US invasion of Syria begins; Walt predicts the outcome

So it begins. The White House -- more accurately, Secretary of State John Kerry -- has announced that a "small contingent" of US special forces will be sent to Syria to "advise and assist" the Syrian rebels fighting against Islamic State militants and/or the régime of Syrian President Basher Assad.

The troops will be sent to Kurdish-controlled territory in northern Syria, where there's less chance of being blown to bits by Russian missiles or, errr, "friendly fire" from the USAF. (There's no risk of being hit by a Canadian rocket, since the new Canuck PM has promised to withdraw his country's six (6) CF-18s from the mission.)

Although US troops are not "expected" -- note this weasel word carefully -- to be on the front lines with rebel forces, they will have the right to fight back if attacked. They can also join rebel raids if authorized by Washington. Hands up, those who think that such authorization would ever be denied.

So it begins -- the US invasion of Syria. Until now, the Prez and the Pentagon could say with straight faces that the mission against ISIL [or ISIS or IS -- whichever is the approved acronym of the day. Ed.] wasn't an invasion, because, errr, there were no boots on the ground. On 10 September 2014, Mr. O told a credulous nation: "I want the American people to understand how this effort will be different from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It will not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil."

Earlier in the same speech, the Prez warned against Islamophobia. "ISIL is not 'Islamic'", he said. Oh, hahahahahaha... What a kidder POTUS is!

Dear citizens (and voters) of the Paranoid States of America, it's not a laughing matter. The US has a pretty sorry record when it comes to invasions, beginning with the failed expedition into Canada into 1812. Former President Thomas Jefferson wrote to a friend that "the acquisition of Canada this year will be a mere matter of marching." Oh, hahahahahahahaha...

Fast forward to the 1960s, and the Bay of Pigs, which didn't really count as a "US invasion" because those guys weren't really US troops, right? In the same decade, really American special forces were sent to Vietnam to "advise and assist" the democratic government fighting against Communist insurgents. Note the similarity between that sentence and the opening sentence of this post. We know how Vietnam turned out, right?

Was any lesson learned from the Vietnam debacle? Errr, apparently not. Since Y2K America has invaded Iraq, and Afghanistan, then Iraq again, and now Syria. A classic definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again yet expecting a different result. By that definition, the invasion of Syria is insane.

Walt will now explain why it's crazy to expect a different outcome. In reality, the civil war being fought in Syria is not three-cornered, as The Jaw That Walks Like A Man would have you believe. The Syrian rebels are not fighting the ISIS militants so much as they are fighting the Assad government. You can't tell the difference between the rebels and ISIS without a programme! Their aims are the same -- the establishment of an Islamic theocracy in Syria and throughout the Middle East.

It follows, then, that if you -- meaning the USA -- want to take sides in the Muslim civil war, you can choose between (a) the Assad régime and (b) the jihadis -- between (a) bad and (b) worse. There is no (c). Once again, America's rulers, ignorant of the realities of the Middle East and the world of Islam, are making the wrong choice. Walt predicts disaster. (Lifetime pct .975.)