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I deal extensively with the question of the TOW missiles in my article. Re the US embargo on anti-tank weapons, yeh this article Louis posted was from 2012 when US spooks turned up on the borders to prevent anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons getting to the rebels. The first TOW anti-tank weapons were received by some rebel groups in April 2014, ie, that embargo was lifted 2 years later. My article thoroughly goes through the whole story oft he rise and fall of the TOW, the restrictions on them, and the US cut-off of them once it was clear the rebels refused to give up the fight against Assad and direct all their fire against ISIS. The offensive you refer to where rebels took out a lot of Assad tanks with TOWS was early 2015 (certainly not 2016, by which time the program was well and truly shut down). In my opinion, this relatively one-off success was due to other factors of the moment. As you say, the total number of TOW ATGMs (anti-tank guided missiles) distributed to the rebels over 2014-15 is reckoned to be about 1000. It is difficult for me to figure out how decisive that could be considering the regime itself had some 5000 ATGMs - as well as the 9000 or so tanks and armoured vehicles. On Fri, May 10, 2019 at 1:07 AM DW via Marxism <marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote: > ******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ******************** > #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. > #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. > ***************************************************************** > > The article appears to be behind a pay wall. > > I've argued that the concept of regime change in Syria was given lie > because of these bans on MANPADS (surface to air missiles) and other > heavier weapons...and the fact that the US could easily have destroyed the > Syrian armed forces in about a week, at least enough for an early victory > by the rebels. > > However, the CIA did, through Qatar or S. Arabia, provide many Tow II > anti-tank weapons, which disabled around 18 Syrian T-55 and T-72 tanks > (most of which were returned to service) in 2016. There are youtube videos > of this available. [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvVd1e8Gwug ], I > can't > remember what year this was. But...the Syrian Army has one of the largest > armored equipped armies on the entire planet with close to 5,000 armored > vehicles with at least 3000 of that being heavy tanks (mostly T-55s, now > obsolete but fine for urban warfare it seems). But total number of TOW > anti-tank missiles are much higher according to this recent article: > > https://www.newsweek.com/us-military-targeted-own-missiles-middle-eeast-1277293 > It seems that there were over 1000 TOW missile launchers given to the > rebels in Syria. So the US via it's Arab state allies provided the > missiles. But... > > The problem then really lies in the obvious lack of anything else such as > command and control, access to satellite intelligence, MANPADS and even > heavy machine guns to down helicopters and Russian fighter jets. Zip. Zero. > There ARE YouTube vids of rebels using MANPADS to shoot down choppers and > jets early on in the civil war but these were all taken from the Syrian > arsenal by deserting Syrian troops. They are clearly Igla surface to air > missiles being used by the rebels. > > So it goes again to motivation of by the US to supply some, but not enough, > heavy defensive and offensive weapons by the CIA/NATO/EU. > > David > _________________________________________________________ > Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm > Set your options at: > https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/mkaradjis%40gmail.com > _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
