Free Republic

... First, the history. Although by 1944 the war’s outcome was never in doubt, if all efforts failed the Soviet Army would eventually have crushed the Reich by itself. Victory at that point was a national and industrial effort, and would belong to the countries with the most steel plants and masses of citizens under arms. Midway was different. It was not a national effort but instead a battle of individuals, a rickety shootout by a few highly trained people under extremely confused conditions, and — incredibly — the underdog won. There’s no reason the United States, with a second-string...

U.S. officials report that more than 1,000 foreign fighters are streaming into Syria each month as a United Nations report says that the terrorist influx has reached an "unprecedented scale." According to the new U.N. report, a lot more terrorist boots are on the ground these days as an "unbelievably small" — to use Secretary of State John Kerry's phrase — air campaign, which has taken months to do what should have been done in a day, has failed to achieve the administration's proclaimed goal: to "degrade and destroy" the Islamic State. More than 15,000 foreign fighters from as many...

BEIRUT — The Obama administration’s Syria strategy suffered a major setback Sunday after fighters linked to al-Qaeda routed U.S.-backed rebels from their main northern strongholds, capturing significant quantities of weaponry, triggering widespread defections and ending hopes that Washington will readily find Syrian partners in its war against the Islamic State. Moderate rebels who had been armed and trained by the United States either surrendered or defected to the extremists as the Jabhat al-Nusra group, affiliated with al-Qaeda, swept through the towns and villages the moderates controlled in the northern province of Idlib, in what appeared to be a concerted push...

Syrian Rebels Armed And Trained By US Surrender To al-Qaeda Moderate rebels in Syria that the US have armed and trained to fight jihadists have surrendered to al-Qaeda By Ruth Sherlock, 02 Nov 2014 Two of the main rebel groups receiving weapons from the United States to fight both the regime and jihadist groups in Syria have surrendered to al-Qaeda. The US and its allies were relying on Harakat Hazm and the Syrian Revolutionary Front to become part of a ground force that would attack the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil). For the last six months the...

Baghdad (AFP) - The Islamic State group has carried out a fresh wave of mass killings, officials said Sunday, executing more than 200 members of an Iraqi tribe which took up arms against the jihadists. Women and children were said to be among scores of Albu Nimr tribespeople executed over the past 10 days in western Iraq's Anbar province. Reports of the killings came with the country on edge as hundreds of thousands of Shiites prepare to travel to shrine city Karbala this week for a major annual pilgrimage. IS, a Sunni extremist group that has seized large parts of...

A Halfhearted U.S. War Effort In The Middle East ANDREW J. BACEVICH. If victory is worth a vastly greater expenditure of lives and treasure, let out all the stops The last 20 years, the U.S. persistently tried to fight wars on the cheap A common thread connects U.S. military operations of the last 20 or more years: We've persistently tried to fight them on the cheap. In gauging the requirements of a prospective campaign, “What do we need to win?” has repeatedly taken a back seat to “What's the minimum we can get by with?” The Pentagon calls the result...

For months, the White House resisted calls by concerned observers to intervene in the conflict in Iraq and Syria where the Islamic State was capturing territory and massacring locals. Only after it appeared likely that the ancient Yazidi minority would be exterminated by ISIS fighters did the United States consent to intervene in Iraq. Similarly, America and its coalition allies attacked ISIS in Syria only when it seemed likely that the al-Qaeda affiliated Khorasan Group was plotting imminent attacks. This week, however, we learn that the Pentagon has effectively failed to achieve either the objective of preventing massacres in...

Top military leaders in the Pentagon and in the field are growing increasingly frustrated by the tight constraints the White House has placed on the plans to fight ISIS and train a new Syrian rebel army. As the American-led battle against ISIS stretches into its fourth month, the generals and Pentagon officials leading the air campaign and preparing to train Syrian rebels are working under strict White House orders to keep the war contained within policy limits. The National Security Council has given precise instructions on which rebels can be engaged, who can be trained, and what exactly those fighters...

The Pentagon brass placed in charge of implementing Obama’s war against ISIS are getting fed up with the short leash the White House put them on. Top military leaders in the Pentagon and in the field are growing increasingly frustrated by the tight constraints the White House has placed on the plans to fight ISIS and train a new Syrian rebel army. As the American-led battle against ISIS stretches into its fourth month, the generals and Pentagon officials leading the air campaign and preparing to train Syrian rebels are working under strict White House orders to keep the war contained...