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Purveyor

(29,876 posts)
Fri Oct 2, 2015, 02:02 PM Oct 2015

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/

40 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Officials: Pentagon Weighing Whether To Protect US-Trained Syrian Rebels If Attacked By Russia (Original Post) Purveyor Oct 2015 OP
That's a no win situation if ever there was one. MynameisBlarney Oct 2015 #1
We have to leave them high and dry, christx30 Oct 2015 #12
To be fair, they possibly were not so much switching sides as staying alive. TwilightGardener Oct 2015 #17
Either way, our policy in Syria is one big fat fail. JDPriestly Oct 2015 #21
"obviously failing so badly" how would you know? pasto76 Oct 2015 #23
Ash: we have no more obligation to protect them than to the Bay of Pigs Cubans. leveymg Oct 2015 #26
Syria: Obama's Bay of Pigs bemildred Oct 2015 #32
We have a government that keeps secret all the bad news and publishes broadly all the good news. JDPriestly Oct 2015 #27
The mission was to spend billions of U.S. tax dollars daleo Oct 2015 #38
You mean the ISIS-allied Syrian rebels? Crowman1979 Oct 2015 #2
Can you imagine starting WWIII over "4 or 5 guys" who delivered our new trucks and weapons to JaN? GreatGazoo Oct 2015 #20
WTF is a moderate Al-Qaeda member anyway? Jesus Malverde Oct 2015 #29
NO leftynyc Oct 2015 #3
+ a million. HooptieWagon Oct 2015 #28
"US-Trained Syrian Rebels" are really Islamist An-Nusra Front charlatans. PSPS Oct 2015 #4
What a fucking mess. No. We should not, and I thought there were only 4 or so there. morningfog Oct 2015 #5
I read $500 million dollars wasted on them in Syria. JDPriestly Oct 2015 #22
$500 million was allocated, not spent. I think it was $48 million as of August. TwilightGardener Oct 2015 #35
I'm relieved to read that the actual amount spent was 'ONLY' $48 MILLION as of August. JDPriestly Oct 2015 #36
Oh, good thing they're thinking through this NOW. TwilightGardener Oct 2015 #6
"...using force in response to a Russian attack..." Adsos Letter Oct 2015 #7
Get them out now. nt bemildred Oct 2015 #8
What? All 9 of them? Issue them Green cards and be done with it Demeter Oct 2015 #9
Message auto-removed Name removed Oct 2015 #10
This is Umerika stupid is what we do, especially if the MIC can make a few billions Vincardog Oct 2015 #13
Kinda depends what US weapons they have and what other armaments they were given benld74 Oct 2015 #11
Russia - Syria - bombing - asiliveandbreathe Oct 2015 #14
They are not US forces Geronimoe Oct 2015 #15
It's my understanding that a good portion of them went over to ISIS or other such groups PersonNumber503602 Oct 2015 #37
That may be one of the dumbest ideas in the long history of dumb ideas in Syria. NuclearDem Oct 2015 #16
Let the people in the middle east solve their own problems. Elmer S. E. Dump Oct 2015 #18
Except the U.S. didn't. former9thward Oct 2015 #39
I know all that smarty-pants Elmer S. E. Dump Oct 2015 #40
If Carly was President Geronimoe Oct 2015 #19
War morons at their moronic thinking again. Dont call me Shirley Oct 2015 #24
This is bs crazy. salib Oct 2015 #25
I saw a post that claimed the first targets were CIA safe houses. Jesus Malverde Oct 2015 #30
Wait, I thought they already were. JackRiddler Oct 2015 #31
Comedy gold. There were five of them. And they've now been carjacked. Psephos Oct 2015 #33
No, there were about 120-130 or so released to fight into Syria since July. TwilightGardener Oct 2015 #34

christx30

(6,241 posts)
12. We have to leave them high and dry,
Fri Oct 2, 2015, 02:25 PM
Oct 2015

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)
17. To be fair, they possibly were not so much switching sides as staying alive.
Fri Oct 2, 2015, 03:00 PM
Oct 2015

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)
21. Either way, our policy in Syria is one big fat fail.
Fri Oct 2, 2015, 06:10 PM
Oct 2015

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)
23. "obviously failing so badly" how would you know?
Fri Oct 2, 2015, 06:53 PM
Oct 2015

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)
26. Ash: we have no more obligation to protect them than to the Bay of Pigs Cubans.
Fri Oct 2, 2015, 09:01 PM
Oct 2015

