After abandoning a near-identical program last September, conceding it to be “an embarrassing failure,” the Pentagon has announced today that it has begun again with training “dozens” of Syrian rebels to battle ISIS.
The 2015 version of this program trained two classes of rebels. The first class of 54 rebels was routed almost immediately by al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front, while the slightly larger second class surrendered to Nusra outright, handing over their weapons and vehicles to the Islamists in return for safe passage.
Wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on that fiasco, the Pentagon announced the program was being killed, but before long started talking again about starting another program aimed at creating a “pro-US” rebel faction.
But it’s back, and while the Pentagon isn’t making the same bold predictions of having a rebel force capable of conquering Syria in a few years time, they still seem determined to at least keep on with these smaller, largely pointless schemes.
In the mean time, Trump refuses to give us a clear picture of his foreign policy which makes no sense. For surely if his goal was to cut the military in half, he would win the White House in a heartbeat.
some of his policy is reestablish relations with Russia and actually work with them which had been severely damaged by the neo-con scum in our govt. Cut NATO, which would be a good thing and stop fighting these stupid wars.
When does this in-saneness end? Obama and his senior officials along with the leaders of Saudi Arabia and Turkey need to be brought up on war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Trump.
As I recall it, our Government’s last Syrian rebel training program spent $500 million to produce five (5) trained rebels, or only $100 million per rebel. So training “dozens” (at least 24) will predictably cost a minimum of $2.4 billion, which is certainly a substantial improvement in wasting US tax dollars. What person in his/her right mind could possibly complain about this fine new program?
Yes, it’s modeled after the spectacular success with the Afghan Army.
This also proves by the way that Obama and the Pentagon (and of course the CIA) are STILL determined to overthrow Assad by military means. These troops aren’t going to be battling ISIS, they’re going to be destabilizing the Syrian government. Everyone knows this but no one wants to admit it – these programs were INTENDED to support ISIS from Day One. The Pentagon and CIA KNEW these troops would defect to ISIS with their weapons. The programs were kept small because anything bigger would not be able to be disavowed once the defections happened..
Nothing else explains why these programs continue to be funded despite otherwise apparent massive failures. I know the old line about attributing malice to what is actually incompetence, but there is a limit to that and the Pentagon and CIA have passed that limit ages ago. This is deliberate.
“Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.” Remember that principle? This is the third time. Time to wake up and smell the bovine evacuation.
It also proves that Obama is fully on board because even he can’t be stupid enough to believe these programs are going to work. Which makes hash of Gareth Porter’s notion that Obama has “distanced” himself from the foreign policy establishment. He has not. He just doesn’t give a damn. He’ll criticize the very programs he is giving the green light to just to prove again that he can con the public – and many so-called “antiwar pundits” – while at the same time doing the exact opposite in private.
Why is the US foreign policy machine dead-set to destroy Assad? Iran? Hezzbollah? Hamas? But also directly supporting states and entities that have attacked the US and American interests? Al-Nusra/al Queda? Saudi Arabia? Why does it support mass murdering despots like al-Sisi, earning yet even more hatred throughout the Middle East?