National Security Matters

[old salt]

Here's a good list of questions about our presence in Syria, which were never sufficiently answered, which in hindsight, make Trump's withdrawl decision look more inevitable than abrupt.

Good questions, for which there were good answers, which were never sold to the US public. Too bad the MSM (at least in the US) didn't discover our presence in Syria until our withdrawl became a tool to hammer Trump. It was a success story which was not adequately covered in the US.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/12/ ... stionable/

[Typical Lax Dad]

I wonder how China and NK view Trump's latest decisions to pull back militarily...do they view this as capitulation or weakness, or something else? Will this embolden China in trade talks? Could it affect the conceivable reunification of Korean Peninsula?

All too often, we grossly over analyze everything. IMO, this cannot be viewed or even assumed as capitulation or weakness, but of a postilion of strength. Alphas do not need to fight, unless provoked or they just feel like doing it to make a statement of strength.

It has not been written or spoken that we will never return, only that we are removing our troops. If it proven in the coming years that these countries slide into worsening conditions....what does that say about us? To me, it says to the people of these countries that YOU NEED TO CHANGE!

What makes you think Trump is an Alpha? There is a difference between a bully and an alpha. Putin handled him, Erdogan handled him, Kim handled him, Xi handled him and Nancy & Chuck handled him on national TV....some alpha. More like a bully that tucks tail when punched back or threatened to be punched back.

[a fan]

The Taliban, AQ & ISIS will be coming out from under their rocks.

Is that a bad thing? Isn't that what cruise missiles are for?

[a fan]

Here's a good list of questions about our presence in Syria, which were never sufficiently answered, which in hindsight, make Trump's withdrawl decision look more inevitable than abrupt.

Good questions, for which there were good answers, which were never sold to the US public. Too bad the MSM (at least in the US) didn't discover our presence in Syria until our withdrawl became a tool to hammer Trump. It was a success story which was not adequately covered in the US.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/12/ ... stionable/

Little D's and R's.

FoxNation would be HAMMERING a little D President for this.

As it is, you've got Libs trying to come up with arguments as to why we should have troops in Syria. Wait: what?

[old salt]

Operation Long Goodbye -- the Pentagon's Plan B

from New York Times. 12-21-2018 :
The Pentagon is considering using small teams of Special Operations forces to strike the Islamic State in Syria, one option for continuing an American military mission there despite President Trump’s order to withdraw troops from the country.

The American commandos would be shifted to neighboring Iraq, where an estimated 5,000 United States forces are already deployed, and “surge” into Syria for specific raids, according to two military officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The strike teams are one of several options — including continued airstrikes and resupplying allied Kurdish fighters with arms and equipment — in a new strategy for Syria that the Pentagon is developing as officials follow the order Mr. Trump gave on Wednesday for a military drawdown even as it tries to maintain pressure on the Islamic State.

The Pentagon will deliver the options to Mr. Trump for approval within weeks — well before Defense Secretary Jim Mattis steps down at the end of February. Mr. Mattis resigned on Thursday, in part because of Mr. Trump’s decision to overrule his senior advisers and withdraw troops from Syria.

Officials at the Pentagon said the plans sought to maintain American support for the Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-led militia of Arab and Kurdish soldiers who have proved to be the most successful ground fighters against the Islamic State.

But the local forces and their Western allies continue to be tested around the town of Hajin in eastern Syria, where the Islamic State is holding on to a last slice of territory. Though Mr. Trump has boasted about the Islamic State’s defeat, the militant group has for months endured airstrikes and offensives by the American-backed Syrian fighters — and has even conducted deadly counterattacks into Hajin’s surrounding districts.

Under the cover of a sandstorm in October, the Islamic State nearly overran an American Special Forces team and a group of Marines outside of Hajin, wounding two American troops, a third military official said.

The group tried the same tactic again in November, waiting for a sandstorm to mask its movements, and nearly captured Gharanij, a nearby town.

Mr. Pompeo also spoke on Friday with President Barham Salih of Iraq about continued efforts to fight the Islamic State, said Robert Palladino, a State Department spokesman.

Two military officials said that the United States Central Command was planning to position a force across the border in Iraq that can return to Syria for specific missions when critical threats arise.

Derek Chollet, a former assistant defense secretary in the Obama administration, said the Pentagon could “rename these guys, and call them a counterterrorism force.”

By last month, the Islamic State’s territory was reduced to the small pocket around Hajin — about 1 percent of the ground it used to control.

Last week, the Syrian Democratic Forces retook the center of Hajin, forcing the militants to fall back to the town’s outskirts. But the Islamic State’s remaining hold on roughly 20 miles of territory has forced Defense Department officials to cull options for keeping what is left of the international campaign against the extremists from falling apart.

