein

Vice President Biden speaks at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge, Mass., on Oct. 2.
Vice President Biden speaks at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge, Mass., on Oct. 2.

TEL AVIV – Vice President Joseph Biden may have opened up a larger can of worms than previously thought when he apparently blamed Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and other Arab allies for arming al-Qaida groups in Syria and inadvertently helping ISIS.

Unmentioned by Biden was that, as the establishment news media widely documented, the Obama administration aided Turkey, the UAE and other Arab allies such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia in arming and training the Syrian rebels.

It was reported Biden this past weekend apologized to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for “any implication” that Turkey or Arab allies had intentionally supplied weapons to ISIS or helped in the growth other Islamic jihadist groups in Syria, according to the White House.

Last Thursday, Biden told an audience at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government that ISIS had been inadvertently strengthened by actions taken by Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Arab allies who were supporting the insurgency against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Biden further implied Turkey, the UAE and other Arab countries were supplying weapons to al-Qaida and its offshoots in Syria, including the al-Nusra front.

“They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad,” Biden told students. “Except that the people who were being supplied were al-Nusra and al-Qaida and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world.

“We could not convince our colleagues to stop supplying them,” Biden said.

Regarding Turkey’s alleged role, Biden said, “President Erdogan told me, he’s an old friend, said, ‘You were right. We let too many people (including foreign fighters) through.’ Now they are trying to seal their border.”

Erdogan told reporters he vehemently denied making such a statement.

While Biden fingered Turkey and the UAE, the vice president may have forgotten recent history, including how the Obama administration reportedly aided Turkey, the UAE and other Arab countries in the procurement of weapons to be shipped to the Syrian rebels.

Numerous establishment news media reports document the weapons-to-rebels pipeline ran through Turkey and Arab countries and was coordinated with U.S. intelligence agencies.

The New York Times reported March 25, 2013, that the covert aid to the Syrian rebels started in early 2012.

The Times reported that from offices at “secret locations,” American intelligence officers “helped the Arab governments shop for weapons … and have vetted rebel commanders and groups to determine who should receive the weapons as they arrive.”

The Times report noted the CIA aid “has shown that the United States is more willing to help its Arab allies support the lethal side of the civil war.”

The CIA declined to comment to the Times on the shipments to Syria or its role in them.

In October 2012 the Times reported “most of the arms” shipped to rebels by Saudi Arabia and Qatar and “are going to hard-line Islamic jihadists, and not the more secular opposition groups that the West wants to bolster,” citing American officials and Middle Eastern diplomats.

To facilitate the U.S. arms shipments, Obama reportedly waived a provision of the Arms Export Control Act, allowing the U.S. to work with a country that “repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism.”

In September 2013, the Washington Post reported the CIA “has begun delivering weapons to rebels in Syria,” with the shipment flowing through bases in Turkey and Jordan.

Continued the Post report: “The CIA shipments are to flow through a network of clandestine bases in Turkey and Jordan that were expanded over the past year as the agency sought to help Middle Eastern allies, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, direct weapons to moderate Syrian rebel forces.”

Besides arming Syrian rebels, the U.S. also helped to train the rebels at various Mideast bases.

In February 2012, WND was the first news agency to report the U.S., Turkey and Jordan were running a training base for the Syrian rebels in the Jordanian town of Safawi in the country’s northern desert region.

The report has since been corroborated by numerous other media accounts.

Last March, the German weekly Der Spiegel reported Americans were training Syrian rebels in Jordan.

Britain’s Guardian newspaper also reported last March that U.S. trainers were aiding Syrian rebels in Jordan along with British and French instructors.

Reuters reported a spokesman for the U.S. Defense Department declined immediate comment on the German magazine’s report. The French foreign ministry and Britain’s foreign and defense ministries also would not comment to Reuters.

In May, PBS ran a feature in which Syrian rebels described their U.S.-aided training.

PBS described the rebels’ “clandestine journey from the Syrian battlefield to meet with their American handlers in Turkey and then travel on to Qatar, where they say they received training in the use of sophisticated weapons and fighting techniques, including, one rebel said, ‘how to finish off soldiers still alive after an ambush.'”

With additional research by Joshua Klein.

Aaron Klein

Aaron Klein is WND's senior staff writer and Jerusalem bureau chief. He also hosts "Aaron Klein Investigative Radio" on Salem Talk Radio. Follow Aaron on Twitter and Facebook. Read more of Aaron Klein's articles here.


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