President Obama announced Friday he would be sending a contingent of 50 special ops troops to Syria to "advise" local forces fighting against the Islamic State, IS.
This of course contradicts his previous pronouncement made in 2013 when he said,, "I will not put American boots on the ground in Syria."
But it's all subterfuge. There have been CIA and special ops forces operating in Syria and not just training "vetted" moderates. The "fighting" is classified but as for training "moderate" forces-at a cost of $500 million-most of whom subsequently joined al Qaeda, the al Nusra Front and IS, taking with them the weaponry after "training" was completed- is well known. In September General Lloyd Austin, Commander of the US Central Command told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee all but four or five of these US trained moderates remained fighting against IS.
So this latest gambit of sending 50 special ops to Syria in an "advisory" capacity needs to be seen for what it is. A ploy actually against the Russian air force that has been depleting the terrorists on the ground who have been fighting against Russia's ally, the government forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
That ploy was put rather succinctly by Finian Cunningham who writes [1]," In short, the US Special Forces are being used as 'human shields' to curb Russian air strikes against anti-government mercenaries, many of whom are instrumental in Washington's regime-change objective in Syria".
"The troop dispatch also signals that the US is trying to forestall Russian successes in wiping out Washington's regime-change assets in Syria".
"Significantly, too, the Pentagon will not be informing the Russian military of the exact whereabouts of its ground personnel". Cunningham's article is a must read.
As for the UN sponsored peace talks held last week in Vienna where delegates from the US, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iraq, the Gulf states et al met and called for a cease fire in Syria-nothing specified-, the only "fire" came from the Saudi and Iranian delegates that shouted at each other. In essence, the talks were inconsequential although they'll resume in two weeks.
From here Obama sending in 50 special ops guys into the fray embedded within so called "moderates" forces-mostly mercenaries paid by the Saudi's, Qatari's, the UAE- is as Cunningham says, an attempt to "forestall Russian successes in wiping out Washington's regime-change assets in Syria."
Let's face it, Putin's effective one month bombing campaign decimating the terrorists has exposed the three year US "selective"-IS and its various al Qaeda offshoots-occasional bombing campaign in Syria as a fraud and a failure never meant to destroy the terrorists. It was meant only to further destabilize the country-it mattered not a wit to the Obama crowd how many Syrian people were killed in the process-"regime change" and "Assad must go" was always the end game.
It's a sign of desperation by team Obama, a way to prolong the war in Syria. If the US really wanted to end the crisis in Syria it would choose to work with the Russian's coordinating their air strikes to rid the country of terrorists. Instead the Pentagon will withhold where its special ops personnel are located.
Putin could up the ante informing the US if it's positioning their personnel within the ranks of terrorists-remember Putin makes no distinction among the various terrorist groups, "They're all terrorists"-it won't be Russia's fault if some are killed in an air strike.
The US is turning up the heat with its special ops ploy, playing a dangerous and duplicitous new cold war game in Syria against Putin and the Russian's, to say nothing of US machinations in Ukraine.
To Putin and the Russians this no game.
[1] "US Special Forces deployed as 'human shields' to salvage terror assets in Syria", by Finian Cunningham, OPEDNEWS, November1, 2015
