Posted on 03/14/2021 6:38:59 PM PDT by mrsmith
During a White House briefing early last month, the C.I.A. director, Mike Pompeo, recommended to President Trump that he shut down a four-year-old effort to arm and train Syrian rebels. The president swiftly ended the program.
The rebel army was by then a shell, hollowed out by more than a year of bombing by Russian planes and confined to ever-shrinking patches of Syria that government troops had not reconquered. Critics in Congress had complained for years about the costs — more than $1 billion over the life of the program — and reports that some of the C.I.A.-supplied weapons had ended up in the hands of a rebel group tied to Al Qaeda further sapped political support for the program.
While critics of Mr. Trump have argued that he ended the program to curry favor with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, there were in fact dim views of the effort in both the Trump and Obama White Houses — a rare confluence of opinion on national security policy...
(Excerpt) Read more at smmsyria.com ...
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Best tweeter on the ME: https://twitter.com/NotWoofers
Last month?
I never figured that one out LOL!
An error or the article was written long before it was published.
“Last month?”
“During an interview with The Wall Street Journal last month” (which was dated July 25, 2017)
Trump/Pompeo cut off the train and equip to those Sunni groups early on, and shifted to the more reliable Kurds.
Thanks, that explains it.
Yeah, Trump turned to the Kurds- a solid decision. Obama vacillated, accomplishing nothing good.
I’m expecting action in the oil fields next (seeing action now in the oil markets). Believe Biden will offer enemies an easy target there to get an attack, what he does after the attack I can’t guess. Probably something more stupid and costly than I can imagine.
Those oil fields are paying for the Kurds’ efforts.
Any news on Afrin? I don’t see much.
Dating on this posting is ... non-existent at the site posted. It could not have been “last month” with Pompeo as head of CIA, certainly. Pompeo was head of clowns in action January 2017 to April 2018-— long enough to clean out all the hitlery crapola and move on to State Dept.
What is said is true— we dropped the idiotic “moderate rebels of Syria” scam and eliminated ISIS in the process (oh, sorry ISIL... L for Levant the favorite way obamaumao named them- Levant being.. Turkey and Erdogan’s anti-Saud Caliphate that will never happen). Got out of this and defeated them, and russians stymied by it all even with Bashir Assad. Game. set. match.
Now the idiot JoeBama continues tries to revive the idiotic money pot for the clowns in action brennan (part II). Not gonna work- thanks to the Abraham Accords. They have lost any chance of keeping this up in syria. And any more gunrunning to/through the Turks.
“What is said is true”
Yeah, was impressed by the article (Brennan gets a fair mention too!) despite the source’s weak credentials.
The source is Syria-friendly but not crazily so.
Gotta take ME info where one finds it...
“Mike Pompeo, recommended to President Trump that he shut down a four-year-old effort to arm and train Syrian rebels. The president swiftly ended the program. The rebel army was by then a shell, hollowed out by more than a year of bombing by Russian planes”.
A shameful chapter in US history. WE supported ISIS/FSA wahabbists, and thankfully jets with red stars saved Syria from a jihadi/Christian killing fate.
We literally switched sides in the war on terror.
“We literally switched sides in the war on terror.”
Don’t think that’s fair or accurate.
The Kurds were a better ally, as Trump realized.
But even the Obama admin saw that this operation was helping ISIS.
It’s a mess there.
Well stated. The American people have zero interest in this CIA/DOD/Neocon adventure on behalf of the Saudis. They literally created ISIS. And it’s idiotic to pretend the rebels, ISIS, FSA, AL Nusra etc are not all the same. The personnel and weapons flow back and forth between them as they need.
Syria is where the USA literally switched sides in the war on terror. And that depraved act created a great excuse for Iran to flood in to help Assad. So there we were, with our F-16s flying along scowling at Russian bombers dropping bombs on the people blowing up Palmyra. We might as well paint an ISIS flag on the tailfin.
It is fair, and it is accurate. We created and succored the entire movement that lead to the civil war. It was Hillary’s and McCain’s signature project. We provided the FSA tow missiles. They started attacking the Syrian Army and handed over the weapons to ISIS.
