Reports since yesterday claim US-backed leader Anas Obaid has betrayed US & handed weapons to Jabhat al-Nusra #Syria pic.twitter.com/yTZqVT3CI0— Charles Lister (@Charles_Lister) September 22, 2015The Telegraph: US-trained Division 30 rebels 'betrayed US and hand weapons over to al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria'
Pentagon-trained rebels are reported to have betrayed US and handed weapons over to Jabhat al-Nusra immediately after entering Syria
Pentagon-trained rebels in Syria are reported to have betrayed their American backers and handed their weapons over to al-Qaeda in Syria immediately after re-entering the country.
Fighters with Division 30, the “moderate” rebel division favoured by the United States, surrendered to the al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra, a raft of sources claimed on Monday night.
Division 30 was the first faction whose fighters graduated from a US-led training programme in Turkey which aims to forge a force on the ground in Syria to fight against Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil).
WNU Editor: So after much fanfare that 75 U.S. trained and backed Syrian rebels had entered Syria on Sunday .... Report: 75 Fighters Trained By U.S.-Led Coalition Reportedly Enter Syria .... they then hand their weapons to Al Qaeda on Monday. You just cannot make this stuff up.
Not surprising.. Sunni rebels would much rather fight the regime alongside JaN rather than ignore it and fight IS for Obama. This debacle was unavoidable once the US agreed to train rebels but required them to concentrate on IS.
ReplyDeleteThe Whitehouses response is going to be a predictable....wasn't me points finger and a mention G.W.Bush
ReplyDelete"You just cannot make this stuff up." Actually you can and it should have been easily predicted. 1.) Al Qaeda and ISIS have captured territory and held it more efficiently than the US ever could have. As such, we would expect these individuals to gain whatever knowledge and skills the Americans have and augment it to their own and transfer this to either Al Qaeda/ISIS or Assad's forces. 2.) It's going to be much more profitable for an enterprising fighter to fight for either ISIS. Al Qaeda, or Assad. 3.) There are no "moderate" forces in Syria. There is only ISIS/Al Qaeda or the Russia/Syria/Iran and its various supporters.
ReplyDeleteBottom line is either Russia/Iran/Syria and its various allies win or ISIS/Al Qaeda wins. As it stands right now, either way America loses as all are enemies of America. Since there's little we can actually do to influence the outcome, I'd suggest America redeploy its forces in the Middle East away from the Middle East straight away.
As to who will win, since Assad has the backing of Russia the world's most capable military and Iran its hard to imagine how Assad could lose. As such, the US should be planning for this eventuality and act accordingly.
A policy calling for "Assad must go" or something like this was never going to work or be realistic anyway. As such, a more prudent policy to represent our interests would have been to 1.) stay out of it as we probably lose either way or 2.)try and find someway to assist the Russians with regard to this. While the Russians are unlikely to need our assistance or even request it, such an offer, if genuine, may have gone a long way towards securing better relations for us with the Russians. It may have even helped with the Iranians as well.
Is it to late for such an approach right now? It probably is in this case but we do definitely need to be looking at ways we can improve relations with Russia. It's imprudent to have hostile relations with the world's most powerful countries over an extended period of time.
From the very moment that foreign policy was staked on an unrealistic tenet that Assad could be removed, all the other results are easily predictable such as the betraying of our forces by the people they trained. I would have advised them of such the moment such a policy was suggested.
US leaders are either very, very stupid or ideologically blind. I suspect its a combination. While the removal of Assad may or may not be optimal, this is irrelevant as it is/was never going to happen as long as he/his government have the backing of Russia and Iran. For anyone to base policies around this is foolhardy at best.
Hopefully US leadership will change course. A good place to start would be to recognize the superior positions of Russia and China and accordingly. While this does not mean we should do everything they say or cheer like mad over everything they do, it would mean avoiding the pursuit of policies that will obviously inflame relations with them. This would certainly result in vast improvements to our security and economic situations.
They'll have turned over not only weapons, but who trained them, where they were trained, how they got into country, where they came into country, their plans, their meeting zones for resupply, etc, etc. It's easy to get on Obama's case (and I certainly will), but what about the lower level people implementing this program are they that bad? Who is in charge of vetting these people? Fantastic!
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ReplyDeleteB. Poster is on the money again.
Why can't anyone at Foreign Affairs in Ottawa have a brain too? A good friend will tell a friend when they're wrong. When it comes to the Middle East, the US has been wrong for quite some time.
Instead of the Hezbollah, Syria, Iran axis shattered, we just may see a new regional power block which includes Iraq and/or possibly a PKK led Kurdish state undergirded by Russian military power and Chinese investment. We may even witness revolutionary change in Turkey.
The nightmare they planned in Washington and Riyadh (endorsed by Ottawa) is nothing compared to the nightmare they're about to live.
Well this is a total shock, nobody could have saw this coming. No not half.
ReplyDeleteWe can only hope...
ReplyDeletehttp://atimes.com/2015/09/hopeful-signs-of-us-course-correction-on-syria/
As if the training of Afghan fighters was successful. The people running the show for the West are incompetent. Heck the Afghans did more to train the US relative to the pitfalls of training the enemy.
ReplyDeleteAnd the Kurds? The one group that want to fight ISIS, have proven their ability, and need help are left to rot.