Right now we can see the criminality of the US/CIA deliberate *blocking* of large numbers of manpads (portable anti-aircraft weapons) in 2012, that were sent to Turkey from Libya for the Syrian rebels.
The demand for manpads is concrete: Manpads were in Turkey ready to be sent to the FSA and were blocked by the CIA intervention. That’s all on the record. You only have to red all the articles that Assadist trolls send around thinking they “prove” the US armed the FSA; all they prove is that the US did everything it could to limit and filter the numbers and quality of arms that *others* were trying to send, and to decide who could or couldn’t get the trickle that remained. And the main item blocked to all, including the most moderate, were the manpads.
Of course, we could already see the criminality of blocking these manpads the last 4 years under Assad’s genocidal bombing. It may have cost 100,000 lives.
But to turn this current brutal Russian aggression into Russia’s Vietnam will require good anti-aircraft weaponry. If before, many western peaceniks and nimby progressives were squeamish about the demand because they thought sending anti-aircraft weapons to rebels to help save the lives of thousands of Syrian civilians from Assad’s genocidal slaughter was “interference into the internal affairs of Syria” (sic??!!), then what new measly excuse can they come up with now that the Russian imperialist state, the major backer of Assad these 4 years, has launched a massive, devastating war of aggression against the people of Homs, Hama, Idlib, Daraa and other centres of the revolution – none of which have any ISIS since the FSA drove ISIS away from the entirety of populated western Syria in January 2014 – slaughtering civilians en masse while targeting the Free Syrian Army?
Well, no doubt the US, which has already essentially welcomed the Russian strikes as potentially “constructive,” if “with conditions”, will think of plenty of good reasons to continue blocking manpads and other useful weapons from the rebels (when not actually joining in the slaughter of non-ISIS rebels, as the US has also done plenty of), and no doubt some very wrongly-named “anti-imperialists” will continue to criticise the US for, in their imagination, not blocking the manpads enough (?? I’m only trying to guess their weasel words), or for not bombing alongside the Russians.
Now this has become a clear anti-colonial war, we need to demand: Let the Free Syrian Army get all the advanced weaponry they need, from whatever source wants to send them, above all masses of good quality anti-aircraft weapons!
Syrian Revolution Commentary and Analysis 
MANPADS can’t hit SU-24, SU-25, and SU-34 unless the Russians are dumb enough to fly their planes below 20,000 feet. Only a no-fly zone can do the job here.
Keep in mind that there are in fact more advanced anti air weapons capable of downing at high altitude. MK has already stated it but here, for example:
_MANPADS in the Syrian Civil War_
https://theosintblog.com/2015/12/12/manpads-in-the-syrian-civil-war-2/
Yes, but the concrete political point is the US blocking of manpads for years when they would have been useful, against the Assad regime, especially against its helicopters dropping barrel bombs. My article now calls for allowing the FSA to get “good quality anti-aircraft weapons”, ie of whatever type necessary to bring down Russian planes as well. Of course, the US will be even less likely to allow better quality anti-aircrafts than it was to allow manpads. But then again, less likely still to create a no-fly zone. They’ve had 4 years to create a no-fly zone; they’ve opposed it every step of the way; they’re hardly likely to impose one now that Russia is bombing; and also for us, now that Russia is bombing, a demand that the US impose a no-fly zone is a demand for US-Russian military conflict, which I don’t think anyone wants. Therefore I think the demand for facilitating the FSA getting the best anti-aircraft weapons remains the best demand. Moreover, I would concretise it and say, given the rebels control the Jordanian border and a section of the Turkish border, “Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Turkey, say no to the US diktat, supply the resistance with the best weapons available, especially good quality anti-aircraft weapons.”