And Trump didn’t “realize” that about Kurds. Kurds are just another rebel force. Trump was resisted by the CIA/DOD who wanted to persist in their goal, and more or less they insubordinately resisted his -every- move to pull out of Syria completely. To their shame as military men, they even refused to obey several clear orders by playing games “reclassifying” personnel into other tasks that they tricked him into allowing.
The DC DOD/CIA party loves the Syrian war. Americans don’t care.
ah.
You’re reduced to making up narratives to support your view- like the media LOL!
Yeah, Trump had a lot of resistance, but a President has real power.
I’ve a higher opinion of the Kurds, but it’s significant that they got the revenue of the oil extraction.
Assuming this article is accurate, I want to know if we gave the Kurds powerful anti-Aircraft missiles (like the Stingers of Afghanistan) to cripple the Russian jets (bombers fly higher and are often out of range of shoulder-fired missiles).
According to what I read about the power of the Stingers to turn the tide against the Soviet Union aircraft (helicopters for Speznazt troops, jets, bombers and supply planes), the reds lost upwards of 65 planes and most pilots to these missiles (plus the Mujahedin may have had British Blowpipe shoulder-fired AA missiles.
From several sources including people I knew who went into Afghanistan as reporters, this single weapons system stopped the Soviets in their tracks and led to the decision to slowly withdraw because they knew they couldn’t resupply their troops, put Speznatz troops on the tops of mountains above the Afghan fighters below, and take out key rebel weapons positions and systems.
I wonder if this is happening in Syria re the Kurds versus the Turks, Russians, Syrians, etc. or did in the past. I just haven’t found any information on this issue.
“Any news on Afrin? I don’t see much.”
Turkey is de facto annexing it. The Turkish post office has established Turkish zip codes for it. The Sunni jihadis that worked as surrogate militia for the Turks against Assad, are now hired as civil servants administering the local Government, and as the local police.
A bunch of militant Sunnis from other areas in Syria, as well as International jihadis, and their families, have been settled in Afrin by the Turkish occupation forces - often into the homes of the native Kurds, who fled, or were forced out, in a kind of Ethnic/Sectarian cleansing operation.
From Turkish-controlled Afrin, the Turkish Army intermittently bombards the Kurdish villages just outside of their control with artillery. It seems their desire is to expand their territory further, but it was mostly stymied during the Trump Administration (except for a strip they took along the border, East of the Euphrates River, around Ain Issa (North of Raqqa).
Now that the pro-jihadi/Muslim Brotherhood/Erdogan Obama Administration is effectively back in charge, I’d expect the battle lines to start shifting again this Summer.
“it’s idiotic to pretend the rebels, ISIS, FSA, AL Nusra etc are not all the same.”
They all share the same ideology/religion/objectives, and only disagree about which of them will be in charge.
“I want to know if we gave the Kurds powerful anti-Aircraft missiles (like the Stingers of Afghanistan) to cripple the Russian jets”
No, we did not.
The Kurds, although independence-minded are more or less aligned with the Assad Regime and their Russian supporters, against the Turks. In the long run, without endless expensive American subsidies and security assistance, the Kurds need to remain in Syria, for protection against the Turks. It is a tough neighborhood.
In some of the Kurdish controlled areas, American Patrols withdrew, and the Russians sent Military forces in to assume the duties - preventing further Turkish/jihadi militia expansion. We actually ran joint patrols with the Russians, and handed over responsibility like a change of shifts, in the area around Manbij.
The Assad Regime would like to have full dictatorial control over the Kurdish areas, like they did before the Civil War, but as a practical matter, they have to deal with the Kurds to fight their common enemies - ISIS, al Nusra, the assorted jihadi militias, and the Turkish Military.
Erdoo doo
Great Evil stalks. He promotes death and misery.
It says: “smmsyria / 6 days ago”
Article below it says:
“February 25, 2021 in Hasakah.”
Others below say 2019 and 2020
I don’t recognize the source.
Found this with same title:
Behind the Sudden Death of a $1 Billion Secret C.I.A. War in Syria
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/world/middleeast/cia-syria-rebel-arm-train-trump.html
By Mark Mazzetti, Adam Goldman and Michael S. Schmidt
Aug. 2, 2017
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