Speaking to reporters today at the State Department, Gen. John Allen, who has been advising President Obama on his new war against ISIS, today revealed that the administration has no plans to ever coordinate with the Free Syrian Army (FSA) or any other of the existing rebel factions.
That’s a surprise, because officials have been harping on for years about how great these factions are, and have been lavishing them with US arms and funding.
The FSA is forever complaining about not getting enough aid from the US, as their way of explaining how years of rebellion has them with virtually no territory and sloughing off fighters to ISIS and other more successful factions at an alarming rate. Now, the US appears to be comfortable just cutting them loose.
Not that they’re giving up on the conceit of regime change with “vetted, moderate” rebels. Rather, they’re now apparently putting all their eggs into the create a new rebel force basket, with Allen talking up the establishment of this new “credible” force.
Which at this point exists only as a ledger mark on the Pentagon’s books. Congress has agreed to a $500 million-plus plan to bankroll this new force, but the Pentagon hasn’t even begun the process of actually trying to assemble a whole brand new Syrian rebel army.
It’s a daunting task, with estimates that the force will at best be ready one year after they start the training, and with the entire US war in Syria hinging on the effectiveness of this thus far non-existent force, the administration seems to have a built-in excuse for the next year of failures in the war.
There are a lot of people fighting ISIS (Iran, Assad, Kurdish Marxists.) Unfortunately, the US treats them all as enemies. Makes you wonder which side the US rulers are really on, doesn't it?
Obama has been talking to Putin who has promised to share intelligence. Maybe they made a deal.
Lay off Assad and Putin will help the U.S. take care of ISIS. And stop meddling in Ukraine?
The transnational elites in this country hate America and average Americans, which is why they do their goddamndest to make our lives as miserable as possible.
They despise us, and I despise them.
This is the REAL problem, of course. It is, for some reason, very difficult for an average American to understand, and I often wonder why. One of the possible answers is that the transnational elite uses something that I head them use in other, weaker countries, and that is "local flavors and spices". For as long as they push their agendas — no matter how destructive for the society — nicely flavored using local sense of values and weaknesses, they will succeed. Socitey will eat out of their hands. Our weakness is our imagined "individualism", where we are encouraged to fight against anything in our national interes — in the name of rugged individualism. But we have not noticed how the merchants of "rugged individualism" sell it under the guises of federal government being the guarantor of such liberal freedoms. As a result, governning parties serve interest of transnational elites, and they never run on platforms of national interest. It is NOT in our national interest to privatize schools, pushing the contract in favor of corporations that are nothing but cover for foreing policy funding — such as Gulen based foundations that are determined to undermine Turkey though infusion of radical Salafism. We do not understand what is going on, because we are flattered by our "exceptionalism". So, as "chosen" people to dispense worldwide chaos, we do not use crtiical thinking. In the same manner, they chide us against "isolationanism", where in fact they are DESTROYING our economy through SANCTIONS, rasiing trade bunkers around the world, and forcing various RESTRICTIVE trade agreements — that favor THEM, and destroy national economy of US.
I do not know that federal system can be repaired anymore. States are now the only defence left, provided that states reclaim right to the FREEDOM OF TRADE, and not follow federal systems of sanctions that make transnationals rich. It will force other countries to become more attractive to individual states, and will jump start economies of each state on the basis of its own competative advantage. Once upon the time — not that long time ago, Virginia tobacco was more valued in the world then any other. Russian royalty could not do without Virginia tobacco. Times have changed, but not the basic principle — economy cannot be constrained by the will of few lords of transnational trade. They have lost their way, economy is dead, and they think that by puting down other economies, they can save ours. Wrong. FREE TRADE FOR ALL AND WITH ALL, NO MILITARY ALLIANCES — that is the way to reclaim our economic might. Today, there is no conflict in the world that US is not a party to. It is bringing us destruction of our economy so that we can enrich transnational elite. It cannot work.
This is a difficult one and hard to know just what the next step will be. Putin bailed Obama out last year. Maybe he will once again.
Good. That gives the good guys one year to work on destroying the Syrian terrorists.
Love this! So, they will FROM SCRATCH create a brand new, genuinely "SYRIAN" opposition!
Whatever happened to those heartbreaking stories of brave Free Syrian Army forces? Their goodness, vs. Assad badness? Did they ever exist?
