Surface to Air Missiles (a/k/a/SAMs) are not weapons that any reasonable person would wish to see provided to the extremist Sunni Jihadist militias fighting in Syria. These terrorist groups, such as ISIS, and Al Nusra, an Al Qaeda offshoot, are heavily backed by Saudi Arabia and by the US (despite false claims by our government that it only provides assistance to "moderate rebels"). These radical extremists are essentially acting as our proxies in Syria on the ground fighting against the current regime of Bashar Al-Assad and his ally, Russia. The use of US-provided SAM missiles by these terrorist organizations risks the shooting down of Russian planes with American weapons. And yet, that is exactly what our Lame Duck President, Barack Obama, has chosen to do in the waning weeks of his Presidency.

Russia has called a US decision to ease restrictions on arming Syrian opposition groups a "hostile act" that would directly threaten Russian military forces in Syria. Maria Zakharova, foreign ministry spokeswoman in Moscow, said on Tuesday that the policy change, set out in the annual defence policy bill signed into law by President Barack Obama last week, would lead to weapons ending up "in the hands of jihadists with whom the sham 'moderate' opposition have long acted jointly". The bill gives the next US administration under Donald Trump the authority to send Syrian rebels surface-to-air missiles. "Such a decision is a direct threat to the Russian air force, to other Russian military personnel, and to our embassy in Syria, which has come under fire more than once. We therefore view the step as a hostile one," Zakharova said in a statement.

I would consider arming these barbarous and murderous groups with weapons that risk such dangerous escalation of the Syrian conflict, as a hostile act, too, if I were a Russian. It certainly increases the chances of a military confrontation between US forces and Russian forces in the area, since we have "boots on the ground" in Syria, and our war planes frequently fly missions over Syrian territory. Indeed, our air forces have been blamed for numerous civilian deaths there by Amnesty International.

By signing the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) recently passed by Congress (by a large bi-partisan margin in both houses) that included provisions allowing "rebel groups" easier access to shoulder fired anti-aircraft missiles also known as MANPADS, Obama, put his stamp of approval on increasing tensions with Russia on the eve of his administration's handover of the executive authority to President-Elect Trump.

While Trump has called for better relations with Russia, no one really knows what will happen in the future. This is especially true since many Republicans and Democrats in Congress are on board with regime change in Syria or, as is the case with the Democrats, for punishing Russia for the the distorted perception, deliberately and unceasingly promoted by many Democratic party figures, including Obama himself that Putin interfered in the US election to help Trump win and cost Hillary Clinton the victory she rightly deserved.

The Obama administration is close to announcing a series of measures to punish Russia for its interference in the 2016 presidential election, including economic sanctions and diplomatic censure, according to U.S. officials. The administration is still finalizing the details, which are also expected to include covert action that likely will involve cyber operations, the officials said. An announcement on the public elements of the response could come as early as this week.

Toying with the lives and fate of millions of innocent civilians in the Middle East, and with the lives of our own service members in the military, in order to score political points, has sadly become par for the course by both parties. The only question is how bad will things get if Syria further spirals into a larger military disaster for the US? Trump will be put under intense pressure from all sides to act the way the neocons want him to do from members of his own party, by the Democrats who have already effectively accused him called of being a traitor and calling his his Presidency illegitimate, and by the military industrial complex: the CIA and other intelligence operatives who favor intervention for their own bureaucratic reasons, generals and admirals in our armed forces hungry for further combat actions to burnish their own career credentials, and lobbyists for defense contractors who stand to gain economically from an increase in the sale of their "products" to any and all sides in such conflicts. Hell, I can already foresee future headlines in the New York Times and Washington Post, and non-stop coverage on CNN and MsNBC, demanding Trump take a stronger, more militaristic stance in Syria and Eastern Europe against the Russian Bear. We all know how our corporate media loves to pound the war drums for increased ratings and ad revenue.

What can one say but "Thanks Obama" once more?