# Syria: Obama authorizes boots on ground to fight ISIS



## RadishRose (Oct 30, 2015)

http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/30/politics/syria-troops-special-operations-forces/index.html

Washington (CNN)The United States is set to deploy troops on the ground in Syria for the first time to advise and assist rebel forces combating ISIS, the White House said Friday.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that the U.S. would be deploying "less than 50" Special Operations forces, who will be sent to Kurdish-controlled territory in northern Syria. The American troops will help local Kurdish and Arab forces fighting ISIS with logistics and are planning to bolster their efforts.


_*Do you think this will escalate?*_


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## Shalimar (Oct 30, 2015)

How could it not escalate?


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## Fern (Oct 30, 2015)

Who is going to determine whether the rebels are killing ISIS or the forces of Isaad. Isaad is killing the rebel forces, even though he is in denial.


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## Grumpy Ol' Man (Oct 30, 2015)

The Republicans have been ranting that he's not doing enough to combat ISIS in the Mideast.  Rather than send in infantry, tanks, etc. and begin watching the coffins unload at Dover AFB again, he tells the Pentagon to send less than 50 Special Ops to assist.  Now the Republicans are ranting that this is not the correct strategy.  

Certainly, "mission creep" is on everyone's mind.  That is what happened in Viet Nam.  We've been involved in the Mideast for over a decade.  Do we take the isolationist way, walking away and letting the cancer of ISIS grow?  Do we mobilize a few thousand troops, tossing billions more dollars and a few thousand more lives of our sons and daughters at the crisis?  Or, do we continue to keep our footprint small, putting very few American lives in harm's way?  Russia and Iran are both now involved in trying to eradicate ISIS. I would believe the hope is that with others now mobilized, we can continue the fight with less risk to American lives.   Even if ISIS is completely destroyed, there will still be unrest in the Mideast.  There has been unrest in that area for a couple thousand years!!!

The larger threat is this.  The Special Ops teams will be working with the Syrian rebels, Turks, etc. in those groups' resistance to the spread of ISIS.  Russia and Iraq, OTOH, are causing some collateral damage with those very groups as they now are waging war on ISIS.  We lost a Delta Troop soldier this past week who was assisting the Turks.  Will a Russian air strike take out a Syrian rebel camp and kill a couple Americans with it?  If so, then we will have that standoff to deal with.

If I were "King"... we'd pull every American soldier out of the Mideast and let those over there continue to eradicate each other.  Perhaps we should let the Russians and Iranians have a go at the area for the next decade.


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## Grumpy Ol' Man (Oct 30, 2015)

Just turned on The Five on Faux Noise.  They are berating the President for "going back on his word" and sending the Special Ops detachment to Syria.  If I wanted to take the time, bet I could begin running through past broadcasts of The Five and find them berating the POTUS for NOT being more involved in the Mideast... probably in the most recent one or two broadcasts!!!!


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## BobF (Oct 30, 2015)

The 5 is made up of usually at least on liberal person but sometimes 2 liberals or sometimes 1 liberal and a couple wobbly ones.    It is never all conservatives when I have watched the 5, which is not often.    So yes they will have conversations about the President and how they feel about things.   And yes they sometime say the President should be more aggressive and other times the President should just stand back.    It certainly will depend on the situation.

To me it is an open discussion setup and nothing really planned.   More like a handful of friends have a cup and conversation.   I am surprised they have lasted as long as they have.


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## fureverywhere (Oct 30, 2015)

Another Afghanistan jeez...at least in the Vietnam era we weren't in a bunch of countries.


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## Don M. (Oct 31, 2015)

This is probably just "step one" in the next round of escalations in the Middle East.  Now, that our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan is winding down, our Military Industrial Complex is probably seeing its profits decline...so we need another military "adventure" to keep the cash flowing to our weapons industry....and the corresponding generous campaign donations to many of our politicians.


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## fureverywhere (Oct 31, 2015)

They were discussing the negotiating with Russia as " Talking about Talking". That is Russia wants Assad and that's that. It just sounds like completely locked horns.


