The above two videos are in reference to this report that 250 more special forces are going to be deployed to Syria. The first video is just amazing. John Kirby, a State Department spokesman, just looked utterly lost while in a press conference talking about this issue. The amount of double-speak there was just amazing. Sure, these special forces, most likely Green Berets, aren't going to have a primary mission of combat, but they are still going to be in harms way and will have to defend themselves. By any real standard that is "boots on the ground".
It was just crazy to see Kirby sweat over the reporters questions. He obviously knew that troops were getting deployed and it made it look like Obama was breaking his promise to not deploy ground troops to Syria. So he lied to the faces of the reporters that were covering the conference. It's rare to catch a government official in such an obvious lie. That alone made these two videos worth showing.
As for the deployment itself, it's practically worthless. The Green Berets are pretty good at what they do and are effective at training soldiers, but that's not what the problem is in Syria right now. The real problem is that there simply aren't enough recruits available that will fight under the conditions that the Obama administration wants. We want troops to fight ISIS but who will also not fight Bashar al-Assad's government. There are very few people who will sign up for that fight. And keep in mind that previous efforts to train troops to fight in Syria have been massive failures. We wasted millions of dollars on a truly tiny amount of soldiers that threw down their weapons and ran when faced with resistance.
The good news is that some of these forces will be helping the Kurds. But even that is problematic. I am sure the Kurds will fight and will blunt any ISIS offensives against them. I also am sure that they are not going to be the key to defeating ISIS in Syria. The problem with the Kurds is that they are very unwilling to attack outside of their homelands. The Kurds are great fighters and have been our best ally in the region by far, but I just can't see them taking the fight to Raqqa. So, again, these special forces will most likely not accomplish much of anything.
Perhaps it is a bit unfair to pick on Barack Obama for flip-flopping here. After all, every politician has done the same thing. My main problem with it is that he won't just cop to it. Instead he sends John Kirby at the State Department to deliberately bend the truth until reality supposedly matches what Obama wants to say. Which is that he really isn't, trust me guys, sending combat troops to Syria. I guess if you torture the truth enough and look at it in a warped way he has a point, but damn if it isn't dishonest. Our troops are still being put in harms way. Just once I would like a politician to say, "yep, I changed my mind, still doing it anyways".
I mean, I don't even disagree with this deployment! I don't think it will accomplish much of anything, but there is a chance it will help against the fight against ISIS. If it does then it will be worth it. But that's not the argument that is being made. The Obama administration, once again, is saying one thing and doing another. And I, for one, am sick of it...
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