| Submit your comments on this article |
| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| U.S. Says Syria Safe Zone Would Require 'Combat Mission' |
| 2015-05-07 |
| [AnNahar] Creating a humanitarian safe zone in Syria would entail a "major combat mission" requiring U.S. troops to fight Islamist jihadists and the Damascus regime, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter told politicians on Wednesday. ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... has long called for a safe area to be set up along the Syrian-Turkish border to protect civilians but President Barack Obama I've now been in 57 states -- I think one left to go... 's administration has yet to endorse the idea. Carter emphasized the challenges involved in establishing a buffer zone, and warned that other regional governments might not be ready to contribute to the effort. "We would need to fight to create such a space and then fight to keep such a space and that's why it's a difficult thing to contemplate," Carter told members of the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee. Carter was asked about the option by Senator Dick Durbin ...Senator-for-Life from Illinois and Democratic Party Whip. In April 2006, Time magazine identified Durbin as one of America's 10 Best Senators,so what's that tell you? He was the first United States Senator to support the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama, then the junior senator from Illinois.... , one of four senators to send a recent letter to Obama calling for setting up a safe area in Syria. "Though this may not be a genocide by classic legal definition, it is the humanitarian crisis of our time ... with no end in sight," Durbin said. Carter said such a safe zone would be "contested" by the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... group and other murderous Moslems on the one hand and the Syrian regime's forces on the other. The "practicalities" would be "significant," he said. The U.S. military's top-ranking officer, General Martin Dempsey, said American commanders have drawn up contingency plans for a safe zone in consultation with their Turkish counterparts. "We've been planning for such a contingency for some time," Dempsey told the same hearing. He said American forces were capable of carving out a buffer zone in Syria but it was a major political decision and would mean troops stationed elsewhere would not be available for other missions. "It's practical militarily but it would be a significant policy decision to do so," Dempsey said. He also said that for "this to be practical and effective, it would have to involve regional partners." |
| Posted by:trailing wife |