It's misguided on so many levels. The U.S. hasn't trained rebels in a long time. Are our efforts likely to succeed? How is Obama going to vet the "moderate" rebels? For one thing, these groups switch alliances all the time. For another, Syria's battle has been going on for three years. Aren't we a little late to the party?
The Wall St Journal brings up another point: where is this training going to take place? Some say Jordan, but there are indications Jordan may want no part of it. The Journal also points out even if Congress passes the request, it will be 6 to 8 months before the training starts. By then, the Middle East will either be a Caliphate state, or someone else will have taken ISIS out.
Our Government has a very short memory, which is too bad, since history has a tendency to repeat itself. Not only was the War in Iraq a mistake, so was the first Gulf war.
The writing is on the wall. Iraq is history. This is like a deja vu to the fall of Saigon.
We should just stay out of it. Too bad we can't get an up or down vote by taxpayers on this funding request. Or have Congress tack a "Gitmo" rider onto the pending overseas funding bill that prevents any funds from being used to provide military training, equipment or secret ops to countries in the Middle East (and Africa.)
Since that's not possible, and Congress is likely to approve, how about finding a creative way to fund this foolhardiness that doesn't touch taxpayer dollars? We could legalize and tax all drugs and let the cartels foot the bill. Or we could disband the DEA -- with the savings, we could pay the $500 million and have $1.5 billion left over.
Except we should all know by now that the $500 million won't be the end of our spending, it will just be the beginning. In order to "vet" the groups, the U.S. will want to do "intelligence." That's another small fortune. And then, once we're "in", the U.S. is likely to feel comfortable moving on to air strikes.
There's also the question of how the non-moderate, militant groups will feel about our butting in -- from ISIS to AQAP and everywhere else in that region of the world. Our getting further involved will only fuel extremist hatred of us. Right now, the U.S. is not in ISIS's cross-hairs. And while they don't have the capability to run roughshod here like they have in Iraq, once we intervene and choose sides, they may ramp up their internet recruitment efforts in the U.S., looking for "lone wolf" homegrown terrorists to cause major damage. Or at least that's what our elected officials will tell us, in order to justify even more intrusive domestic surveillance programs. Our government has already encroached way too far on our civil liberties. Enough is enough.
If we have $500 million sitting around, let's use it for health care, education and to protect social security here at home. It's time we got our priorities straight.
