My take on it is that, yes, the Ft Hood units are going to the MFO in the Sinai, replacing the National Guard units this rotation that usually do it. I think the Syria deployment is BS *BUT* can't rule out anything with this idiot in office.
I thought that Bammy cancelled Bright Star this year because the Egypt military threw-out his buddy?
When the chickenincharge is a muzzie no telling what she, er, he will do..
Need to run this past my local person in charge of all things military to see if he has heard any buttlescutt..
He did cancel Bright Star, as far as an official exercise goes. However, were I POTUS and had an opportunity to deploy forces smack dab in the middle of potential crisis, I think I would too. Likely the Pentagon would advise it.
If we think about the region for a bit, Syria is only part of it. The Egyptians have been killing increasing numbers of bad boys in the Sinai, and I would not be surprised if a lot of them hadn’t come up from the eastern Sahel, which has been a major al-Qaeda area of interest.
The US would also be near Libya, if needed, also North Sudan and Somalia. Pretty close to Saudi and the UAE.
And then, thinking back to Syria, they can also cover Lebanon and watch the Suez canal.
Yep, all else being equal, I don’t think having troops there is a particularly bad idea.