Re: The Politics of National Security
Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2019 7:33 pm
Trump loses another court case. State Department ordered to start producing documentation on Ukraine dust up.
Same Party, Different House
https://fanlax.com/forum/
The estimate is now 100 (out of over 10,000 IS prisoners). Nicolle Wallace is terrified.
How many of the Kurds newly aroused supporters in Congress & the MSM will rally to the cause when Trump floats the idea of sending in the tanks?https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-us-h ... al-1467350
A senior Pentagon official told Newsweek Wednesday that the United States is seeking—pending White House approval—to deploy half of an Army armored brigade combat team battalion that includes as many as 30 Abrams tanks alongside personnel to eastern Syria, where lucrative oil fields are under the control of a mostly Kurdish force involved in the U.S.-led fight against the Islamic State militant group (ISIS). The Pentagon-backed militia, called the Syrian Democratic Forces and dominated by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), will continue to be involved in securing these oil fields, the official said.
The president did, however, suggest Wednesday he would keep troops in the small southwestern garrison of Al-Tanf, as well as across crucial oil fields once seized by Syrian insurgents and, later ISIS, before being claimed by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces.
"We've secured the oil and, therefore, a small number of U.S. troops will remain in the area, where they have the oil," Trump said at the White House. "And we're going to be protecting it, and we'll be deciding what we're going to do with it in the future."
...the Pentagon referred to the following comments made Monday by Defense Secretary Mark Esper.
"We have troops in towns in...northeast Syria that are located next to the oil fields. The troops in those towns are not in the present phase of withdrawal," Esper told a joint press conference at the Pentagon.
"This withdrawal [of U.S. forces] will take weeks, not days. Until that time, our forces will remain in the towns that are located near the oil fields. The purpose of those forces—a purpose of those forces, working with the SDF, is to deny access to those oil fields by ISIS," he added.
How do we get 30 Abrams tanks into landlocked E Syria ? It would take 30 C-17 flights & I'm not sure where you'd land 'em.
Permission AND overland distance. Typically you land armored vehicles at a port then move them forward via road or rail,
Comment from the CiC
Ah, no they have not.ISIS is under very, very strict lock and key, and the detention facilities are being strongly maintained. There were a few that got out — a small number, relatively speaking — and they’ve been largely recaptured.
Great, our global war on islamic terror is being faught by Turkey on our behalf.We also expect Turkey to abide by its commitment regarding ISIS. As a backup to the Kurds watching over them, should something happen, Turkey is there to grab them.
Fighters by country - Russia/5000, Saudia Arabia/3244, Turkey/3000, France/Germany/UK/Spain/Italy/4057 total.Further, we implore European countries to come and take those fighters that the U.S. captured and bring them back to their countries for incarceration and for trial. Until just recently, Europe has been very unresponsive in doing what they should have been doing for a long time. Now is their chance to finally act.
IF it was soooo easy, why didn't Trump handle it?The last administration said, “Assad must go.” They could’ve easily produced that outcome, but they didn’t.
Millions of Kurds have been displaced, what's another 150,000 more, as a direct result of Trump.It enabled them to get out, to go and move, really, just a few miles in a slightly different direction.
As a direct result of Trump ? ...Assad, Erdogan & Putin had a bit to do with it.Millions of Kurds have been displaced, what's another 150,000 more, as a direct result of Trump.
That's what I said about Obama when he took our troops out "early".
Only the SDF fighters need to move below the 6 mile border patrol zone (except for the 75 mi x 25 mi Arab majority enclave).Trinity wrote: ↑Thu Oct 24, 2019 12:11 pm “The US president just told the Kurdish people to uproot from their homeland - while under fire in a war he approved - and move to the "oil region," a hostile, mostly desert area with an Arab population, where Kurds are NOT welcome and have never lived.”
NBC News Richard Engel.
I'm not getting sucked into another false choice vortex.
Trump said they are coming home, all the IS fighters have been captured and Turkey is now guarding them.old salt wrote: ↑Thu Oct 24, 2019 12:50 pmI'm not getting sucked into another false choice vortex.
In Syria, we took out our Border Patrol peacekeepers.
We're leaving a Residual Force to fight IS (where they actually are)
& to block the highway to Iran.
We'll still be overhead with air support.
BHO wouldn't even send drones to resist the IS JV invasion of Iraq,
or resupply Iraq's Hellfire missiles.
.. ...try to have an adult conversation.foreverlax wrote: ↑Thu Oct 24, 2019 1:06 pmTrump said they are coming home, all the IS fighters have been captured and Turkey is now guarding them.old salt wrote: ↑Thu Oct 24, 2019 12:50 pmI'm not getting sucked into another false choice vortex.
