The Soapbox: Political Discourse

I'm certain no one will care about this, but I had a rather enjoyable debate with someone on one of the conservative forums I frequent and thought I would share. To his credit he seemed like a nice guy and it was very civil. Him: I'm not native English speaker, so forgive my redaction. I'll ask some questions for you to consider: why is ISIS just attacking kurds, chia and iraki christians? if they're USA and Israel enemies, why don't they attack their military bases in iraq? why does USA let that group just grow and grow? why the supposed bombards aren't having any effect? why did an US senator take a pic with the leaders of that bloody terrorist group? Why are the leaders of ISIS mostly from western countries? they stole Mosul bank.. why weren't their bank accounts blocked? why does France keep selling them guns? they now control many oil fields, who buys them the oil production? If they're muslim, why is their leader vowing to destroy the...

I'll preface by saying I'm certainly no fan of the Obama administration or of supporting the Syrian opposition but there is the belief going around that the U.S. armed ISIS by supporting the Syrian opposition. I admit I've said this a few times myself. But how true is it? I decided to do a little digging and find out for myself. First a look at the Syrian opposition. Weapons used by the Syrian opposition come from a variety of sources. There's a mix of very old and newer weapons from many different countries (some of which no longer exist) including China, USA, Russia\USSR, Austria, Germany, Belgium, Yugoslavia, Nazi Germany, France, Romania, Hungary, Iran, Israel, Czechoslovakia, Syria, Croatia, Serbia, Sweden. The majority are Chinese and Russian made, but the weapons are shuffled around so much from one country to another, it's impossible to say who funded what. Heavy equipment, such as tanks and vehicles, were captured from the Syrian army. Armed groups in ...