The bogus-ness, it burns... Our military is either setting the stage for another long term commitment to the quagmire and/or they plan to demand combat boots on the ground to "successfully eliminate ISIL".
And getting rid of Assad is now part of the long term plan, now that we're back in.
More below.
I'm not sure what else to conclude from our military making these comments yesterday:
Pentagon officials downplayed the chances of last night’s airstrikes against Raqqa, the ISIS capital if Syria, having a serious impact on the group’s day-to-day operations, with Lt. Gen. William Mayville Jr. saying ISIS will quickly adapt to the air war and rebound from any losses suffered overnight.
“We have seen evidence that they have already done that,” Mayville confirmed. The strikes were the first on ISIS in Syria, after six weeks of airstrikes against the group in Iraq which have, similarly, yielded very little.
INDEED, last night’s strikes seem to just be the administration going through the motions, with no real expectation for a meaningful change on the ground, and the “rebels” this is supposed to be supporting a year away from being trained and ready.
A curious tact indeed. Pentagon officials appear to be saying the best air force in the world and our ships firing Tomahawk missiles
cannot seriously degrade, stop ISIL from doing what they have been doing.
if that's the case, I'm calling bullcrap. I'm supposed to believe our military was not watching the efforts of of ISIL to "regroup" via drones overhead, after opening up a serious can of whup-ass on them? we can't see what ISIL was doing after we bombed them?
Since we've already wasted Billions of dollars and several years "training" Iraqi troops after we invaded/occupied Iraq in 2003, only to see these "troops" flee Mosul when they heard ISIL was headed their way-- I'm more than skeptical the Pentagon now believes a second round of training will lead to Iraqi combat forces able to eliminate ISIL forces in Iraq.
I'm also skeptical regarding taking a year to train "moderate" rebels in Syria to fight ISIL there. These rebels have already been fighting for three years.
As I've stated elsewhere, it's only a matter of time until the Syrian army or air force, or ISIL forces do something stupid-- like shoot down a couple of our military aircraft. that throws open the door for our military demanding U.S. combat boots on the ground.
http://news.antiwar.com/...