In Syria, we took out our Border Patrol peacekeepers.
We're leaving a Residual Force to fight IS (where they actually are)
& to block the highway to Iran.
We'll still be overhead with air support.
BHO wouldn't even send drones to resist the IS JV invasion of Iraq,
or resupply Iraq's Hellfire missiles.
It all worked out as he planned.
So a "false choice vortex" is your explanation for your hypocrisy?
A factual grain of salt, to be taken with Newsweek's oil fields battle plan.old salt wrote: ↑Wed Oct 23, 2019 11:45 pm Putin's the winner. His prize = Syria.
I say again : Our withdrawal from Syria was inevitable
...but on our way out, our battle plan to sieze Syria's oil fields for our SDF allies.
This will be quite a logistical feat -- how do we get 30 tanks there ?
How many of the Kurds newly aroused supporters in Congress & the MSM will rally to the cause when Trump floats the idea of sending in the tanks?https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-us-h ... al-1467350
A senior Pentagon official told Newsweek Wednesday that the United States is seeking—pending White House approval—to deploy half of an Army armored brigade combat team battalion that includes as many as 30 Abrams tanks alongside personnel to eastern Syria, where lucrative oil fields are under the control of a mostly Kurdish force involved in the U.S.-led fight against the Islamic State militant group (ISIS). The Pentagon-backed militia, called the Syrian Democratic Forces and dominated by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), will continue to be involved in securing these oil fields, the official said.
The president did, however, suggest Wednesday he would keep troops in the small southwestern garrison of Al-Tanf, as well as across crucial oil fields once seized by Syrian insurgents and, later ISIS, before being claimed by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces.
"We've secured the oil and, therefore, a small number of U.S. troops will remain in the area, where they have the oil," Trump said at the White House. "And we're going to be protecting it, and we'll be deciding what we're going to do with it in the future."
...the Pentagon referred to the following comments made Monday by Defense Secretary Mark Esper.
"We have troops in towns in...northeast Syria that are located next to the oil fields. The troops in those towns are not in the present phase of withdrawal," Esper told a joint press conference at the Pentagon.
"This withdrawal [of U.S. forces] will take weeks, not days. Until that time, our forces will remain in the towns that are located near the oil fields. The purpose of those forces—a purpose of those forces, working with the SDF, is to deny access to those oil fields by ISIS," he added.
From Jamie McIntyre, today's @dailyondefense :
In a speech and discussion this morning at the German Marshall Fund, Esper took a far different tone than his boss about the Turkish invasion of northern Syria, and the expulsion of the Kurdish forces who had been fighting ISIS with backing from the U.S.
“Turkey put us all in a very terrible situation. I mean, I think, I think the incursion was unwarranted. I think President Erdogan was fixated on making this incursion for one reason or another,” Esper said. “The U S decision to withdraw less than 50 soldiers from the zone of attack was made after it was very clear to us that Erdogan had made the decision to come across the border.”
US COULD NOT HAVE STOPPED TURKEY: Esper insisted that he had no choice but to pull U.S. troops back, and rejected criticism that keeping American forces in place, or threatening Turkey, would have prevented the assault on the Kurds.
“I was not about to put less than 50 U.S. soldiers in-between a 15,000-plus man Turkish army preceded by Turkish militia and jeopardize the lives of our young service members,” he said during the q-and-a session.
“So everybody has said, well, you could have threatened them with aircraft or you could have just kept them there in place. If I'd done that, I may be in a situation today trying to explain to the American people why I sacrificed American soldiers for that,” Esper argued. “I'm not about to throw up aircraft, and suggest that I'm going to strike a NATO ally because that's just not feasible. We'd be having a different discussion today about the future of alliance if that had happened.”
NOBODY LIKES ISIS: Asked about ceding control of the 20-mile wide border region to Turkey and Russia, Esper stressed the U.S. would seek to continue to work with the Syrian Democratic Forces in other parts of Syria.
“Our partnership with the SDF, which was a very good one and still is a very good one by the way, was about defeating ISIS,” Esper said. “Our commitment to the Kurds was not to help them establish an autonomous Kurdish state and to defend them against Turkey. And that's just the cold hard facts.”
“Look, nobody in the region likes ISIS. We don't like ISIS. Europeans don't like ISIS. Turkey doesn't like ISIS. Syria doesn't like ISIS. Russia doesn't like ISIS, there are probably parts of ISIS that doesn't like ISIS,” he continued “I think there's a lot of us have the shared mutual interest of making sure that ISIS doesn't resurge and become the threat that it was a few years ago.”
Respectfully, it's too late. You blamed---multiple times----Obama for the State of Affairs in the Middle East, rather than the leaders and people in the Middle East who are causing all the problems. You blamed a speech multiple times.