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## squatting dog (Oct 31, 2015)

fureverywhere said:


> Another Afghanistan jeez...at least in the Vietnam era we weren't in a bunch of countries.



While we weren't fighting on multiple fronts, we did run special Ops in Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, and even North Vietnam.  That said... the parallels between this idea and how we started in Vietnam are too big to ignore. This move can not end well. Don M is probably correct. Follow the money.


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## Davey Jones (Oct 31, 2015)

SAD but its going to happen so Lets wait and see what happens when the first body bag comes home.


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## Debby (Oct 31, 2015)

Finally a Congresswoman saying the things that I've been thinking for a year plus now.  Her name is Tulsi Gabbord and she's talking to Wolf Blitzer on CNN and she basically is saying that the 'war' against Syria is illegal, the US can't arm terrorists and think they can get away with it in safety and if I remember correctly, that America should be cooperating with Syria and Russia.  

She's saying what most of the world knows and has been saying for years and I believe the result is that she's been uninvited from some Democratic convention or something as a result of speaking out on this issue.  Shame on her for speaking the truth!  http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/12/politics/bernie-sanders-tulsi-gabbard-dnc-debate/


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## imp (Oct 31, 2015)

Here we go, again.   imp


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## Laurie (Nov 1, 2015)

My thoughts exactly, imp, here we go again.

How long before you start shipping them home as air freight?


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## Debby (Nov 1, 2015)

fureverywhere said:


> They were discussing the negotiating with Russia as " Talking about Talking". That is Russia wants Assad and that's that. It just sounds like completely locked horns.




Do you know one of the major reasons that 'Russia wants Assad' and which happens to be the major reason that America wants Assad out?  Russia and Syria have been allies for decades and Russia has also been the major supplier of oil and gas to Europe.  But now the Saudis want to take over that  market and to do that, they need to run a pipeline through Syria and to do that, they needed to get rid of Assad because he's friends with Russia.  

So the Saudi's and Qatar (America's friends?) have been funding ISIS and other terrorist groups, America has been funding and training and arming the terrorists fighting against Assad and the problem that has reared it's ugly 'hydra head' is that they've lost control of their main weapon (the 'good' terrorists, many of whom have already had al Qaeda sympathies) who have morphed into ISIS.  

http://oil-price.net/en/articles/oil-prices-and-syrian-civil-war.php

Read through that link, particularly from the section marked 'The Saudi's need Assad overthrown' on down, and you will gain a real understanding of what is going on there.  Note the part where it says, "Saudi Arabia and Qatar's first move was to fund the Muslim Brotherhood, which intended to impose Sunni control on all Middle Eastern countries. The Saudis persuaded the United States to endorse this policy and western media put a marketing spin on the rebellions of these Muslim fundamentalists, by dubbing their power grab "the Arab Spring".

So when a major drought caused the people of Syria to march in protest to their government as a result of their personal economic concerns, and in view of the problems that other governments were experiencing in the various 'Arab Springs' that were happening, Assad came down heavy on those protesters and that was the excuse for America to begin speaking out loud and long that Assad must go.  And that's when the US began actively supporting the 'rebel/terrorists' who were fighting with Assad.

The section about Labour Shortages is a reference to Germany and among other things, highlights the use of all of these low wage, migrant (and now refugee's included) workers from Turkey who are being used for the sake of 'union busting' and producing high output at low wages.  Refugees and migrant workers tend to accept less pay.   I have to admit that til now, I was also fooled in considering Germany's decision to 'throw open it's doors to the frightened and huddled masses'!  It had little to do with compassion and more to do with getting a cheap labour force.

I said to someone here, that the 'friendships/enemies' game is very fluid in that region and if you take the time to read ALLLLL the way to the end, you will see what I meant when I said that.  This article is fascinating and is the best and most complete explanation that I've read yet about the chaos in the ME, what are the reasons for it and who's involved and who profits or doesn't profit by it.


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## Shalimar (Nov 1, 2015)

Ah, the great game.


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