Obama Considers Special Forces To Help In Iraq
Source: AP/Huffington Post
WASHINGTON (AP) The White House is considering sending a small number of American special forces soldiers to Iraq in an urgent attempt to help the government in Baghdad slow the nation's rampant Sunni insurgency, U.S. officials said Monday.
While President Barack Obama has explicitly ruled out putting U.S. troops into direct combat in Iraq, the plan under consideration suggests he would be willing to send Americans into a collapsing security situation for training and other purposes.
Three U.S. officials familiar with ongoing discussions said the potential of sending special forces to Iraq is high on a list of military options that are being considered.
It's not clear how quickly the special forces could arrive in Iraq. It's also unknown whether they would remain in Baghdad or be sent to the nation's north, where the al-Qaida-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has overrun several cities in the worst threat to the Shiite-led government since U.S. troops left in 2011.
White House spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said no combat troops would be sent to Iraq, but that the U.S. is looking at other options.
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/16/obama-special-forces-iraq_n_5500700.html?1402949586&ncid=tweetlnkushpmg00000067
I support The President either way. He has access to information I don't.
TwilightGardener
(46,416 posts)Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)You're making me nostalgic for 2003 with lines like that. Please stop, the music back then was terrible.
deurbano
(2,891 posts)Response to Scootaloo (Reply #2)
Name removed Message auto-removed
OneCrazyDiamond
(2,029 posts)Bush broke it. Our side will end up fixing it....kinda like the economy.
Cha
(295,897 posts)President Obama. The usual suspects.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)It's just that I'm starting to note a lot of commonality between the ardent supporters of both.
Cha
(295,897 posts)Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)You know the sort who might say something like "I support The President either way. He has access to information I don't." I don't trust other people to decide my principles for me, regardless of if they're a president or not.
Cha
(295,897 posts)Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)I notice you don't bother mounting a defense of selling out one's own ethical autonomy to an authority figure. I suspect that even you recognize that it's indefensible.
Don't spend it all in one place.
On the Road
(20,783 posts)in the same way that a person who says "I trust Rand Paul" sounds like someone who says "I trust Bernie Sanders."
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)Nor does it make mindless sycophantry and worship of authority any more admirable.
I don't give a fuck if it's Bush, Obama, Vermin Supreme, or Genghis Khan's brain in a fucking jar, if you tell me "well, whatever the president wants!" then I'm going to regard you as worse than a vegetable. That sort of "thinking" has no place in a democracy, much less in the Democratic party.
Quackers
(2,256 posts)Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)Nihil
(13,508 posts)Every single word of it.
Sheep is the word you are looking for. As in "gullible sheep".
truth2power
(8,219 posts)Ash_F
(5,861 posts)Vegetables are nutritious.
m-lekktor
(3,675 posts):shudder:
louielouie
(42 posts)From the article:
What President Obama said on Jun 13:
"We will not be sending U.S. troops back into combat in Iraq, but I have asked my national security team to prepare a range of other options that could help support Iraq's security forces...."
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/06/13/321682153/obama-rules-out-troops-in-iraq-but-says-u-s-weighing-other-options
"Into combat" does all the work here. But they can still get shot at.
Swede Atlanta
(3,596 posts)I'm done with Iraq and the whole Middle East.
If they want to kill one another off over a schism in Islam, so be it. I hate to say it but the world would be a better place if those that would kill simply because someone is from a different tribe or subscribes to a different religion were all dead. I know that sounds harsh but seriously.
We had this mess with Christianity for centuries through the Crusades to the Inquisition to the Salem witch trials. It continues to a less dramatic extent with conservative American Christians encouraging and aiding Uganda and other countries in their prosecution of LGBT persons or the hatred that spews from Pat Robertson or other right wing religious nut cases' mouths.
China bought up most of the leases for Iraqi oil. Let them send in troops. But no more American troops, not one.
AngryDem001
(684 posts)LET them fight is out! It is NOT our concern.
Why can't we take a "Prime Directive" approach? Non-interference? Let's just get our people out and then STAY the hell out. FOREVER!
Cha
(295,897 posts)truth2power
(8,219 posts)For my part, China getting control of the oil would be some sort of karma.
And BTW...no one mentions that monstrosity called the Green Zone these days. Who's living there? Yeah, we left Iraq alright.
amandabeech
(9,893 posts)election. That's what it ususally is. Presidents are politicians, not gods, and that includes Pres. Obama.
I've seen this play too many times before, and so have many here on DU.
The last time was about the "surge" in Afghanistan, and look where we are now in that benighted country.
P.S. How are things going in Libya, anyway?
At least get all our people out before you do anything.
enough
(13,235 posts)Iwillnevergiveup
(9,298 posts)see through the "fog of war." ANY American soldier sent to Iraq at this point will be a combat troop. More like the "horror of war" to me, and for what??? These tribal hatreds are ancient and deep and nothing we should be investing in with one more American life or $$$$.
louielouie
(42 posts)While Obama has vowed to keep U.S. forces out of combat in Iraq, he said in his notification to Congress that the personnel moving into the region are equipped for direct fighting.
And separately, three U.S. officials said the White House was considering sending a contingent of special forces soldiers to Iraq. Their limited mission which has not yet been approved would focus on training and advising beleaguered Iraqi troops, many of whom have fled their posts across the nation's north and west as the al-Qaida-inspired insurgency has advanced in the worst threat to the country since American troops left in 2011
http://news.yahoo.com/more-us-troops-iraq-special-forces-considered-225039144--politics.html
If it's just to evacuate the embassy, I don't have a problem with it. But the last paragraph bothers me.
swilton
(5,069 posts)should be written in past perfect tense - more than likely the decision has already been made and whatever (if any) troops were to be sent are already over there.
amandabeech
(9,893 posts)The advisers will train South Vietnamese forces to combat Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops who are posing the most serious threat to South Vietnam since the French troops left after losing to Ho Chi Minh's forces at the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954.
I'd quote more accurately if my internet connection was working well enough this evening to use the copy/paste function.
Of course, history does not necessarily repeat itself, but it does sometimes rhyme.
louielouie
(42 posts)Marx said yes--the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.
amandabeech
(9,893 posts)It's clear what tragedy has been, though.
Cha
(295,897 posts)Thanks OCDiamond
Caretha
(2,737 posts)How do you think 275 troops are going to clean up Bush's mess?
How many of them are going to die? What are they going to train Iraqi troops to do that 10s of thousands of US soldiers in 11 years were unable to train them to do?
Why 275? Why not round it up to 300?
If you attempt to answer any of these questions honestly, I might start to take you seriously.
bigwillq
(72,790 posts)and the Middle East. We will never be able to truly change what happens in that region. Just stay out of it.