That will include weighing whether United States airstrikes can remain effective without American targeting guidance from the ground, and whether they would defend Kurdish forces only from the Islamic State — and not other militants.

Officials are also discussing whether the Kurdish-led force can fight without the weapons, ammunition and other supplies that will end once the American military leaves. Even allowing the Syrian Kurds to keep guns and heavy weapons provided by the United States would break the Pentagon’s 2017 pledge that the arms would be reclaimed once combat ended.

The decisions are being prepared over the year-end holidays and will be made in the coming weeks, officials said.

In April, the Pentagon began building a rough withdrawal plan from Syria after Mr. Trump threatened to leave. At the time, Mr. Mattis and other officials convinced the president to dig in.

But even that plan called for a phased departure of troops from Syria — one that would take months, not within 30 days as is now being discussed.

French and British Special Operations forces are expected to remain in Syria after the American troops leave, according to one official. But their different military tactics, combined with the loss of American resupply routes for food and ammunition, are expected to encumber the mission.

The British Ministry of Defense said in a statement on Thursday that “much remains to be done, and we must not lose sight of the threat” from the Islamic State.

Officially, there are 2,000 American troops in Syria. It is likely, however, that hundreds more are there in a mix of support units, Special Operations Forces, mechanics and engineers. All are part of a web of bases, outposts and airfields spread across the northeastern corner of Syria, a model similar to those in Iraq and Afghanistan.

[old salt]

Here's a good list of questions about our presence in Syria, which were never sufficiently answered, which in hindsight, make Trump's withdrawl decision look more inevitable than abrupt.

Good questions, for which there were good answers, which were never sold to the US public. Too bad the MSM (at least in the US) didn't discover our presence in Syria until our withdrawl became a tool to hammer Trump. It was a success story which was not adequately covered in the US.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/12/ ... stionable/

Little D's and R's.

FoxNation would be HAMMERING a little D President for this.

As it is, you've got Libs trying to come up with arguments as to why we should have troops in Syria. Wait: what?

I'm sure that matters a lot to our Kurdish allies or our troops fighting alongside them.

Because of our shallow MSM, nobody in the US knew (or cared) about what they were doing.
Our troops were accomplishing great things, with minimal investment.
You had to read the British, Russian or Arab press to get details & differing analyses.
Why weren't MSNBC & CNN giving us daily updates on the progress of our forces at war, rather than 24/7 legal babble ?

Thanks for making it a (R) vs (D) FoxNation thing & politicizing this forum too, & making my point.
It didn't become a story on it's own merit -- until it became (in the US MSM) a part of the Trump chaos narrative.

[a fan]

I'm sure that matters a lot to our Kurdish allies or our troops fighting alongside them.

Because of our shallow MSM, nobody in the US knew (or cared) about what they were doing.
Our troops were accomplishing great things, with minimal investment.
You had to read the British, Russian or Arab press to get details & differing analyses.
Why weren't MSNBC & CNN giving us daily updates on the progress of our forces at war, rather than 24/7 legal babble ?

Well you don't really think the reason they aren't covering it is the Mueller probe was "in the way", do you? How many Americans can find Syria on a map?

1 in 1000? Maybe?

The media has also moved on from Trumpcare (are rates still going up?----yep), the Immigration Reform Bill, the Immigration Caravan, and about a dozen other things.

Remember how everyone was pretending to be freaked out about Ebola, and it was "cured" just 100 cc's of "Election is now over" in 2014?

This is what our media does.

Thanks for making it a (R) vs (D) FoxNation thing & politicizing this forum too, & making my point.
It didn't become a story on it's own merit -- until it became (in the US MSM) a part of the Trump chaos narrative.

Yes! So why are you yelling at me for pointing this out? I"m THRILLED we're leaving. Attaboy, Trump. I'm not being political...the rest of the country is!

For two years, not a peep in US media about Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria. Fox News is 100% free to discuss it. Why didn't they?

You know why. Don't blame me for telling you it's D's and R's when I'm right. Or do you have another explanation as to why liberals aren't overjoyed we're pulling out of a warzone in Syria, and are instead blaming Trump for doing it wrong? Cut me some slack. I'm not bringing politics to this thread...I'm bringing facts.

(I'll be careful to avoid this tack in the future on this thread, I promise...it's just frustrating, don't you think?)

[old salt]

Why do we have to watch & read BBC, RT & Al Jazeera to find out what's going on in Syria, when we have the most consequential combat power there ?

Then when Trump abruptly decides to pull us out, we finally decide to have a public debate about it, when it's too late to do anything about it ?

