US and UK public reject stronger military support for Syrian rebels

Polls in both countries show support for 'non-lethal' assistance in Syria but strong opposition to supplying weapons.

...the new binational survey – produced for YouGov-Cambridge... ...finds US voters opposed to the idea of supplying munitions by a 29-point margin: 45% against to 16% in favour.

Identical questions were posed in Britain, where David Cameron has, with the French president, François Hollande, recently tried and failed to persuade the EU to lift its arms embargo. But the British public emerges as even more strongly against: 57% oppose arming the rebels and 16% are in favour.

There have been increasing demands on Capitol Hill to arm the opponents of the Assad regime or intervene more directly, and this week Barack Obama toughened his own rhetoric amid contested claims about Damascus using chemical weapons.

The Guardian

The UK government, French government and some in the US government, appear determined to arm their Sunni allies fighting the Shiite government in Syria (Bashar el Assad, the ex-dentist Syrian President is a Shiite). Iran is also Shia.

It is unfortunate that while the West is allied with Sunni nations (For instance, Saudi Arabia, Egypt & Turkey), rather than Shia Iran, many of the Sunni rebels in Syria are Taliban, Al Qaeda and assorted fundamentalist jihadists.

Clearly, as the polls has show, there is little support among the American and British public to arm such religious fanatics.

reply to post by ollncasino


It won't stop them from arming the rebels though, pesky little things like public opinion doesn't matter to ANY government.

This is great news though.. It shows that people aren't buying the bs when it comes to Syria.

The UK and US governments listening to its people

Think I just did a little pee.

Seriously though, not going to happen, until the Tories/Lib coalition is out and the UKIP is in, public opinion matters not.

reply to post by woogleuk


And you think UKIP will care about public opinion? Politics never changes.

Even the bbc has had to admit the existence of foreign jihadists leading the fighting for the FSA. At first the beeb were hailing the FSA as freedom fighters intent on installing Democracy in Syria. Although they still push the FSA line, they are now realising the "flicker" of al Qaeda is now a flame. British citizens have been arrested for fighting alongside the FSA on their return to britain, yet its ok for our government to supply money and material to the jihadists cause.

reply to post by SteveR


No, I don't, but I think it is about time "the big 3" were sacked and a new power put in place, lets face it, they can't do a worse job, and if they keep us out of the eurozone and kick the foreigners out, I say go for it.

For the record, when I say kick the foreigners out I mean foreign workers, like the damn Polish.

reply to post by woogleuk


The Islamification is more of a problem than the Polish. No UKIP immigration plans can control that because it's coming from born and bred British Asians.