The way to look at it is as follows: these new "rebels" , genuinely "Syrian", will be organized and well oiled transmission belt of arms, fighters, cars, gas, money, telecom, food, etc — for the best fighting force money can buy — ISIL. So far, they performed superbly. Got Iraqi Kurds in trouble, got Turkey in clinch, got Bagdhad in deep trouble, got Syrian Kurds to flee, keep Syrian conflict in slow motion, so insure that the conveyer belt works, and that the border areas of Syria, Turkey and Iraq are under stress or under control. Egypt has been subcontracted to bomb Benghazi, and now nobdy cares how many people are dying in Lybia. Splendid! But just as promising as it started, it can turn sour — as payed thugs with armies of religious or revolutionary zealots usually turn out.
But Suzan Rice said that Turkey would be training those “moderate rebels”…….wonder who is on first?
Again a clever dust throwing title !
In fact the US rebels in Syria are guided by USA (of course in Arab language from own NATO arabs, Saudis or Qatari friends). The "non-lethal communication means" the got from Obama where in fact uninterceptabe satelite phones and Command& Control Laptops for their mlitary actions and information – with fresh feeds from US military satellites – when the Syrian army comes or which military posts have to few staff and are easy aims.
I suggest to check the SYRIAN section of http://www.enk894.wix.com/US-wars for "unconventional warfare" in order to understand what advanced imperialist can do today.
On a somewhat tangential theme, I have been studying – from the limited information available through media sources – the tactics of ISIL. What has struck me is its versatility and ability to deliver blows with enough force and precision that it defeats organized military opponents. This is not usually the case with a guerrilla force, especially one that did not seem to have any military structure until earlier this year. It bears stating that cohesive, well-oiled military units do not miraculously appear from the midst of jihadist recruits showing up from Austria and London with their travel visas.
Many have remarked that ISIL is a US/Israeli construct, and I certainly have thought so. Therefore, presuming that premise to be valid, I would argue that mercenaries make up the core of the ISIL assault troops, or at least provide cadres and leadership. That would explain the kabuki theater-like feel of the FedGov air campaign. That would also make the long suspected US and Israeli assistance to ISIL much easier to accomplish, and would further explain, at least in part, the widespread use of sophisticated weapons and equipment, which would require a good bit of technical training to use properly. Mercenaries would bring that kind of expertise with them. All that being said, I strongly suspect that Eric Prince is making quite a profit from ISIL operations.
Why would they coordinate with anyone? (They do coordinate, through the Persian Gulf lackeys.) They don't know what they are in this for! (But the lackeys do.)
A program to create a Syrian armed force has 1000 times lower chance of success than the spectacularly failed program to create an Iraqi armed force.
Yep let's do it all over again in Syria: US taxpayers who are against war by and large and need to be goosed with phony videos and scary stories about ISIS under the bed pay to train, arm and equip a local force that will be defeated and give all those arms and equipment over to an enemy force, then we pay to bomb so we can spend more $ on weapons training, arming and equipping ANOTHER generation of so-called "opposition" to do the same thing (or worse)?
For the MIC it's a perpetual win-win-win situation! The rest of us…not so much. Do they do this on purpose? The whole weak, sectarian puppet thing as well?
Someone tell me AGAIN the military isn't really in charge in AmeriKa.
This will be purely a proxy army, to do regime change in a US attack on Syria. We give up all cover for our actions.
Rather, they’re now apparently putting all their eggs into the create a new rebel force basket, with Allen talking up the establishment of this new “credible” force.
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Al Qaeda and ISIS were created by us! That should be obvious to anyone with a brain. They're coming right out here and admitting to your face that they even have the capability to create some new rebel fighting force. Do you really think this is a new idea? And if they did it before and it all went haywire, why would they repeat their mistakes, unless they were not mistakes at all?
When things don't appear to make sense perhaps they do make sense, but just in some other way.
Georgy. I have a brain, too. I agree with you. Keep educating the American public. Maybe some more people will get a brain.
And let us not forget Taliban, created by Saudi madrasas for poor Pakistani kids, and directed for US geopolitical aims. Later, to confuse the issue — after Taliban conquered most Afghanistan, we continue using "Taliban" to describe and include all sorts of Afgahani tribes. Just because Afghani tribes joined Taliban in ousting others from Kabul — that does not make them Taliban. Taliban means STUDENTS, students of madrasas in Pakistan where ABCs were tought, along with Wahhabi extremism and handling of weapons. Tribes of Afghanistan have their own names, and lumping them into "Taliban" just made it easier to explain the mess to ignorant US public. Otherwise, how to describe the fact that our own pupils — Taliban — turned against us, along with the former Saudi "base", Al-Qaeda. And then how to explain that Afghani tribes did not receive us with flowers — when we set out to "liberate" them from Al-Qaeda and Taliban. Those same groups we armed and trained for years. What a mess!