I wanna puke when I hear Andrea Mitchell & JoeMika going hysterical about it now. Why haven't they been touting Mattis's " annihilation not accommodation" strategy for the past 2 years, so the public knew what was going on ? If they'd given Trump a success story, he'd have found a way to take credit for it -- which he deserves for unleashing Mattis.

How many interviews did you see of McGurk or Jeffrey on US tv (other than PBS before Charlie Rose left) ?

[a fan]

Why do we have to watch & read BBC, RT & Al Jazeera to find out what's going on in Syria, when we have the most consequential combat power there ?

It's always been like that. It's why guys like you and I were over the moon happy when cable TV showed up, and the BBC became available. We don't even cover what happens in Canada, let alone Europe.

I don't want to answer the rest of what you asked, and just let it go and leave politics on the curb in this thread. It's been nice.

[old salt]

Remember Trump's tweet last Apr about Syria -- " ...my Administration has done a great job of ridding the region of ISIS. Where is our thank you America " ?

This is the sort of thing he got in response.

...now, how can we leave ?

FTR -- I'm not talkin' (R) vs (D) politics. I'm talking about the MSM's responsibility to inform the US public about war & peace.

On Syria -- they get a FAIL.

[Typical Lax Dad]

This is Gaddafi on steroids. This is worse than Gaddafi because he [MBS] has billions of dollars to spend on the US, on PR, on lobbying, on buying consensus. This is where the danger lies.
Rula Jebreal, journalist

[old salt]

Forces are repositioning. Syrian regime elite Tiger Force deploys eastward to Deir el-Zour, to block ISIS remnants, in anticipation of SDF northward withdrawl to defend Kurdish territory from expected Turkish incursion.

http://time.com/5487535/trump-syria-reinforcements/

Syria Deploys Reinforcements in Response to President Trump's Plan to Pull U.S. Troops

Syrian troops have sent reinforcements to the eastern province of Deir el-Zour close to an enclave controlled by the Islamic State group and along the front with U.S.-backed Kurdish-led fighters, a war monitor and pro-government pages on social media said Saturday.

The reinforcements arrived after U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced he was pulling all 2,000 U.S. troops out of Syria. Trump has now declared victory over IS, contradicting assessments by his own experts, with many lawmakers calling his decision rash and dangerous.

A senior Kurdish politician on Friday called on France to play a larger role in Syria following the U.S. withdrawal.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the government sent thousands of its elite forces to Deir el-Zour that borders Iraq, where IS holds the last area under its control in Syria.

The Observatory said the troops and pro-government fighters were deployed on the west banks of the Euphrates River close to the IS-held enclave, mostly in the towns of Mayadeen and Boukamal. It added that troops brought to the area include members of the Tiger Force, an elite unit that defeated rebels and IS gunmen on several fronts over the past two years.

A pro-government Facebook page posted a photo of Tiger Force commander Brig. Gen. Suheil and also reported that troops under his command have arrived in Deir el-Zour. It also posted photos of military vehicles said to be arriving in the area.

U.S.-backed Syrian fighters of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces have been trying to capture the area from IS since Sept. 10. The battles have left hundreds of IS and SDF fighters dead.

On Friday, senior Kurdish politician Ilham Ahmed warned in Paris that SDF fighters may have to withdraw from the front lines in the fight against IS to deploy along the borders with Turkey after Ankara said it plans to carry an attack.

The Observatory’s chief, Rami Abdurrahman, said the troops were deployed for a possible attack on IS or to assume control of areas that could be evacuated by SDF fighters.

[old salt]

Old news. Interesting how the Wash Post has changed their tune from a week ago.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics ... da3520d149

America’s hidden war in Syria

U.S. troops will now stay in Syria indefinitely, controlling a third of the country and facing peril on many fronts

The commitment is small, a few thousand troops who were first sent to Syria three years ago to help the Syrian Kurds fight the Islamic State. President Trump indicated in March that the troops would be brought home once the battle is won, and the latest military push to eject the group from its final pocket of territory recently got underway.

In September, however, the administration switched course, saying the troops will stay in Syria pending an overall settlement to the Syrian war and with a new mission: to act as a bulwark against Iran’s expanding influence.

That decision puts U.S. troops in overall control, perhaps indefinitely, of an area comprising nearly a third of Syria, a vast expanse of mostly desert terrain roughly the size of Louisiana.

The Pentagon does not say how many troops are there. Officially, they number 503, but earlier this year an official let slip that the true number may be closer to 4,000. Most are Special Operations forces, and their footprint is light. Their vehicles and convoys rumble by from time to time along the empty desert roads, but it is rare to see U.S. soldiers in towns and cities.

