In his testimony to Congress yesterday, Gen. Lloyd Austin, the commander of Centcom, admitted that the US-trained New Syrian Force (NSF) rebels amount to only four or five existing fighters in Syria. While it’s been no secret the “create a new rebel faction” strategy failed, and officials are confirming planned changes.
According to those officials, they intend to totally abandon the “rebel” conceit and stop having the NSF fight against ISIS as a distinct force, and will instead load them down with US communications equipment and have them gather intelligence and pick targets for US airstrikes.
To that end, the intention is to get these people “embedded” into various other fighting forces, both secular rebels and the Kurdish YPG. The Kurds, a much bigger faction, will probably be the bulk of this embedding, though they aren’t really “rebels” and are fighting alongside the Syrian military in Hasakeh to defend the city from ISIS.
The other major change is to once again scale back the number of forces they intend to train. Initially this was tens of thousands, but was reduced to 5,400 earlier this year. Now, officials say, they will scale it back to about 500 total, which might be attainable at some point, though it is still a hundredfold increase from what’s left of the faction.
Last year, Congress authorized half a billion dollars to create this force, with the notion that they would be the major rebel force that would eventually be installed as the new government. Now that they’ve been downgraded to glorified spotters for a US air campaign that itself isn’t accomplishing much, the US is once again without an official “endgame” plan in Syria.
This is likely to once again raise talk of the proposal, championed primarily by Gen. David Petraeus, to ally with al-Qaeda and treat them as the “pro-US” faction inside Syria, despite them being anything but pro-US. Given the poor track record the US has of picking “winners” in Syria, it remains to be seen if al-Qaeda will even accept the offer.
Fortunately this program has been an embarrassment and a failure since inception. It only serves to prove how disconnected Washington is from the reality of the war in Syria..
Direct negotiations between Russian and U.S. military concerning the Syrian civil war are finally scheduled. Maybe an end can be negotiated finally to end this senseless war.
There are not enough hands, paws, flippers and fins in the world to meet this state of affairs with an appropriate facepalm.
It's a sort of blowback. When you allow (or possibly encourage?) your friends to attack and kill 2000 people so that you can decapitate multiple government and create a vacuum for those same friends to fill, it becomes really difficult to support those friends by destroying their only enemies (Assad and the Kurds, who are being mercilessly attacked by our "friend," Turkey) and still claim falsely that you are fighting your friends, whom the American people know without a doubt are the real enemy of civilization.
Such complexity.
"the US is once again without an official “endgame” plan in Syria."
The keyword here is "official" – Uncle Sam has already reached his goal of Controlled Chaos extending to eternity. Any discussions with the Evil Rooskies are only for cover, as well as another opportunity to remind us just how evil them Rooskies truly are.
The FSA was SUPPOSED to be fighting Assad. Apparently ISIS/IL/AQ weren't clear on the message when they killed or captured the A-team.
And what guarantee is there they won't do the same thing again to stop the FSA from directing allied bombstrikes? The safest place for the FSA to be doing that is in Kissimmee, with the rest of the Centcom warriors.
The ultimate plan was, and still is, creating the conditions for an invasion and occupation of Syria and, once again, of Iraq. Obama has still not forgiven Iraq for kicking out his army in 2011 and intends to take revenge by owning the country once more.
US copied the Brits pull out of India, they remained asFinancial brokers for any nation that wanted entry in IRAQ, that is what the worlds most expensive to build and maintain Embassy is all abput.
It was not called the Green Zone from git go for the manicured lawns And golf courses US built, you want access to Iraq government contracts no mattrr how large or small the fine print goes through US Embassy.
Anyonenwho thinks Iraqvdrove out USnforces must be on shrooms as we still have as part of worlds private security in Iraq over 30,000 and located alo g Kuwait border are some thousands more complete battle ready while within we have over 20,000 spec ops and rPid ready forces spread throughout but mainly in Kurdistan.
The average growth in worth of outside interest gaining contracts in Iraq is over 300, 000 000 a year USD .
These cotracts make Iraq pay to build and guarantee government a % of future profits.
There is nothing left of old Iraq except US and Euro propaganda and damned little use of that name by them. Iraq is no more than an administrative governing body with little to none political clout except upon some of their own people.
The Sadhr Militia and its religous affiliations have more military might.
As long asworld cN milk Iraq’s oil reserves profits to build cement factories and mining of minerals and irrigation for powerplants to fuel new low wage slave labor shoe clothing and export of farm goods. US A INTEREST will skim some off the top to live large in the green wallowing hole.
Only one poster, Popsic, so far has pointed out that the original force of "moderate rebels" was supposed to fight Assad's army. The CIA would point out in a secret memo that it was a fool's errand and that many or all of those first group who were trained in Jordan, took their guns and ammo and joined Al-Nusra. Someone needs to ask, "Who the Hell came up with that idea"? The only logical answer would be that the Israelis were pulling the lever from behind the curtain.
Hillary was Sec.of State and it was she directing State that had the meetings for them in gold plated suites in Qatar.and othrr UAE pimp holes.
People had best wake up and undetstand that US State Department undrr Donald Rumsfeld and Cheney’s “Shadow Government Gave State their own Praetorian Guardvof approximately 15,000 of US most highly trained Delta type forces, working through CIA military intel it picks and chooses targets not just of individuals but nations as well.
State devides to hit and the necessessary transport for men and material is at hand but any extras are to be handedbover by sny Command center without a question.
The “Army of Virginia” refers to a masdive amount of private security that is also under State and outside of Pentagons ability to control.
Wake the hell up and look up how military chain of command is so far different than past years. Much more interservice co’operstion and joint operating capability.
The power given to these Command Center Commanders is incredible, their ability to act independently if they deem it necedsessary in not questionednuntil aftrr the fact.
(libya comes to mind) where boots on ground under Africa Command wss never mentioned until after State Departments Snafu.
It is STATE THAT DECLARES WARS NOT THE AMERICAN CONGRESS OR EVEN SO MUCH THE WHITE HOUSE TOKEN PRESIDENT.