Newfie wrote:That's assuming the Prez did not approve of it.
Cid_Yama wrote:What we have here is a mutinous act. If I were the Russians I'd be concerned whether the US President has control over his military.
AgentR11 wrote: we don't need to do very much to insure the Russians can't achieve their objective of an intact Syria fully under control of Damascus with permanent leases on one or more Med. facing bases (Latakia, Tartus).
Cid_Yama wrote:The US can't claim it was a mistake. The Syrians they attacked were in the Syrian Army Base at Deir ez-Zor.
They attacked the Army Base, not just some Syrian soldiers in some undefined location. This was done deliberately, to try to undermine the cooperation deal just signed. The Pentagon has been opposed to it all along as well as the Secretary of Defense.
What we have here is a mutinous act. If I were the Russians I'd be concerned whether the US President has control over his military.
Plantagenet wrote:????....Why do we want to keep the war going in Syria?
Why all the surprise when Obama escalates things a bit by having US forces directly attack the Syrian government forces
On September 9, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry announced a new plan on Syria, which stipulates a ceasefire that came into force on Monday.
On Friday, planned UN Security Council's consultations on Syria were canceled at the request of the United States and Russia. The Security Council reportedly wanted to know details of the US-Russia agreement on Syria. According to Russia’s permanent representative to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin, the meeting has been canceled because the United States was not ready to share the documents with the members of the Security Council.
Later in the day, Lavrov told Kerry in a phone call that the entire package of the US-Russia agreements on Syria should be made public. However, US State Department spokesperson John Kirby stated in a briefing on Friday that the United States was still not prepared to publicly release the details of the US-Russia negotiated Syria agreement.
A ceasefire agreement signed by Moscow and Washington in Geneva on September 10 is a sign that Barack Obama wants to ease tensions in Syria even if this plays in the hands of Russia and Iran.
The reason is the lack of an alternative to the peaceful settlement to the conflict.
"What's the alternative? The alternative is to allow us to go from 450,000 people who've been slaughtered to how many thousands more? That Aleppo gets completely overrun? That the Russians and Assad simply bomb indiscriminately for days to come, and we sit there and do nothing? That's the alternative to trying to get this done, if America is not going to go in with their troops – and America's made the decision we're not going in with our troops. And the president's made that decision," State Secretary John Kerry told NPR Radio last week.
This is not to say that the breakthrough ceasefire deal unveiled on September 9 will necessarily crumble. US President Barack Obama, according to Lukyanov, is interested in making the agreement work since he does not want to leave the war-torn country "in a complete deadlock."
"I think that Kerry is determined to reach an agreement [with Russia] and enjoys the president's backing. But the Pentagon has a different point of view," he added.
Rumors that the Pentagon and the State Department did not see eye to eye on the Syrian deal surfaced last week, with US defense officials particularly wary of the military cooperation aspect of the deal.
"That mistrust resides most deeply in [Secretary of Defense Ashton] Carter, who officials familiar with the Russia negotiations said almost single-handedly delayed Friday's final agreement with his repeated questions during the conference call" with John Kerry, the Washington Post reported.
Cid_Yama wrote:Obama does not want the Syrian War as part of his legacy.
Cid_Yama wrote: He wants out before the end of his term, so it doesn't become 'Obama's War'.
Cid_Yama wrote:The Pentagon is still fighting a war that ended over a quarter of a century ago. They had all the pieces set up on the board and never got to play. They should just be thankful they haven't had to go out and get real jobs.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
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