Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey sought to be optimistic about Iraq’s chances of defending Baghdad, saying early assessments are that the Iraqi military is likely capable of holding its capital from ISIS invasion.
That’s the end of the good news for Iraq, however, as Gen. Dempsey went on to concede that Iraq’s “logistically challenged” military would struggle to try to launch any counterattacks at all, and probably will never be able to retake cities from ISIS on its own.
Dempsey continued to try to downplay the notion that the US is going to be the “outside help” Iraq would have in retaking cities from ISIS, insisting “we’re not there yet,” on any decisions to take direct action in Iraq.
Despite this protestation, the US has been adding armed drones, combat troops and attack helicopters at a growing rate over the past few weeks, and even if no formal announcement on the intervention has been made, it’s impossible to deny that the deployment is building in that direction.
"… insisting “we’re not there yet,”…"
BS, pure and simple. Ignore the words and look at the actuals of what is going on. The advisors being sent are combat troops – and green berets are not sent as advisors – they are there to destroy things and change the situation at hand. The drones and attack helos are not being sold or on loan – they are US assets with US operators – combat assets.
The warmongers are hoping that the American people are still asleep, like they've been for the past 20 years. My fear is that they are right. Please, prove me wrong.
My Congresscritters are against any further US involvement in the ME…are yours? Do you care? The American people need to be asking the pols "WHY?" and not accepting a blow-off answer.
If were not going to send combat troops to perform combat missions, what are they doing there already? Here's a novel idea: let the Middle East sort it out, and we deal with whoever is left standing. In the meantime, we save our treasure and manpower while any future opponents bleed themselves in the sand fighting each other.