The Pentagon's Syria debacle

[bemildred]

With all the U.S.-trained fighters dead, captured or missing and their leader in the hands of Al Qaeda, top U.S. commanders are scrambling this week to determine how to revive the half-billion dollar program to create a moderate Syrian army to fight the Islamic State.

The outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, who viewed the force as a critical element of the military strategy in both Syria and Iraq, is conferring with top Pentagon officials behind closed doors to figure out what options are left for what is widely considered a policy and military failure, according to senior defense officials.

"We are trying to learn from experience," Secretary of Defense Ash Carter said Wednesday, while acknowledging raising a rebel army is "hard to implement, particularly in a place like Syria, and so we’re going to learn and get better at it as time goes on."

But a year after Congress authorized the Syrian train and equip program, to the tune of $500 million, even Republican hawks are no longer willing to throw their support behind it — including some who think it should be scrapped altogether.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/obama-syria-new-syrian-force-213471

[TwilightGardener]

1. Sending a tiny band of 50-60 US-backed fighters into Syria--many of them basic trainee-level

fighters--without good ground support, was basically sentencing them to death or capture. Who made the decision to send them out to fight instead of waiting to build up more numbers?

[jakeXT]

2. Maybe the lesson to be learned is to not destabilze and destroy other countries ?