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Himes Supports Syrian Bombing Campaign, But Not Arming Rebels

NORWALK, Conn. – U.S. Rep. Jim Himes (D-4th District) is supporting the U.S.-led bombing campaign against ISIS in Syria but believes arming rebels to fight the terror group would be the wrong step.

U.S. Rep. Jim Himes discusses recent bombing campaigns in Syria and his opposition to arming rebels to fight ISIS.

U.S. Rep. Jim Himes discusses recent bombing campaigns in Syria and his opposition to arming rebels to fight ISIS.

Photo Credit: Karen Tensa

In an interview with the Daily Voice at his Norwalk campaign headquarters, Himes said of the recent bombing campaign, “These are very dangerous, very bad people, so I’m in favor of continuing that, provided that we do it with Sunni Arab countries up front like they were the other night. And provided that we’re not just having a military discussion, but we’re talking about how do we get these countries to start changing the playing field so that appalling, evil groups like ISIS can’t take root.”

However, Himes voted against President Barack Obama’s plan to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels to fight ISIS on the ground, calling the plan “unclear at best.”

“I’ve met many of these moderates,” said Himes, who serves on the Intelligence Committee in the House. “They’re 19-year-old, 20-year-old young men who hate [Bashar al-Assad] because Assad, in many instances, would have leveled their villages or killed their family members.”

After arming rebels and sending them to fight ISIS, “We will have no control over them, we won’t have officers with them when they’re in Syria, so to me that is a mission that is so unclear that it needs to be rethought,” said Himes. He is facing Republican challenger Dan Debicella, who supports Obama's plan to arm rebels, in the November election. 

He said he also fears that, with the unstable nature of the region, the rebels might change sides or allegiances, and ultimately end up with ISIS or some other extremist group, armed with American weaponry.

But not being addressed are the structural changes that need to occur in the Middle East to stabilize the area and stop support of groups such as ISIS, Himes said. The United States needs to demand of its Middle Eastern allies and Islamic clerics that they denounce ISIS and take away any of the group’s religious legitimacy, he said.

“I think we need to be very clear with these countries that we will be in this fight, but at the end of the day, these issues between Sunnis and Shiite, how these clerics behave, those are your issues to solve,” he said.

“I think we need to make it very clear to people, to these countries that we’re only in this to the extent that they open up and act in a way that will ultimately, long-term, do away with these groups. And that’s not easy.”

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