Basically, what that quote is saying is that they have NO idea where the stores are with any certainty……and as reported earlier….the US is not sure they were used or who used them or even where…….it is a political game being played to warrant an armed response….but by whom?

Offering arms to the opposition, the rebels……but who are the rebels?  And what good would arming these fighters do for the future of Syria?

We have heard all the lip service that McCain and his cronies have given to the necessity of arming the rebels…..and the Obama boyz are listening……

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told a Pentagon press conference Thursday that the US is “rethinking” policy on directly arming the so-called rebels in Syria.

Appearing with British Defense Minister Philip Hammond, Hagel became the first Obama administration official to acknowledge that Washington is considering a qualitative escalation of its proxy war in Syria.

“Arming the rebels; that’s an option,” Hagel said. Asked directly whether the administration was considering such a step, he replied: “Yes.”

Hammond echoed Hagel’s position, stating that Britain has “not thus far provided any arms to the rebels, but we have never said it’s something we will not do.” He added that London was concerned with “legality,” and was presently subject to a European Union ban on supplying arms to any side in Syria.

There’s no surprise that providing arms to the weaker side in the conflict was always going to prolong it. This is what opponents of the idea have been saying for years. Prolonging the conflict until the opposition could prevail has been the goal of interventionist proposals from the start, since their object has always been escalation and eventual regime change rather than mitigating and limiting the effects of the conflict. What advocates for arming the Syrian opposition never explain is how prolonging the conflict would not create even more instability and displace even more people, and they don’t do this because they cannot. Arming the opposition has always been just the first step in dragging the U.S. into the conflict, since it was never very likely to be sufficient on its own to topple the regime. Direct intervention would be the next step that hawks would demand when arming the rebels isn’t “working” quickly enough. In the the event that an air campaign also fails to “work,” there would inevitably be calls for an invasion in order to preserve our “credibility.” If the administration doesn’t want to take these later steps, it should refuse to take the first one.

Ask the question again…..the most important question….which rebel group gets our support?

Now the problem is if the US and its allies send all the weapons and such to the rebels what could be the eventual outcome?  A free Syria?  Before that is answered something else to consider…..

Rebel groups battling a common enemy – the regime of President Bashar al-Assad – are frequently confronting each other, with ideological rifts emerging in the highly fragmented opposition as Syria’s civil war grinds on in its third year.

Growing incidents like these of intra-rebel skirmishes – some of them fatal – highlight an intense contest for power in rebel-controlled areas, with many like Ahmed bracing for what they fear will be another war in post-Assad Syria.

Last month, Abdullah, another Liwa al-Tawhid rebel, was killed while driving to the brigade headquarters. He was shot in the neck. His brother Diaa accuses FSA’s Sawt al-Haq Brigade of having orchestrated the killing over a petty personal dispute.

Clashes erupted last month between the moderate-leaning Faruq Brigade and the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front in Tal Abiyad, on the border with Turkey, in a sign of festering tensions over ideology, with up to four people reportedly killed.

It was one of the bloodiest skirmishes highlighting the ideological divide.

“The al-Nusra group and its allies have an agenda that other opposition groups don’t share – creating an Islamic emirate and fighting the global jihad, which makes conflict all but inevitable,” said Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Personally, I do not believe that there is any good way for the US to intervene in Syria…..why?  Because there is NO good options open to the US and it would not change a thing…….doubts?

(Newser) – To hear White House critics like John McCain tell it, the US can’t intervene in Syria fast enough. The atrocities, he says, “are on a scale that we have not seen in a long, long time.” Has he forgotten about Iraq so quickly? wonders Fareed Zakaria at Time. Even worse atrocities occurred there during the US occupation. Recall that in Iraq, a minority regime held power. The same holds true in Syria: It’s mostly Sunni, but Bashar al-Assad is a member of the Shiite subsect Alawites. It’s foolish to underestimate how much this complicates things—you can see it in Lebanon’s modern history, too.

A minority group in power will cling to it desperately, fearful of what will happen if the majority takes control. US intervention will “intensify” the war and make Assad even more desperate, writes Zakaria. “If the objective is actually to reduce the atrocities and minimize potential instability, the key will be a political settlement that gives each side an assurance that it has a place in the new Syria,” he writes. That never happened in Iraq, and the result is today’s chaos. A political pact is Syria’s only hope. Otherwise, “US assistance to the rebels or even direct military intervention won’t change much.” We’ll be in the middle of another long civil war. Click for his full column.

We can pretend that we know the “rest of the story” but we have NO clue…….the government and media are working in concert with each other to keep as little info available through the cable news outlets….this is in an attempt to control the flow of info as needed…..Americans will NOT get all the information they need to decide whether intervention is necessary until it is too late……

Does that sound at all familiar?

Addendum:  Over the weekend Israel has taken it upon themselves to launch an airstrike within Syria…..now how could this effect the US and the debate that is going on?