Officials: Pentagon Weighing Whether To Protect US-Trained Syrian Rebels If Attacked By Russia
Source: Associated Press
By LOLITA C. BALDOR and ROBERT BURNS Associated Press
October 2, 2015 12:47pm
WASHINGTON The Pentagon is grappling with whether the U.S. should use military force to protect U.S. trained and equipped Syrian rebels now that they may be the targets of Russian airstrikes.
Senior military leaders and defense officials are working through the thorny legal and foreign policy issues and are weighing the risks of using force in response to a Russian attack, U.S. officials said Thursday.
Pentagon leaders have consistently said that the U.S. must take steps to protect the American-trained rebels because it would be far more difficult to recruit fighters without those assurances. Defense Secretary Ash Carter told reporters in March that the U.S. has an obligation to support them, "And we're working through what kinds of support and under what conditions we would do so."
U.S. officials later made it clear that rebels trained by the U.S. would receive air support in the event they are attacked by either Islamic State militants or Syrian government troops. Currently, that protection would apply only to about 80 U.S.-trained Syrian rebels who are back in Syria fighting with their units.
Read more: http://www.startribune.com/officials-pentagon-weighs-protections-for-us-trained-rebels/330370841/
MynameisBlarney
(2,979 posts)Can't leave 'em high and dry, can't start WWIII.
christx30
(6,241 posts)or get them out of there. Evacuate the people. But the alternative is a shooting war between Russia and the United States. Millions would die.
I'd be more inclined to leave them high and dry. They took millions of dollars in weapons and training and turned them over to the head cutters in ISIS.
TwilightGardener
(46,416 posts)The US set them loose into Syria, like little newly-hatched sea turtles running down the beach, hoping the seagulls didn't get them. What was their mission even supposed to be, with such small numbers? Did they have anyone on the ground to embed with? The whole thing was crazy. And we released TWO batches of these guys this way--some of them actually got killed or captured. It's shameful.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Sorry. I don't think we really know what that policy is or was because it has pretty much been kept a secret from us -- leaked when there was not other choice because it was so obviously failing so badly.
Nevertheless it is one big fat fail.
pasto76
(1,589 posts)what magical metric is in your mind? happy rosy cheeked syrians in a full democratic republic with mcdonalds everywhere? Unseating Assad? "getting" IS?
what if the policy was to provide arms to anti-assad groups, to merely give them a fighting chance?! Looks pretty successful to me, if that was the case.
but as you pointed out, we know very little. But that didnt stop you from making absolute declarations.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)Last edited Sat Oct 3, 2015, 04:39 AM - Edit history (1)
Wake up, Carter. It isn't 1961.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)Rebel forces, secretly armed and trained by the CIA, attempt to overthrow a brutal dictator despised and vilified by Washington. Hit by devastating airstrikes, the rebels put out a frantic call for American help.
Sounds like the latest reports from Syria, where Russian planes have been attacking rebel forces including groups backed by the CIA, and rebel commanders are pleading for aid from the U.S.
It also sounds like a tragic drama that played out more than half a century ago, at Cuba's Bay of Pigs.
Remember the Bay of Pigs, back in April 17, 1961, when some 1400 Cubans, secretly armed and trained by the CIA, stormed ashore at Cuba's Bahia de Cochinos and were immediately bloodied by Castro's small air force. They desperately appealed to their U.S. backers for help. But President John Kennedy, who had inherited the operation from the Eisenhower administration, refused to provide air cover. He was afraid of being drawn into a very bloody and embarrassing war that, as he saw it, could only damage America's interests at home and abroad.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barry-lando/syriaobamas-bay-of-pigs_b_8232344.html
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)If there were good news in Syria, we would know about it.
You can tell when the news is bad because you get stories about a situation that blame someone, anyone other than some group or department in the US government.
Why do you think the Turkish ambassador and our ambassador were meeting in Benghazi rather than in Tripoli, the capitol of Libya?
Do you think that might have had something to do with Syria?
So far we have never heard an explanation for that. I would like to know what they were doing.
daleo
(21,317 posts)The fate of these people was of incidental interest, compared to the mission.
Crowman1979
(3,844 posts)The ones that signed a peace treaty with ISIS and Al-Qaeda. Not long ago our military was considering helping out moderate Al-Qaeda members. WTF is a moderate Al-Qaeda member anyway?!?!
GreatGazoo
(3,937 posts)(Jabhat al-Nusra.)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/11882195/US-trained-Division-30-rebels-betrayed-US-and-hand-weapons-over-to-al-Qaedas-affiliate-in-Syria.html
Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)He's the one they use as an excuse to stick their hands in your pants and check baby diapers at the airport for.
Stay the fuck out of Syria. There are NO GOOD GUYS IN THIS FIGHT.
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)Neither side is our 'friend'. We should stay the fuck out and let Russia clean up their puppet-state. Anyone outside the DC bubble could plainly see getting involved in Syria was going to be an epic clusterfuck.
PSPS
(13,512 posts)morningfog
(18,115 posts)JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)That is a huge fail.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2014/06/27/obama-wants-500-million-to-train-syrian-rebels-now-what
Think how many students could have been trained as doctors for that amount. At $500,000 per student, something like a thousand more doctors. Instead we trained Muslim extremists and called them moderates, gave them weapons and set them loose in Syria.
