Day: July 17, 2015

Training Day

Nope not that movie that was popular about a decade ago…..this is about the plan to train “moderate” rebels to fight in Syria against ISIS and Assad……

The original plan was to train about 5000 rebels to act as the hammer against our enemies in the Middle East……..everybody in Washington is on board with this plan of the grand strategy……..training began in May of this year and is not the answer to our problem in Syria…….

The United States has only trained approximately 60 Syrian rebel fighters as of July 3, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, saying the number is “much smaller” than the administration hoped to train at this point.

The low numbers are blamed on a strict vetting process that includes ensuring the fighters are committed to combat ISIS, as opposed to the Assad regime, and passing a counter-intelligence screening.

“We make sure that they, for example, aren’t going to pose a green-on-blue threat to their trainers; that they don’t have any history of atrocities,” Carter said.

The military is currently vetting 7,000 volunteers. The goal of the program is to train 3,000 to 5,000 fighters per year, a far cry away from 60 being trained now.

At this rate my 12 year old granddaughter will be having to deal with this war when she is grown……..my have said that this is not the best idea to “defeat” ISIS……

The problem is there seems to be NO good idea to defeat ISIS……everything proposed has built in a degree of failure……

While I was putting the finishing touches on this post I got word about the rebels that we have been training in Turkey to fight in Syria……..

New reports out of Turkey are that the struggling US training mission, aimed at creating a new Syrian rebel faction, has borne its first fruit, and the first US-trained rebels have entered Syria, awash in US weapons.

A convoy of vehicles crossed into Syria from neighboring Turkey, and are being called the “New Syrian Force” by Pentagon officials. 30 vehicles strong, the force amounts to 54 fighters with some rudimentary training and some pricey US aid.

Glad to see the program is starting to show some results…..but…..54 rebels?  I do not think that 54 fighters will make much difference against ISIS and/or Assad

Our “plan” to fight in Syria gets more pathetic as the weeks pass…….if we are to do what Obama has promised….that is to “degrade and defeat ISIS”……I believe that 54 fighters may not be the best way to do that…….

Thoughts?

They All Come Crawling

Just a couple of days ago the US announced to the world that there was a deal on the nukes and Iran……immediately the world reacted…….some were pleased others were worried.  Then there is the US Congress and the GOP which instantly went into a stroke and started the usual chorus of condemnation.

Days after the announcement there was a steady parade of US officials begging forgiveness from Israel for the deal.  Kerry had to make a stop over in Israel to take his tongue lashing from Netanyahu……..Obama called to be sure that BiBi got the word from him and not from some other source and now SecDef Carter will make his trip to Israel bearing gifts………

The US has offered to increase military aid to Israel by another $1.5 billion per year to ease tensions over the nuclear deal with Iran, media has reported. Defense Secretary Ash Carter is expected to make the offer during next week’s visit to Tel Aviv.

The proposed increase would see Israel getting an additional squadron of F-35 fighter jets, funding for research and development of missile defense systems, and ammunition to replenish the stocks used in last year’s bombing of Gaza, Israeli sources told Jerusalem Post.

Under the current arrangement, Israel is receiving $3 billion a year, most of which is used to purchase US military hardware such as fighter jets and missile defense systems. Israeli and US officials have been discussing increasing the amount of aid to anywhere between $4.2 and $4.5 billion per year, sources familiar with the talks told the New York Times.

The US must make nice with Israel……which brings me to a point……

After the deal announcement was made I heard several opponents say that the US had caved to Iran and others…………that we had somehow kowtow to the whims of Iran……..

Americans, some of them, are pissed that the US must crawl to Iran to make this deal……..but wait……..all this trying to make nice with Israel….is that not the same thing as the previous situation mentioned?  Are we NOT kowtowing to Israel?  Are we not crawling to them like they own us?

The Right wing and some Dems want the US to be strong and not be pushed around by others…….but yet it is somehow okie dokie to be pushed around by Israel…….why is that?

Why are Americans perfectly fine with Israel tells us what to do and how we should do it?

NED Ignores Saudi Barbarism | New Eastern Outlook

We have all heard the horror stories of the barbarity of ISIS…….we have seen the beheadings, the torture, the burning alive, etc………

Yet the Saudis are executing people by beheading……..the canings, the treatment of women……in other words the Saudis are doing the same thing as ISIS and we are perfectly fine with it……why is that?

In case you are not aware of it……..the religious ideology of AQ and ISIS originated in Saudi Arabia……it is called Wahabbism……

The US is closely allied with the Saudis and yet they are barbarity central……..why?  We continuously condemn ISIS for their barbarity and yet the Saudis go unmentioned……….why?

 

NED Ignores Saudi Barbarism | New Eastern Outlook.

Hawks hate the Iran nuclear deal – Vox

Does anyone remember Nixon’s trip to China in 1972?  Let me refresh your memory…..when it was announced that he would make the trip the Congress went batcrap crazy…..condemning the trip because the US would be doomed and that the Commies had won the Cold War……doom and gloom…….reminds me of the hoopla coming from the GOP today over the Iran Deal……The GOP was wrong then…..they are wrong today!

Since the announcement, to be honest from the beginning, of the Iranian deal the war hawks have been against the thing…….they predict doom and gloom if it is passed.  I was expecting that from that dweeb in Israel but I would think that there would be some back slapping (I know I was being delusional).

Every hawk in Congress has been in front of the cameras and crapped on the deal…….and at the same time few I have even read the document….I mean it is 159 pages….cannot be that hard to acquaint oneself with it………I understand that most of them have the reading capability of a 10 year old…..but seriously.

They hate the deal……which is okay but why do they hate the deal?  Not one has made a cogent argument against it.

Can we ever get the honest story of why the hate?

 

Hawks hate the Iran nuclear deal and can’t be honest about why – Vox.