Friday, June 28, 2013

Stealth invasion of Syria?

"Arguably, today the U.S. military is more involved than ever overseas, on a global basis, carrying out missions that extend well beyond classic military competencies. The Pentagon and the White House call the approach "building partner capacity" -- and it is the new religion for the global use of our military forces, becoming central to military doctrine. This model is stealthy, not public. It involves military training and equipping of the forces of other countries and smaller military deployments but in a significantly larger list of countries about the globe. Syria, which sounds like a case study for American reluctance, is actually a case in point. Rather than invade with ground forces or fly an air cap -- the thing Barno argues against -- official U.S. policy for a very long time was to supply humanitarian assistance and "non-lethal" equipment (like communications gear) to the rebels. Two weeks ago, the White House announced that it would begin supplying the rebels with small arms."