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2021-01-26 Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Large US military convoy enters Syria from neighboring Iraq

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Posted by trailing wife 2021-01-26 00:11|| || Front Page|| [16 views ] Top

#1 This was the effort of Deep State that lied to Trump on troop withdraws?

Why lose lives defending people who have never known democracy while losing the democracy at home?

Posted by Procopius2k 2021-01-26 07:48|| 2021-01-26 07:48|| Front Page Top

#2 It's not about democracy, P2K. You know that. It's all about power. Biden will not hesitate to get us into another war.

Posted by Abu Uluque 2021-01-26 11:27|| 2021-01-26 11:27|| Front Page Top

#3 Can anyone help me out understand how to define victory or national interest for the US in Syria? Surely it has to be more than JoJo remembering that Obama thought something or other about it? Climate change? Xi likes the idea? AOC wants a beach house? Anyone?

Posted by NoMoreBS 2021-01-26 11:57|| 2021-01-26 11:57|| Front Page Top

#4 I believe we had bases near/among the Kurds, facing the Turkish expansion, and on the Jordanian border. I seem to recall they closed the one next to Jordan, but had not given up guarding the oil wells supplying the Kurds with income, and as I recall we’ve been patrolling with the Turks to keep them at least nominally focussed on ISIS instead of continuing to expand into Kurdish territory — can anyone confirm or correct?

Posted by trailing wife 2021-01-26 12:03|| 2021-01-26 12:03|| Front Page Top

#5 /\ Foreign Policy Mag: U.S. Plan to Guard Syrian Oil Fields Sows Confusion.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Monday confirmed that President Donald Trump’s administration is considering maintaining a small force of U.S. troops in northeastern Syria near Kurdish-controlled oil fields, a risky proposal that caught many officials off guard after the president spent the last two weeks insisting that all U.S. forces in the area would return home.

Since Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from the border with Syria on Oct. 6, paving the way for a violent Turkish incursion that has killed scores of Kurdish fighters and civilians and displaced hundreds of thousands of residents, top Pentagon officials have pushed to leave a residual force of a few hundred troops in northeastern Syria to fight the Islamic State and maintain a relationship with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a senior U.S. administration official told Foreign Policy. Under the proposal, airstrikes against the militant group in Syria would continue from Iraq, the official said.

Originally, the internal Pentagon plan did not include any stipulations about U.S. troops guarding the oil fields in Kurdish-held territory, the official noted. Framing the proposal as a way to keep Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from controlling the oil was likely a way to make it more appealing to Trump, who has been pushing for troop withdrawals all year.

“That is probably to play POTUS,” the official said.

Trump late last week started tweeting about “securing the oil” in northern Syria, sowing confusion among analysts trying to sort out the consequences of the abrupt U.S. withdrawal from the country and abandonment of its former Kurdish allies. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham floated a similar idea over the weekend—that residual U.S. troops in Syria might serve to protect some oil fields, if not their former allies.

Posted by Besoeker 2021-01-26 12:13|| 2021-01-26 12:13|| Front Page Top

#6 I don't want to hear a damn thing about teachers (who refuse to show up for class, but expect to get paid anyway) buying pencils and paper out of their own pockets until the Foreign Adventure For Adventure's Sake™ is shut completely down.

Posted by M. Murcek 2021-01-26 12:22|| 2021-01-26 12:22|| Front Page Top

#7 agreed murcek

Posted by Chris 2021-01-26 13:42|| 2021-01-26 13:42|| Front Page Top

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