Capt. Ammar Wawi, described as one of the “senior” fighters within the “Division 30” Syrian rebel faction trained by the Pentagon, was harshly critical of the Pentagon plan in his latest comments, saying the project is too slow to produce anything meaningful.
Wawi was among 54 rebels who were trained by the Pentagon over the past six months, though already a meaningful fraction of those rebels have been caught or killed by al-Qaeda. The US says it provided “defensive support fire,” though Wawi insists this came after the fact.
The biggest problem is that there are only 54 of them, or 30-40 that are actually left. Wawi noted that if it takes six months to get that many it’ll take decades to create a significant force that can do anything meaningful on the ground.
The Pentagon spent hundreds of millions of dollars on this plan, and continues to talk it up as their go-to idea for eventually winning the Syrian part of the ISIS war. They are expressing disappointment at how slow the rebels are being trained but don’t seem to be doing anything different.
The US-trained terrorists are critical, the US is disappointed. Sounds like there's no good reason to keep the relationship going.
Or, maybe it's a good reason.
From their perspective any excuse to waste taxpayer money will do. But from any other perspective?
Well a decade is 10 years, USG being involved in creating these psychopath, European street junkys, street intellectuals in last, almost, 5 years, so only five years left for these politicians that have no idea about democracy or its social principles to wait for their dream to become reality, where they live in palaces, drive their latest MB while ordering people to be hanged. Is a delusional idea, but to a psychopathic regimes, is their last hope.
Baloney ! only 54 of them???? I read that Brit's military have hundreds of their own dressed up as rebels
In UK , theater is often mistaken for reality. In reality, where are they?
They may be "dressed up" but unlike in movies, they cannot make up their family background. There are spies, I am sure, but those are not in the position to make decisions, and many have already been executed. ISIS is a renamed General P's Awakening, Sunni-based militants armed, initially trained, equipped and paid by US, and by now, the costs are surely shared with other Gulf allies. Then, they were supposedly fighting the mythical Al-Qaeda, but now, they are just — fighting. For months they bombed Bagdad, barely noticed in "mainstream" narrative. They took Mosul, isolated Kurds, and took the fight to various anti-Assad groups to make them stop squabbling. However, ISIS did not succeed to have them disciplined, and now US "Division 30" consisting of who knows whom, and who knows really how many — has created a trip wire. If any of the uncontrolled groups attack them — blame Assad. The problem is, the rogue groups just did not get the memo, and instead of killing them with artillery, KIDNAPPED them, and have all the bragging rights. All we can see from this is — those rogue groups have some reliable intelligence as well.
Between the bombing campaign in Iraq, Syrian carnage, Libyan open sore, and the resulting chaos in sub-Saharan Africa — Europe is flooded with desperate masses trying to break into fortress Europe at all cost. They are drowning in Mediterranean, traversing rugged Balkans — overwhelming small farming communities, they are cutting fences, hanging from the trucks and trains, hiding in cargo. So — where from here?
There is an eerie sense of some sort of end-game. Turkey's entry into the battlefield is to thwart Biden's promise of independent Kurdistan in Iraq. To have another Kosovo in that part of the world, to be a permanent source of political, territorial and armed pressure on Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey? Not a cheerful thought, as all those countries are desperate for economic development, not more hot-spots inserted into their midst.
A new set of proposals are being forwarded to UN, based on UN reps recommendations. Who is forwarding? Iran. And who have been Syrian officials meeting with? Saudis, in Riyadh. And who has Secretary Kerry been meeting three times in the course of one week, the latest in Doha? Russian Foreign Minister. If Saudi Arabia, beset with too many financial and military commitments supports the plan, and bails out of continued funding of war, something will have to give. The crux of the new proposal is the cease fire — as everybody is controlling someone in this fight. And then, an internationally organized and supervised election for both the legislature and the president. Assad may be convinced not to run, but his ruling party will still do well, as they defended Syria. So, "Assad" may go — but this will not meet the objective od State Department that wants to see a fully under control regime in Syria. But if "Assad goes", Turkey and Saudi Arabia will call it quits, leaving US and UK pretty isolated.
Hence, trip wire is all that is left, and hope for an excuse for bombing Damascus.
It remains to be seen what Saudi will support, or will be pressured by US to stay in the fold. But we are asking Saudi clan to do too much, and we will have to choose. Can Saudi stop funding Egypt's military rulers? No. The chaos in Egypt Libya-style is not desirable. Can Saudi stop guarding US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, propping a Sunni ruling class against 89% Shia population? Or trying to impose a Sunni leader to rule from Sana'a, the Yemen proper? No mater what, in Yemen, they cannot achieve the return to status quo ante, and the best they can do is to wrestle Aden and Sunni south provinces.
In a message that is more powerful as a message then a reality — Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia signed an intent to build nuclear power plants — with Russia. The message is, they want economic development using their own money, rather then poring their oil wealth into the sands of the "Birth Pangs of the New Middle East". At some point, it will have to be accepted that the result is a miscarriage.
A good, well-written post, Bianca, worthy of article-status.
The next step is obviously to send troops in dressed as terrorists to do the fighting. Most probably it's already begun. Obama needs a war to gather support behind Killary Klingon.
How can anyone with a brain take any of this stuff seriously? It's so obviously for show. When Uncle Sam decided to *really* fight a war 75 years ago, He managed to train millions of soldiers in just a few years, not to mention thousands and thousands of ships, tanks, aircraft, trucks, etc, all built at the very same time.
The policy as outlined in the DIA document is crystal-clear: Controlled Chaos, War Without End, Amen
The 54 well paid assassins sat biding time to strike at the individuals whose faces they were told to kill.
A platoon of mercenarys led by those appointed not from among themselves but by men directed by a woman from thousands of miles away.
A platoon that was not supposed to directly e gage military units of the Syrian Army, but assassinate other rival Arabs andnIslamic groups.
The platoon had no popular base andndepended upon purchasing othrrs loyalty through lRge sums of cSh given to them by foreign government.
A platoon that rides in new vehicles buys gas and food stays in air conditioned out of country hotels when on leave, each gets a 3 day pass eachmonth and 30 days extra for whatever .
They send mo ey home and they saluteand fawn over the specops thatstop in and ask WTF have they been doing?
So they mount up go for a ride to kick in some doors of homes that do not have people they like or that american spec ops have been told by state then pentagon may be ISIS or Al Q or hell anyone not on US payroll.
An american troop active and retired cost around 180k-300k a year to maintain. A merc from outside of european whitefaces maybe 35k.
THE BILLIONS ? That never sees but US pockets State itself has over 15,000 spec ops troop that while supposedly under pentagon take orders from first the executive branch then the military supplies the tools they need.
A us military merc can make an eSy 60k and more after 6 years with sign up bonus in 5 figures. War is a racket and ya gotta pay the strong armed boys who do the murder for hire oc upTion.