Obama Taps Star General to Build Syrian Rebel Army to Fight ISIS

[flamingdem]

Source: Daily Beast

Gen. Michael Nagata is promising to build a new force to destroy ISIS, but lawmakers worry he has been given an impossible mission.

As lawmakers prepared to take a risky and fateful vote on Obama’s plan to train and equip the Syrian rebels, the man who assured them it could be done was Gen. Michael Nagata, Obama’s point man for the mission to build an ISIS-killing army in Syria.

There are skeptics both inside and outside the government who doubt Obama’s new plan to arm the Syrian rebels can work. First of all, the administration has said for years that the moderate opposition can’t be a reliable partner for the United States in Syria. Only last month, Obama said that the rag-tag bunch of “former doctors, farmers, and pharmacists” could never win their civil war and the whole idea that arming them earlier would have made a difference has “always been a fantasy.”

Then Obama made a complete reversal, announced that portions of the Free Syrian Army were now vetted enough to help the U.S. fight against ISIS, and called on Congress to vote to give him authority train and arm them. Congress went along, but only after hearing from Nagata, who briefed both House and Senate members and staffers in classified settings and told them how he would get it done. Those briefed said they were impressed by the General but remained concerned Obama’s plan was fatally flawed.



Read more: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/09/21/obama-taps-star-general-to-build-syrian-rebel-army-to-fight-isis.html

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Good luck to General Nagata, I think he may need it.

[freshwest]

1. Yeah, McCain doesn't like it. Let's send him over to bloviate ISIS to death...

[flamingdem]

2. I like that idea

Dempsey put him in his place but didn't realize the creative use of McGrump in Syria.

[Ex Lurker]

3. Nagata commanded Delta Force from 2005-2008

at the height of the Iraq counterinsurgency.

[flamingdem]

4. He sounds like the right man for the job

and he's been up to his neck in the mess before - and is willing to return.

[jakeXT]

5. Once they win or chase away ISIS, who'll be next ?

[tomm2thumbs]

6. because it worked so well last time

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/155236.stm

Turned against the US

After the Soviet withdrawal, the "Arab Afghans", as Bin Laden's faction came to be called, turned their fire against the US and its allies in the Middle East. The US State Department calls him "one of the most significant sponsors of Islamic extremist activities in the world today". According to the US, Bin Laden was involved in at least three major attacks - the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 1996 killing of 19 US soldiers in Saudi Arabia, and the 1998 bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

[quadrature]

7. will Obamaforce rebels wear uniforms? ... nt

[CJCRANE]

9. Good question. Also, IIRC, in one of the movies

didn't some of the good guys suddenly flip round and become the bad guys?

[Uncle Joe]

8. I hope he is successful.

Thanks for the thread, flamingdem.

[Comrade Grumpy]

10. This is misguided policy. Obama was right a couple of months ago...

...when he said that thinking that arming the "good" rebels would make a difference was "a fantasy."

This is throwing fuel on the flames.

[Peregrine Took]

11. I heard a BBC guest say that, in ancient Greece when a statesman wanted the country to go to war....

he had to lead the troops into battle himself - right in the front of the line - no hiding in the rear.

I love that idea.

[ballyhoo]

12. Oh, yes, let's throw Nagata, who was responsible for

the deaths of countless Iraqis into the mess. Yeah, man, that will work.