FT EDITORIAL DEMANDS ARMING OF REBELS

Since the EU embargo on arms to Syria was allowed to expire, Jihadis Hague and Cameron have consistently said that no decision to arm the rebels has been made and that Parliament would be allowed to vote on arming the rebels.

The Financial Times has stepped up the demands to arm the rebels in an editorial. According to the FT all the violence in Syria is due to Assad.

President Bashar al-Assad’s murderous regime has pressed ahead with its butchery, refusing to engage in any negotiation with struggling opposition militias.

...But events during recent weeks have brought dismay. Far from entering into negotiations, the Assad regime has relentlessly pursued its savagery, taking the strategic stronghold of Qusair and advancing towards Aleppo. Far from stepping back, Mr Assad’s supporters – Hizbollah and Iran – have engaged more heavily on the ground.

...Above all, the west must ask whether it can continue to tolerate Mr Assad’s use of chemical weapons – including sarin gas – against his opponents. The US, Britain and France have provided strong evidence of this use. Any deployment of weapons of mass destruction by the Syrian regime cannot be seen to constitute an acceptable norm of warfare.

[source : Arming the Syrian rebels is justified, FT, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/47a21326-d4ec-11e2-b4d7-00144feab7de.html#axzz2WXb1Z85H, 14th June 2013]

First, the rebels have been using chemical weapons. A UN investigation found this, the rebels have filmed themselves testing them out and they were caught with kgs of the stuff. What ever evidence that has been provided by the UK, France and Israel is dodgy, with no guaranteed chain of custody.

Second, the 'butchery' is due to the rebels; al Houla, al Duvair, Bayda, Baniyas, tc. The list of massacres and atrocities, of the slaughter of women and children, throats cut and bullets in the head, by the rebels is very, very long.