The new mission raises new questions, about the role they will play and whether their presence will risk becoming a magnet for regional conflict and insurgency.
The area is surrounded by powers hostile both to the U.S. presence and the aspirations of the Kurds, who are governing the majority-Arab area in pursuit of a leftist ideology formulated by an imprisoned Turkish Kurdish leader. Signs that the Islamic State is starting to regroup and rumblings of discontent within the Arab community point to the threat of an insurgency.

Without the presence of U.S. troops, these dangers would almost certainly ignite a new war right away, said Ilham Ahmed, a senior official with the Self-
Administration of North and East Syria, as the self-styled government of the area is called.

But staying also heralds risk, and already the challenges are starting to mount.

A Turkish threat to invade the area last month forced the United States to scramble patrols along the border with Turkey, which has massed troops and tanks along the frontier. Turkey regards the main Kurdish militia, the YPG, which is affiliated with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party inside Turkey, as a terrorist organization and fears the consequences for its own security if the group consolidates power in Syria.

Syrian government troops and Iranian proxy fighters are to the south and west. They have threatened to take the area back by force, in pursuit of President Bashar al-Assad’s pledge to bring all of Syria under government control. The government and Iran have been cultivating ties with local tribes, and the U.S. announcement of its intent to counter the Iranian presence in Syria may, in response, further encourage such ties.

Away from the front lines, the calm that followed the ejection of the Islamic State from Raqqa and the surrounding territory is starting to fray. A series of mysterious bombings and assassinations in some of the areas retaken from the militants up to three years ago has set nerves on edge. Most of the attacks are claimed by the Islamic State, and a U.S. military spokesman, Col. Sean Ryan, said there is no reason to believe the Islamic State is not responsible. “We know they’re regrouping in those areas,” he said.

But there are widespread suspicions that any one of the regional powers opposed to the U.S. presence and the Kurds’ pursuit of self-governance may be seeking to destabilize the area, finding allies among disgruntled Arabs uncomfortable with the prospect of being governed long term by the Kurds.

The Kurdish forces have sought to include Arabs in their self-governance experiment but retain dominance over its structures at every level, Arabs complain.

This is a part of Syria where tribal loyalties often trump politics, and the tribes are being courted by all the regional players with an interest in ultimately controlling the area, according to Sheikh Humaidi al-Shammar, the head of the influential Shammar tribe.

The guests ranged, Shammar confided, from sheikhs affiliated with the Assad regime and his ruling Baath Party to representatives of the Islamic State, the Free Syrian Army rebels and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces — a spectrum of those competing for control in northeastern Syria.

Shammar has allied his tribe with the United States and the Kurds, and he has contributed fighters from his small Sanadid militia to battles against the Islamic State. But, he said, he has many concerns: namely, that the U.S. talk of countering Iran will suck the region into a new conflict and that the area’s Arabs will be cut out of any deal that is eventually reached with the Kurds.

“Everything is uncertain. We are part of a global game now, and it is out of our hands,” he said.

His son Bandar, who leads the Shammar militia, said the tribe supports some form of new arrangement for the Kurds in Syria “because they are our brothers and they sacrificed a lot,” he said.

“The main concern of the Arab population is that one ethnicity, the Kurds, is going to build a state for Kurds and impose their authority on the others,” he said. “The coalition created the SDF to be multi­ethnic, but really people see it is not like this. It is a solo actor which authorizes everything and controls everything.”

Kurdish leaders say they are working hard to convince the Arab community that their plan for governing will include it.
“We are very sincere about living together,” he said. “It’s a matter of time. Maybe we need three or four years to make it stable.”
Whether the Kurds have three or four years is unclear. U.S. officials hope the American presence will bring leverage in negotiations over an eventual settlement to end the Syrian war, with the aim of securing some form of autonomy for their Kurdish allies as well as rolling back Iranian influence.

But there is no such settlement in sight, and there may not be one. Assad has prevailed against the rebellion elsewhere in Syria and has shown no inclination to make concessions. The expectation among many residents, Kurds and Arabs alike, is that the government will eventually restore its authority over the area.

After Trump said the troops would soon be withdrawn, many here began planning for that eventuality, including the Kurds, who launched talks with Damascus for a direct, bilateral settlement. The talks went nowhere, and now the Americans are staying — but Kurdish officials say they are keeping open channels of communication in case Trump changes his mind again.

All the challenges and complexities of northeastern Syria seemed to be concentrated in the small, strategic town of Manbij. Located beside the Euphrates River, it was liberated from the Islamic State by Kurdish forces over three years ago. Now, to the north, lies territory controlled by Turkish troops and their Free Syrian Army allies, and to the south by the Syrian government and its allies, Russia and Iran.

