ELECTED IN PART ON A PROMISE to extract U.S. troops from foreign wars, the incumbent at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is pushing to send U.S. troops to fight Muslims in the Middle East.
It's stupid.
It's a lose-lose situation.
And POTUS is insisting that Congress share the blame for his folly.
It's one thing to supply weaponry to U.S. allies - that does NOT mean anyone on the ground in Syria/Lebanon - but it is another matter entirely to put "boots on the ground."
REMEMBER AFGHANISTAN? Apparently POTUS is too politically and militarily naïve to know what happened to the weapons the U.S. provided the Taliban to oust the Soviets. Those weapons did their job on the Russians, and then the Taliban turned the weapons on us - and still uses them today to kill U.S. soldiers and civilians in Afghanistan.
Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás was correct
Jordan, to its credit, is fighting Daesh, a/k/a ISIL or ISIS or simply Islamist State, but it seems to be the ONLY Arab/Muslim country to be doing anything against the Islamic crazies.
Egypt has its military hands full dealing with Hamas and Gaza.
It is a given that as important as air power has proven to be, it cannot replace infantry when it comes to taking and holding territory. Ditto for sea power; the navies can pulverize targets with their missiles, but they can't hold a position.
These are the nations most threatened by Daesh. The League has 23 members
The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation has 57 member states, including the 23 Arab League members.
Afghanistan Albania Algeria (AL) Azerbaijan Bahrain (AL) Bangladesh Benin Brunei Burkina Faso Cameroon Chad Comoros (AL) Djibouti (AL) Egypt (AL) Gabon Gambia, The Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Indonesia Iran Iraq (AL) Ivory Coast Jordan (AL) Kazakhstan Kuwait (AL) Kyrgyzstan Lebanon (AL) Libya (AL) Malaysia Maldives Mali Mauritania (AL) Morocco (AL) Mozambique Niger Nigeria Oman (AL) Pakistan Palestine Auth. (AL) Qatar (AL) Saudi Arabia (AL) Senegal Sierra Leone Somalia (AL) Sudan (AL) Suriname Syria (AL) Tajikistan Togo Tunisia (AL) Turkey Turkmenistan Uganda UAE (AL) Uzbekistan Yemen (AL)
Admittedly Daesh IS a threat to North America but it is NOT the job of the U.S. military to once again go into foreign combat for a people who will turn against us.
Let members of the Islamist organizations - the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and the Arab League - put boots on the ground. (Iran already HAS boots on the ground fighting alongside Daesh in Syria and Hezbollah in Syria's Lebanon province. Turkey, like Iran, cannot be expected to act against Daesh since indications are that it tacitly supports the organization.
Israel must stay out of the intra-Islam conflict; for it, like the U.S., would be a lose-lose situation, even if its sympathies lie with neighbors Jordan and Egypt.
Obama - and any Senator and Representative who goes along with POTUS - is a fool to think that U.S. boots on the ground will do anything other than increase headstones in our military cemeteries.
If we MUST have a presence in the region, let it be U.S. light weapons and medical supplies. Jordan, Egypt (which has its own internal problems), Saudia all have arsenals of U.S. provided weaponry; that should be sufficient to counter Daesh.
I am not an isolationist, but this intra-Islam war is, unlike the World Wars, no place to send U.S. troops.
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