Timber Sycamore

Timber Sycamore

Dr. Jassim Taqui

The American President Barak Obama, who was awarded Nobel Peace prize is in focus again. According to a report published by the New York Times most of the weapons, the CIA supplied to the so called “moderate Syrian rebels” via Jordan have been systematically stolen and sold in black market. The proceeds of this operation were used by terrorists to buy also from the black market advanced American missiles.

Obama authorized CIA to training thousands of Syrian fighters in Jordan under a secret operation code name Timber Sycamore, which began in 2013.

The Obama administration calls the training of the mercenaries “The Free Syrian Army.” However, this “ free Syrian army” includes terrorist like “ Farouq Brigades,” which became notorious when one of its commanders was filmed eating a heart of a killed Syrian soldier. It also includes various factions of the Muslim Brotherhood like Tawheed Brigade, Syrian Islamic Liberation Front, Islamic Front, Mujahideen Army, Glory of Islam Brigade, Islamic Light Movement, Rightly Guided Brigades, Lions of Islam, Swords of Islam and Islamist Nour al Din al Zinki, which call to impose Al-Qaeda style Islam in Syria. Ironically, most of these terrorist outfits were  supplied with the advanced US TWO missiles.

One would question the wisdom of the Nobel  Peace Prize Committee to give this prestigious award to Obama. Is the motto here is that peace can be achieved by those who support Al-Qaeda and its terrorist allies? Does it mean that world peace can only be achieved by terrorists, hence they should be trained and supplied with TWO missiles?

Or is this action by the Obama administration in line with the UN Charter and US Constitution? Is Obama serious that Timber Sycamore is a “political settlement” of the Syrian civil war? Or is it a form of a civilized diplomatic talks through proper channels to resolve the issue through compromise and mutual accommodation?

The greatest surprise is that the semantics of Sycamore is comparable to the Hebrew shiqmah.