Remember when the GOP used to warn us about the dangers of Russia?

[baileyn45]

baileyn45, post: 16281009

I did get the date wrong this was in Aug 2014.

You also failed to mention that Obama was specifically talking about Syria.

Your CNN report tells you this.

The fighting comes nearly two weeks after thousands of Peshmerga and Iraqi commandos ousted ISIS forces for control of the dam, a crucial facility that provides electricity for millions of people in Iraq.
Kurdish officials have credited U.S. airstrikes against ISIS with helping Peshmerga forces push back against the extremists, whose breathtaking gains and brutal tactics captured the attention of world leaders.


You do notice there is no credit to Putin's air strikes who has not lifted a finger to destroy ISIS.

That's fine - we never needed him, But Trumputopians are fauning all over Putin as god's gift to destroying ISIS when he has in reality done very little.


Proof we don't need Putin or Trump to liberate Mosul. The planning training and Iraqi military advance has taken at least half of the city.

We were discussing Putin which automatically refers to Syria not Iraq. And again isis gains in Syria were not checked until the Russians stepped in, much to the chagrin of the Obama adm.

By the way I'm not a Trump supporter, didn't vote for him. I'm just greatly disturbed by this adm apparent willingness to watch isis slaughter their way across Syria in the hopes it would bring down Assad. This Adm seems to see the Assad regime as the worst actor in Syria. I disagree, even the "moderates" want all non sunnis gone. .

 

[whutTHEYsay]

baileyn45, post: 16284815

And again isis gains in Syria were not checked until the Russians stepped in, much to the chagrin of the Obama adm.

That is simply not True.

And you appear to have the same Putin love as Trump does.

.
U.S. airstrikes have attacked more than 2,600 ISIS targets since the Americans joined the fight in 2014, the New York Times reported. Other powers, including Australia, Bahrain, Canada, France, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and United Arab Emirates, have served as allies, particularly in conducting airstrikes.

Russia began conducting its own airstrikes in late September. The Russians claim to be targeting ISIS as well, but the U.S. and other sources on the ground say the attacks are mainly targeting anti-Assad rebels. Russian President Vladimir Putin is a supporter of Assad’s regime. Relations between the U.S. and Russia have grown increasingly icy over Russia’s involvement in Syria, among other conflicts, but the two unlikely allies have been in diplomatic talks to coordinate their efforts.

https://www.google.com/amp/www.ibti...ter-paris-attacks-2185295?amp=1?client=safari


2600 Airstrikes for 18 months before Putin showed up and mostly bombed non-ISIS targets.

Your understanding of reality in Syria is pitiful.

 

[whutTHEYsay]

As far as the not having a strategy being in reference to how to hold territory, I'm not sure how you come to that conclusion as it was not part of his comments nor his spokesman afterwards,

It's in your CNN link.

" Obama said. "And stabilizing Syria means that we've to got get moderate Sunnis who are able to govern and offer ... a real alternative."


Obama often talked about air strikes not the final answer. It's how to hold territory once ISIS has been defeated.

 

[whutTHEYsay]

baileyn45, post: 16284815

I'm just greatly disturbed by this adm apparent willingness to watch isis slaughter their way across Syria in the hopes it would bring down Assad.

You are so consumed by conspiracy theories.

There were no military means in Syria protect civilians since several hundred thousand US ground troops was never an option.

Putin is the one that stood by in 2014 and most of 2015. And his client Assad brought this entire disaster on the Syrian and Iraqi people going back to 2005.

. Ironically, al-Qaida's wholesale introduction into Iraq came at the hands of Assad's regime. From 2005 until the end of the American occupation of Iraq, Assad's military intelligence services and their Iranian backers sought to defeat the US forces by training, financing and arming al-Qaida operatives inside Syria and dispatching them across the border to foment chaos and destruction.

. General David Petraeus and other senior American officials warned Assad that he was igniting a fire that would eventually burn his house down, but Damascus did nothing to stop the flow of fighters, culminating in a crippling blow to Maliki's government the day Iraq's foreign and finance ministries were bombed. Maliki publicly condemned his future ally in Damascus for the attack.