In 2010, there were 27.7 doctors per 10,000 people in the U.S. Washingtons numbers look about the same at 27.0 doctors per 10,000 people in the state. Medical schools graduated 16,838 students nationally in 2010 and the University of Washington, our states only allopathic medical school, graduated 169. Washington state has a new osteopathic school in Yakima that will graduate its first class of 75 students next year. Virtually all allopathic medical schools are affiliated with large research institutions.
According to the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), there are currently 110,000 post-graduate residency positions in the U.S. Although Congress placed a limit on taxpayer funding in 1997, these residency hospitals rely heavily on federal taxpayer money. This money comes out of the Medicare program and last year totaled $9.1 billion. Training programs that emphasize primary care are prioritized. The University of Washington realizes the importance of primary care, but does not require or encourage a prospective medical student to go into general or family practice.
. . . .
The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) anticipates a shortage of 150,000 doctors in the next 15 years. Other sources predict a shortage of 200,000 doctors by 2025. The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts a need for 145,000 new doctors by 2018. Washington state will potentially face a shortage of 3,000 to 4,000 doctors and 24,000 registered nurses over the next 10 to 15 years.
In 2009, 18,000 students entered medical school in the United States. The AAMC is advocating for a 30% increase in medical school enrollment which would result in approximately 5,000 additional new physicians graduating each year.
https://www.washingtonpolicy.org/publications/notes/looming-doctor-shortage
Assad should not have shot at displaced farmers fleeing the drought, but we wasted $500,000 on a long-shot attempt to punish him for his crime. And that was a waste of money..
We could have done something positive and useful with that money. Instead we spent it on a futile effort to teach a lesson in an area of the world in which the people seem to like killing each other even more than Americans like to do it here.
Why didn't Germany offer more help to the victims of the drought in Syria before the civil war broke out? Why didn't we?
Alternatively, assuming (and this is probably really high) a cost of $50,000 per year per child in day care, that $500,000,000 could have provided 10,000 spots for children in free kindergartens in our country. And if you decrease the cost per child to only $25,000 per year, that would be 20,000 children in pre-school for free.
It's all a question of values.
We probably could have fed a lot of the displaced farmers who demonstrated in Syria and were shot with that $500,000,000 and lives would have been saved.
It's all a question of values.
Being right about political philosophy is sometimes viewed as more important than doing what is right for people.
TwilightGardener
(46,416 posts)Still too much for no results, but I see a lot of factual errors being thrown around.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Still the fact that we would allocate $500 million for that purpose when $500 million could do so much real good in the world just shows who we are as Americans that we put up with such waste and what we are as a country that we do it.
Disgusting waste of money.
TwilightGardener
(46,416 posts)Yeah, that Carter, he's really ahead of the curve. The guy that was busy holding "Lean-In" circles with Sheryl Sandberg when Russia was moving planes and anti-aircraft systems into Syria. That guy. BTW, where'd Susan Rice slink off to? Second worst national security advisor after the other Rice.
Adsos Letter
(19,459 posts)Yessir, One Gigantic Clusterfuck of Unparalleled Proportions, coming right up. You want fries with that?
bemildred
(90,061 posts)Demeter
(85,373 posts)Response to Purveyor (Original post)
Name removed Message auto-removed
Vincardog
(20,234 posts)benld74
(9,888 posts)asiliveandbreathe
(8,203 posts)This can't turn out well - perhaps Tom Cotton and his gang who signed a letter to Iran can don their pith helmets -
Geronimoe
(1,539 posts)They're going to start WWIII over 80 trained something or other. Didn't most of them join the enemy forces already?
Some General wanted to send NATO forces into Ukraine.
How about Kerry working on a cease fire and invite all stake holder to meet and discuss ending Bush and Cheney cluster f^ck.
PersonNumber503602
(1,134 posts)often times taking their toys with them. The relative few who are the "good ones" should be given a ride out of there, and set up somewhere nice and safe. The other ones who want an Islamic State, well, they can have fun fighting Russia.
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)Elmer S. E. Dump
(5,751 posts)With a healthy apology for US causing all your problems...
former9thward
(31,802 posts)More war on history by you. The British and French drew modern Middle East borders after WW I. They did it for their own interests without regard for religion, culture, or tribes or anything else. They are the cause for modern bloodshed.
Elmer S. E. Dump
(5,751 posts)I'm talking about recent history, like maybe, um, I don't know... THE INVASION of Iraq and vacuum created. We created Al-Qaeda, and we are mostly responsible for the rise of ISIS, as it all comes down to taking down dictators that kept a lid on things in the Mideast, Saddam, Assad, etc.
Geronimoe
(1,539 posts)she would refuse to talk to Putin. LOL
Dont call me Shirley
(10,998 posts)salib
(2,116 posts)Crazy.
Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)If true it would indicate the Russians have good Intel on the ground, and explain why the USA was so outraged.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)All the U.S. coverage has been saying this already happened, that Russia struck CIA-organized militias? It's untrue?!
Psephos
(8,032 posts)Half a billion dollars wasted on five guys to prove we are Putin's laughingstock in Syria.
TwilightGardener
(46,416 posts)5 are all that were left still fighting in Syria at the time when Gen. Austin spoke. But there probably several hundred trained or in training, all told.