With great fanfare, Secretary of State John Kerry announced last week that the Obama administration would finally provide direct aid to the Syrian opposition to aid its two-year struggle to oust dictator Bashar Assad. That aid stops well short of any weaponry or military training. Some anti-Assad Syrians on Facebook can do little but laugh.

In the video above, posted to a Syrian Facebook page on Tuesday, water bottles, chairs and what looks like a spray tub of hand sanitizer double as guns and artillery against a momentarily imaginary foe. Sound effects make the basic point. Syrian cartoonist Emad Hajjaj tweeted his rendition of an inflatable, SpongeBob-esque tank with a plunger on the turret, "From EU & USA to The Syrian People." Gallows humor, to be sure. (Hat tip: Danger Room pal Matt Fanning.)

The Obama administration is drawing a line short of military aid to the Syrian uprising because it fears that the weaponry will proliferate to unknown malefactors, as happened in post-Gadhafi Libya, or to known malefactors, such as the Qaida-aligned Nusra Front operating in Syria. Even Marine Gen. James Mattis, the outgoing commander of U.S. troops in the Mideast and perhaps the most hawkish U.S. general on Syria, told a Senate panel on Tuesday he wasn't prepared to arm the rebels.

Obama's current plan, as Kerry unveiled, involves $60 million in aid for governance, medical supplies and food. But the rebels are getting weapons from other sources, usually from the Gulf Arab states opposed to Assad's benefactor Iran. Videos have recently hit the internet seemingly showing Chinese surface-to-air missiles, from unknown weapons pipelines, reaching the Syrian rebels.

That's likely to accelerate, with or without Washington: the Arab League voted in Cairo on Wednesday endorsing the freedom of member states to arm the opposition. Even so, it'll take a lot to ensure that Syrians fighting Assad get the last laugh.