Last week, the House and Senate voted to rubber stamp President Obama's war
plans for the Middle East. Both bodies, on a bipartisan basis, authorized the
US to begin openly training and arming the rebels who have been fighting for
three years to overthrow the Assad government in Syria.
Although the Syrian government has also been fighting ISIS and related extremist
groups for three years, the US refuses to speak to the Syrians and has warned
Assad not to interfere with the coming US attack on sovereign Syrian territory
President Obama promised that airstrikes alone would "degrade and destroy" ISIS,
telling the US military in a speech last week that:
"The American forces that have been deployed to Iraq do not and will not
have a combat mission... I will not commit you and the rest of our armed forces
to fighting another ground war in Iraq."
But of course any US troops sent into a war zone are "combat" troops. And
more are on their way.
While the president was swearing that there would be no boots on the ground,
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, was in open
disagreement. General Dempsey told the Senate Armed Services Committee last
week that US forces would need to embed with Iraqi or Kurdish troops in combat
situations under certain circumstances.
The limited mission the president promised just weeks ago has already greatly
escalated, and now threatens to become another major regional war. In reality,
however, this is just a continuation of the 24 year US war on Iraq that President
George Bush began in 1990 and candidate Obama promised to end as President.
Under last week's authorization bill, the president would have authority
to train 5,000 fighters in Saudi Arabia for insertion into the civil war in
Syria. This is in effect a re-arrangement of the deck chairs. To this point
the training was carried out by the CIA in Jordan and Turkey. Now, the program
will be moved to the Pentagon and to Saudi Arabia.
The CIA training of the rebels thus far has resulted in a direct pipeline
of weapons from "vetted moderates" to the al-Qaeda affiliated al-Nusra Front
and to the very ISIS that the administration claims to be fighting. In July,
a full brigade of 1,000 fighters affiiated with the US-backed Free Syrian Army
joined ISIS! Of course they took their US-provided weapons and training with
them, some of which will certainly be used against the rapidly increasing US
military personnel in the region.
That Saudi Arabia is considered a suitable place to train Syria's future
leaders must be some kind of sick joke. While ISIS was beheading two American
journalists - as horrific as that is - the repressive Saudi theocracy was beheading
dozens of its own citizens, often for relatively minor or religious crimes.
If we want to stop radical terrorists from operating in Syria and Iraq, how
about telling our ally Saudi Arabia to stop funding and training them? For
that matter, how about the US government stops arming and training the various
rebel groups in Syria and finally ends its 24 year US war on Iraq.
There are 200 million people bordering the countries where ISIS is currently
operating. They are the ones facing the threat of ISIS activity and expansion.
Let them fight their own war, rather than turning the US military into the
mercenary army of wealthy Gulf states. Remember, they come over here because
we are over there. So let's not be over there any longer.
