Last night former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly he believes President Obama totally understands the situation in Syria and Iraq and will make “the right decisions”. A few hours later CNN reports the following headline:
(CNN LINK)
Think about this from a few different perspectives.
First, what message does this approach send to our allies or, even more importantly, to ISIS?
Second, let’s think about the practicality of the approach. All military analysts and administration officials agree that between 9,000 and 16,000 Kurdish fighters are currently trying to defend the city of Kobane (Kobani) in Syria from ISIS.
If they fail, they will die.
President Obama has sold the U.S. operation against ISIS in Syria on the premise we will train fighters, the “Syrian moderates”, to be the ground forces to fight. In advocating for this approach President Obama has set a goal of training and equipping 5,000 of these Syrian fighters within the next year and congress has appropriated $500 million.
Currently in Kobane the administration is willing to watch 10,000 “moderate” Kurkish Syrian fighters die, in order to train 5,000 “moderate” Syrians’ to take their place.
Anyone?
Lastly, consider Libya. We intervened in Libya, 2011, under the Obama Doctrine of a “Responsibility To Protect”, or R2P.
The “rebels” President Obama, Samantha Power, Susan Rice and Hillary Clinton were responsible for protecting were located in the Libyan city of Benghazi. They numbered around 9,000.
President Obama and team organized the entire U.N. and NATO coalition to defend those 9,000 Benghazi “rebels”, and took us to war in Libya on their behalf.
Would it help if the Kurds in Kobane changed their name to “rebels” also? Why would the same R2P principle not apply?
Four Questions the White House Correspondents Will Never Ask Josh Earnest:
#1. If Joe Biden was so sure Qatar was financing radical extremists, Jihadists, in Syria in 2012 and 2013, then why did the administration send the Gitmo 5 terrorists to Qatar in 2014?
#2. Why is President Obama willing to watch 10,000 Syrian “moderates”, the Kurds, die in Kobane – only to try and replace them with 5,000 more within a year? Why are the deaths of the Kobane fighters, against ISIS, no big deal – when the Benghazi fighters were worth going to war to defend?
#3. Where exactly is General John Allen, who is in charge of the “Syrian Campaign”, and what exactly is he doing ?
#4. When was the last time a “coalition member” conducted a military *event* in Syria? The UAE was the only nation to engage military force and they only flew ONE SORTIE on September 21st, since then nothing. So what exactly is this “Arab coalition” doing?
