“Has Rand Paul ever been to Syria? Has he ever met with ISIS?”
In a weak effort to smear Rand Paul, war hawk Senator John McCain attempted to argue that the Kentucky Senator doesn’t have the authority to disagree with US policies regarding ISIS because he hasn’t met up with members of the terror group, unlike McCain himself.
In an appearance on Fox News Monday, McCain was asked to respond to Paul’s comments earlier in the day, when the libertarian leaning Senator told CBS’ This Morning that arming Syrian rebels would only empower ISIS in the long run.
And that’s when things got weird.
“Has Rand Paul ever been to Syria? Has he ever met with ISIS? Has he ever met with any of these people? No, no, no,” McCain said, clearly in reference to his own visit to Syria in 2013, where he was photographed with leaders of the Free Syrian Army, the fighters violently opposed to the Assad regime.
Don’t attempt to look for any logic in McCain’s blathering, because there isn’t any. This is not the first time McCain has attempted to make this idiotic argument. When intelligence emerged that up to 40 percent of the “moderate” rebels are actually extremists, McCain argued that the claims were not true because he has personally met the rebels.
“I know who they are. I was in Syria and I met them.” McCain said at the time. “There’s about 70 percent still who are Free Syrian Army,” he claimed, despite the fact that a study by defense consultancy IHS Jane’s found that only around 30 percent of rebels are fighting for secular values,
McCain, who has long pushed to arm Syrian rebels, declared that it is “patently false” to claim that arms supplied to the so called “moderate” militants have actually wound up with Islamic State in Iraq and Syria terrorists.
“We’re going to have a fight, because it’s patently false. This is the same Rand Paul that said we didn’t want to have anything to do with anything to do in the Middle East, by the way. I don’t want to get in a fight with him at all.” McCain said.
Of course, actual independent evidence and reports of arms winding up in ISIS hands do exist, and it is a real problem, even if McCain chooses to close his eyes and ignore it, or willfully lie about it. His scolding of Rand Paul for referencing such evidence is laughable.
During Monday’s appearance, McCain also claimed that it is “not true” that the moderate Syrian rebels have agreed a nonaggression pact with ISIS, another factor Rand Paul brought up Monday. McCain did not , however, present any evidence to counter media reports based on intelligence shared by UK rights groups indicating this is indeed the case.
McCain also claimed that no other Arab country has declared support for US airstrikes on ISIS, despite a White House announcement claiming it has such support.
It seems that McCain just repeats whatever information it is that he wants to believe, regardless of what the rest of the planet is learning.
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Steve Watson is a London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.com, and Prisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham, and a Bachelor Of Arts Degree in Literature and Creative Writing from Nottingham Trent University.
