If you want to degrade and defeat the Islamic State and the al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, and the Khorasan group, the al-Qaeda element… in northern Syria, you are going to have to have a ground force.
Seriously, are we even talking about putting soldiers on the ground in Syria? This is reckless and stupid beyond belief.
When we put soldiers in Afghanistan, at least we had the cooperation of the anemic government and supposedly its people, and we had one clearly defined enemy.
When we invaded Iraq, we had a clear objective of toppling the dictator, and then “build a nation on the principles of democracy.” A fairly clear enemy and mission.
Look how successful we have been in these two nations in the last 14 and 12 years! We spent more than a trillion dollars, the countries are demolished and we’re no closer to stable government than before. However, there are a LOT MORE TERRORISTS now in both of those countries. They are petri dishes of terrorism.
We have failed miserably.
The American tax payer got nothing out of those initiatives. The country paid dearly. Thousands of American soldiers died. Tens of thousands were maimed for life. Families and lives were destroyed.
All. For. Nothing.
And now, we’re seriously thinking about doing this again? We are putting soldiers into another Middle Eastern country, into an ongoing conflict, where we can’t even figure out who exactly the enemy is and what we’re trying to get done there! And the Russians are already stirring that pot, too? What’s America got to do with it?
Don’t we ever learn?