In the middle are the Americans. It is one of the few places where the U.S. military has a conspicuous presence. There are three small U.S. bases in and around the town, supporting an American effort to keep apart Turkey and the Kurdish-affiliated Manbij Military Council, according to officials with the council. So far, diplomacy has worked to tamp down the tensions, and the U.S. and Turkish militaries recently began conducting joint patrols along the front line.

But attacks, carried out by assassins riding motorcycles and planting roadside bombs, are occurring with increasing frequency behind the front lines. Local officials believe groups affiliated with the Syrian government and Iran are behind some of these...

Frustrations are building, meanwhile, with the acute lack of funding for reconstruction, impeding the effort to win hearts and minds in Arab non-Kurdish areas, Kurdish officials say. Earlier this year, Trump cut the $200 million that had been earmarked for essential repairs to the worst damaged areas. Though that sum has been replaced by donations from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, it is a fraction of the billions of dollars required.

It is in Raqqa, the biggest city in the part of Syria where U.S. troops are based, that the frustration is most keenly felt. The city was devastated by the U.S.-led airstrikes that accompanied the SDF’s four-month offensive to drive out the Islamic State, and a year later the city is still in ruins.

Signs of life are returning, with shops and markets reopening in some neighborhoods. About half the population has returned, squeezing into the least damaged buildings, sometimes living without walls and windows. Most roads have been cleared of piles of rubble that were left by the bombardments, but blocks on end are wrecked and uninhabitable. The water was restored in September, but there is still no electricity.

Without more financial support, there is a risk that Raqqa will “devolve into the same vulnerability ISIS found when it first arrived, a ‘fractured city ripe for extremist takeover and exploitation,’ ” a report by the Pentagon’s inspector general said last month, quoting a State Department official.

The anger on the streets is palpable. Some residents are openly hostile to foreign visitors, which is rare in other towns and cities freed from Islamic State control in Syria and Iraq. Even those who support the presence of the U.S. military and the SDF say they are resentful that the United States and its partners in the anti-ISIS coalition that bombed the city aren’t helping to rebuild.

And many appear not to support their new rulers.
“We don’t want the Americans. It’s occupation,” said one man, a tailor, who didn’t want to give his name because he feared the consequences of speaking his mind. “I don’t know why they had to use such a huge number of weapons and destroy the city. Yes, ISIS was here, but we paid the price. They have a responsibility.”

Everyone says the streets are not safe now. Recent months have seen an uptick in assassinations and kidnappings, mostly targeting members of the security forces or people who work with the local council. But some critics of the authorities have been gunned down, too, and at night there are abductions and robberies.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Other than Fox News, good thing the media doesn’t run the government or the military.

[Brooklyn]

Trump should go a few steps further and withdraw the USA completely out of the Middle East since nothing that goes on there is any of our business.

[Trinity]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... story.html

Trump’s canned Mattis 2 months early. Doesn’t know McGurk, so no biggie. On Friday morning Sarah Sanders promised an orderly 2 month transition. What happened?

[old salt]

Informative embedded video clip. Jan 8 meeting in DC between US & Turkish officials to coordinate withdrawal & handover of territory.
If the YPG play ball, they might survive.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/12/ ... 32844.html

Turkey and US to coordinate Syria withdrawal and avoid vacuum

The announced US troops withdrawal from Syria leads to worries of a power vacuum, with multiple parties looking on with interest.

The planned US troops pull-out will leave oil and agricultural-rich areas currently controlled by the Kurdish YPG vulnerable.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has repeatedly said that he wants to retake the enclave, but Ankara wants the areas handed over to representatives from Arab-majority towns that are currently under YPG control.

Turkey has maintained that it has no territorial ambitions in Syria, but views the YPG forces are linked to the Kurdish PKK that has been fighting for self-rule in southern Turkey and worries that the YPG forces may cut a deal with Assad.

Turkey and the US appear to have agreed to coordinate the troops withdrawal from the area to avoid a power vacuum that could draw a number of interested parties.

[old salt]

North Sea carrier ops.

[Trinity]

https://abcnews.go.com/International/wi ... n-59984033

Turkey masses troops against the Kurds.

[a fan]

And the US and the rest of NATO isn't stopping Turkey------- because why, again?

This is why I think we should bring everyone home. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING makes sense in this stupid region. And every time you think people could make less sense....things like giving Saddam arms and money, and then act shocked when he uses both.... stuff like Turkey wiping out the Kurds becomes a real possibility.

Neat. Just LOVE this stuff.