. And so, Syria's unravelling spilled into Iraq, and vice versa. Powerful regional tribes such as the Shammar and Anezah, faced with countless dead and persecuted members in both countries, banded together with former Iraqi and Syrian military officers, embracing Isis jihadis as their frontline shock troops. Cash poured in from sympathetic donors around the region

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.th...yria-iraq-incubators-isis-jihad?client=safari

Putin supported Assad throughout the entire support of al Qaeda and the outgrowth of ISIS from 2005 on.

But you pin it on Obama.

Right wing conspiracy theorists accept as their basic foundation that all tragic problems in Syria and Iraq began exactly on January 20, 2009.

You have no recommended in hindsight military plan that Obama could have done to present the rise of ISIS and the terror they brought into the world.


Listen to what Obama said in the Fall of 2014:

Across the border, in Syria, we have ramped up our military assistance to the Syrian opposition. Tonight, I call on Congress again to give us additional authorities and resources to train and equip these fighters. In the fight against ISIL, we cannot rely on an Assad regime that terrorizes its own people -- a regime that will never regain the legitimacy it has lost. Instead, we must strengthen the opposition as the best counterweight to extremists like ISIL, while pursuing the political solution necessary to solve Syria’s crisis once and for all.

 

[baileyn45]

The simple fact of the matter is isis was still taking territory in latter 2015, they took Palmira in May 2015 and continued to advance through Sept 2015. Gee what happened in Sept 2015?

Russia Is Launching Twice as Many Airstrikes as the U.S. in Syria

“From Feb. 10 to 16, aircraft of the Russian aviation group in the Syrian Arab Republic have performed 444 combat sorties engaging 1,593 terrorist objects in the provinces of Deir Ez Zor, Daraa, Homs, Hama, Latakia and Aleppo,” the Russian defense ministry claimed in a statement.

That’s double the rate of air strikes that the much larger U.S.-led coalition has managed to sustain in its own, much older campaign against ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Leave out the coalition airstrikes in Iraq, where there are no Russian forces, and the disparity appears even greater. While lately Russia has launched around 60 air raids every day in Syria, the U.S. and its allies have pulled off just seven, on average, since launching their first attacks in Syria in September 2014.

To be fair, the coalition’s daily pace of air strikes fluctuates. On Feb. 21, U.S. and allied planes launched 14 attacks in Syria—a high-than-average number, but still far fewer raids than Russia launched every day in mid-February.

The air-power gap is plainly evident on the battlefield. With Russian jets providing cover, regime ground forces are steadily pushing back against ISIS and rebel fighters in western and north-central Syria. In late January, regime troops captured from rebels the town of Sheikh Miskeen, which lies between the Jordanian border and Damascus and was a key crossroads in the rebels’ supply network.".

As far as conspiracy theories, I hardly think listening to John Kerry state that the US's main objective in Syria was regime change would qualify as conspiracy.

As far as the Obama administration, I have blamed them for nothing other than considering regime change to be paramount to fighting isis. And in John Kerry's own words hoping a surging isis would force change on the Assad regime.

The funny part is I'm not a blind supporter of any of the parties involved, Putin, Assad, FSA, isis or the Obama adm. You're the one who seems blindly intent on giving any credit for rolling back isis to the Obama adm, even when it's obvious the Russians have been far more involved in actual operations.

You point out Obama's statements from Fall 2014, great more words. How did that work out?

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/10/world/middleeast/pentagon-program-islamic-state-syria.html

"The decision to scuttle a central piece of President Obama’s strategy for confronting extremists in Syria was made after mounting evidence that the training mission had resulted in no more than a handful of American-coached fighters. And it comes amid Russia’s forceful entry into the Syrian conflict, a move by President Vladimir V. Putin that has highlighted the lack of progress by the United States and its coalition."

To me it's obvious, the Obama adm main goal is regime change, if a strong isis would aid in that goal the adm appears to have been content to allow it. After all who have been isis's main benefactors? Saudis, qataris, turkey all US allies?