Good Day

Things are starting to move at a little quicker pace…..but the question to answer…….. will it be enough?

Item 1–The Coalition has been looking for ground troops to take on ISIS they may have found their agents……

Iraq’s Kurdish regional parliament will hold a session on Wednesday to vote on deploying peshmerga security forces to aid Syrian Kurds battling jihadists from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria group, a senior lawmaker said.

“Today, the Kurdistan parliament will hold a session… to give the authorization and allow the president of the region to move forces to the town of Kobane” in Syria, Omid Khoshnaw, the head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party’s parliamentary bloc, told AFP.

Good news right?  The problem is with these troops heading to Syria who will keep Kurdistan safe?  This may not be the best plan at this time.

Item 2–Iraq does not want US troops on the ground but yet they push for the US to expand their scope…..

US officials say that a recent Baghdad visit by top Obama aides, including deputy national security adviser Tony Blinken saw them fielding requests from Iraqi leaders for increased deployments of US troops as “military advisers” on the ground in Iraq.

The exact number of new troops being sought is not disclosed, but it’s also not the end of the story, with Iraq also reportedly pushing for more airstrikes, more weapons, more tanks for the Iraqi military. Just more in general.

Iraq needs to make up our minds for us…….

Item 3–The whole “moderate” rebel thing gets more confusing by the day………

The Syrian opposition force to be recruited by the U.S. military and its coalition partners will be trained to defend territory, rather than to seize it back from the Islamic State, according to senior U.S. and allied officials, some of whom are concerned that the approach is flawed.

Although moderate Syrian fighters are deemed essential to defeating the Islamic State under the Obama administration’s strategy, officials do not believe the newly assembled units will be capable of capturing key towns from militants without the help of forward-deployed U.S. combat teams, which President Obama has so far ruled out. The Syrian rebel force will be tasked instead with trying to prevent the Islamic State from extending its reach beyond the large stretches of territory it already controls.

Sorry to inform my readers….but if you goal is to “degrade and destroy” ISIS….you are not going to do that from a defensive position.

Item 4–Turkey is still whining about the US air drops of weapons and supplies to the defenders of Kobane…….

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was deeply critical of US arms airdrops into Kobani in comments today, particularly because at least one of the dropped parcels ended up in the hands of ISIS.

“I have difficulty understanding why Kobani is so strategic for them, because there are no civilians there, just around 2,000 fighters,” Erdogan added.