Last edited Sat Oct 3, 2015, 04:39 AM - Edit history (1)

Wake up, Carter. It isn't 1961.

bemildred

(90,061 posts)
32. Syria: Obama's Bay of Pigs
Fri Oct 2, 2015, 11:42 PM
Oct 2015

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)
27. We have a government that keeps secret all the bad news and publishes broadly all the good news.
Fri Oct 2, 2015, 10:20 PM
Oct 2015

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)
38. The mission was to spend billions of U.S. tax dollars
Sat Oct 3, 2015, 11:18 PM
Oct 2015

The fate of these people was of incidental interest, compared to the mission.

Crowman1979

(3,844 posts)
2. You mean the ISIS-allied Syrian rebels?
Fri Oct 2, 2015, 02:12 PM
Oct 2015

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)
20. Can you imagine starting WWIII over "4 or 5 guys" who delivered our new trucks and weapons to JaN?
Fri Oct 2, 2015, 04:36 PM
Oct 2015

(Jabhat al-Nusra.)

Last Wednesday, General Lloyd Austin, head of US Central Command, shocked leaders in the US Senate's armed services committee when he said there were only handful of programme graduates still fighting inside Syria. "We're talking four or five," he said.


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)
29. WTF is a moderate Al-Qaeda member anyway?
Fri Oct 2, 2015, 11:11 PM
Oct 2015

He's the one they use as an excuse to stick their hands in your pants and check baby diapers at the airport for.

 

HooptieWagon

(17,064 posts)
28. + a million.
Fri Oct 2, 2015, 11:06 PM
Oct 2015

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.

JDPriestly

(57,936 posts)
22. I read $500 million dollars wasted on them in Syria.
Fri Oct 2, 2015, 06:21 PM
Oct 2015

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. Washington’s 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 state’s 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)
35. $500 million was allocated, not spent. I think it was $48 million as of August.
Sat Oct 3, 2015, 02:02 PM
Oct 2015

Still too much for no results, but I see a lot of factual errors being thrown around.

JDPriestly

(57,936 posts)
36. I'm relieved to read that the actual amount spent was 'ONLY' $48 MILLION as of August.
Sat Oct 3, 2015, 05:29 PM
Oct 2015

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)
6. Oh, good thing they're thinking through this NOW.
Fri Oct 2, 2015, 02:16 PM
Oct 2015

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)
7. "...using force in response to a Russian attack..."
Fri Oct 2, 2015, 02:17 PM
Oct 2015

Yessir, One Gigantic Clusterfuck of Unparalleled Proportions, coming right up. You want fries with that?

Response to Purveyor (Original post)

asiliveandbreathe

(8,203 posts)
14. Russia - Syria - bombing -
Fri Oct 2, 2015, 02:34 PM
Oct 2015

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)
15. They are not US forces
Fri Oct 2, 2015, 02:46 PM
Oct 2015

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)
37. It's my understanding that a good portion of them went over to ISIS or other such groups
Sat Oct 3, 2015, 10:35 PM
Oct 2015

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.

 

Elmer S. E. Dump

(5,751 posts)
18. Let the people in the middle east solve their own problems.
Fri Oct 2, 2015, 03:01 PM
Oct 2015

With a healthy apology for US causing all your problems...

former9thward

(31,802 posts)
39. Except the U.S. didn't.
Sun Oct 4, 2015, 01:31 AM
Oct 2015

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)
40. I know all that smarty-pants
Mon Oct 5, 2015, 09:06 AM
Oct 2015

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.

Jesus Malverde

(10,274 posts)
30. I saw a post that claimed the first targets were CIA safe houses.
Fri Oct 2, 2015, 11:16 PM
Oct 2015

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)
31. Wait, I thought they already were.
Fri Oct 2, 2015, 11:17 PM
Oct 2015

All the U.S. coverage has been saying this already happened, that Russia struck CIA-organized militias? It's untrue?!

Psephos

(8,032 posts)
33. Comedy gold. There were five of them. And they've now been carjacked.
Sat Oct 3, 2015, 01:13 PM
Oct 2015

Half a billion dollars wasted on five guys to prove we are Putin's laughingstock in Syria.

TwilightGardener

(46,416 posts)
34. No, there were about 120-130 or so released to fight into Syria since July.
Sat Oct 3, 2015, 02:00 PM
Oct 2015

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.

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