Instead of just training them a little bit, why don't we not train them at all? Stay out of it. Come home.
Does anything seriously think that the world is in any way a better place for all our meddling?
Who designated Assad our enemy anyway? What tosh.

President-for-life Assad is a pan Arab nationalist who's militaristic religion believes it has a divine right to militarily conquer the world. For those who believe in Internationalism, that is probably not a bad religion. Muslims do not believe in multiculturalism, they are extreme monoculturalists who think it is God's will that they should enforce their religiously ordained culture on everybody else.

The only problem with that particular brand of Internationalism, is that it is a miserable failure in terms of social and economic progress. Name one product or medicine which the Arab Muslims have invented in the last 500 years, and you get the idea. Where is the Islamic space program? Why are none of the top 100 universities in the world within an Arab Muslim state? Why has their never been a Muslim awarded a Nobel prize for Science? If Islam is so wonderful, why do Muslims want to live in the west?

Arab Muslim nationalists see themselves as God's chosen people who must conquer the world for Allah. If you admire religions that fully condone imperial expansion and genocide, I can only say that Islam has much to recommend it. But if you value education over ignorance, and human rights over religious tyranny, then my advice to you is to start figuring out that Islam is your enemy.

I don't want my world to end up under Arab Muslim domination. I only have to look at the miserable fate of Arab Muslim countries to understand that Islam is an enemy of the modern world. So I consider both Assad and his enemies as the common enemies of advanced civilisations.

If these ignorant religious barbarians want to kill each other off, that is fine with me. May the worst man win.

LEGO, you are the ignorant one and it shows, I believe, like a flashing neon light!
We owe our alphabet to Arab scholars, and indeed a our system of numbers/maths, which as you MIGHT KNOW, is the basis of all science!
The oldest library in the world was in Alexandria.
The oldest form of the least revised Islam, is the Sofie tradition. The Sofie practice peace, tolerance and meditation.
And have every right to confront your particular brand of patently mindless hate? With absolute bewilderment!
In any event, the yanks aren't training the rebels, and the ordinance the west provides is limited and mostly defensive?
If someone was training them, they'd be much more professional, organized and working under a single coordinating leadership or high command, rather than just a rabid rebel rabble!
If they were trained they'd take and keep territory, until the increasingly threatened Assad regime had no other option to pull up stakes, IF THEY STILL COULD!?
If the US were serious about protecting unarmed Syrian civilians, there would be a no fly zone, and ANY Amour would be a fair target for patrolling drones.
Rhrosty

If rebel groups follow the author's advice to use conventional formations, weapons and tactics rather than insurgent weapons and tactics they are sure to lose. Then again maybe that's the author's and trainers' intention.

The question was, dear Rhosty, what product, technological advance, or medicine has the Islamic civilisation bequeathed to the world in the last 500 years? Answer? Nothing. The Great Library at Alexandria was the work of the Greeks, that's why the place is called "Alexandria", after Alexander the Great, who was a Macedonian who was educated by the Greeks.

The Islamic civilisation is a failure. Even such tiny western nations like Iceland and FInland, with no practically national resources at all, can provide a better lifestyle for their people than even those Muslim nations floating on a sea of oil.

Which Islamic nation is ruled by these "Sophie Muslims?" If the "Sophies" are peace loving, then no wonder they never prospered under Islam. And it is not "mindless hate" to make a rational decision that a group of people are a threat to you, especially when they are part of a religion who's prophet was a genocidal conquorer who fought 54 successful military campaigns, and who's "Koran" is full of hostility to non Muslims.

Since you choose to live in ignorance yourself, could I advise you that in the book "The German Officers Wife", the Jewish female author from Vienna recounts how many Viennese Jews simply refused to believe that the Nazis would do them harm. Those exterminated Jews thought just like you do. Why Nazis are just people, and all people are fundamentally good, right? Wrong. If you want to adopt the three monkey approach to human hostility, go right ahead. But I am not as silly as you, or the Viennese Jews who ended up in gas chambers.

Lastly, I never made any claim that the western democracies are "training" the rebels. The author of this article did that.

It never ceases to amaze me how contributors to OLO, especially on international affairs, live in a bubble, oblivious to history, international law, and frequently plain common sense. The author would do well to read the extensive literature on the history of US support for terrorists and terrorist groups where they serve US geopolitical interests. Al-Quaeda which he cites is a case in point. It is actually a creation of the US, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. It has been used by the US (post Afghanistan) in Chechyna, Kosovo, Yemen and elsewhere, and currently in Syria. Not only are the Americans arming and financing terrorist groups, they are also inserting special forces to carry out sabotage and are the most likely perpetrators of the false flag chemical attack that, you will have noticed, the UN team was not allowed to investigate.

It has obviously not been part of the author's education to be taught that carrying out armed attacks of a sovereign nation without the justifications provided by the UN Charter are contrary to international law. What the author is arguing for is a crime. Perhaps when more armchair warriors of his ilk are held accountable for the crimes they advocate and manifestly support we might look at these issues in a responsible light.