Hayden predicts 5,000 troops on the ground by December
The Hill reports that former CIA Director General Michael Hayden predicted on Fox News Sunday that there would be five-thousand troops on the ground in Iraq by the end of the year.
Hayden explained he doesn’t think they will be “combat maneuver units,” but predicted U.S. special operations forces could wind up on the ground in Syria.
“I think we will at some point. It might be through covert action rather than more overt activity,” he said. “I actually think we will end up with small American special operations forces active within this broad theater in Syria and Iraq.”
So our third deployment of troops to deal with Iraq, is becoming quite an event, isn’t it?
An unnamed Air Force officer told USAToday that airstrikes in Syria will require “boots on the ground” in that country;
The spy planes flying missions over Iraq and Syria can develop a list of potential Islamic State targets, said the commander who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe what the war might look like. But it’s “absolutely crucial that pilots are talking to an American on the ground” who can verify that the target is legitimate.
You’ll be happy to know that the Iraq Veterans Against the War, who are generally not really Iraq Veterans, just posers who like to wear the T-shirt, are feeling their oats;
Instead of creating more chaos, we should be solving the problems that already exist. Instead of installing another puppet president, the United States should be cleaning up environmental contamination, investigating allegations of torture, and allowing democracy to blossom in both government and labor, without US intervention.
I guess, as always they’re not really tuned in to what is happening over there. ISIS doesn’t seem inclined to allow “democracy to blossom”, but, if Hayden’s prediction comes to fruition, IVAW will have a whole new pool of potential recruits.
Category: Terror War
IVAW: “Instead of installing another puppet president, the United States should be…”
Yes, you are correct IVAW, the American public should not have installed a puppet president like Obama. (Iraq has a Prime Minister these days)
“Combat Boots” = Is it that just because Barry says they aren’t “Combat troops” that they aren’t Combat Troops?
Sending SOF into Iraq and Syria means you are sending Combat Boots. The fact that there are 1100 troops in Iraq and another 475 are going in means there are still “Combat Boots” on the ground.
You can call them “Advisors” and “Mentors” all day long. They aren’t in Iraq sitting at the Embassy Green Bean reading the paper all day.
I think these stupid lawyer games are disgraceful.
Eric…+100!
“I think these stupid lawyer games are disgraceful.”
Then we shouldn’t have elected stupid lawyers to congress or the White House.
Flagwaver you are spot on.
Back in my youth congress was prolly 75% veterans.
Today? Almost ALL lawyers.
And, if I may, isn’t “stupid lawyers” sort of redundant?
OC
“Stupid lawyers” redundant? No. Many are quite bright.
However, I do sometimes wonder if “honest lawyer” hasn’t damn near become a thing of the past – at least among those who run for office.
To be fair, most of those veterans in Congress became lawyers after they served in the military. Or were military lawyers in the first place. Congressmen coming from law backgrounds is sort of a historical constant.
Hayden explained he doesn’t think they will be “combat maneuver units,”
So if they’re not in combat maneuvers what the hell will 5000 troops be doing? Traffic control? This is coming from the White House as a back handed way of prepping everyone for what Obama The Liar, said wouldn’t happen.
I say troops in that strength on the ground ONLY after a massive and merciless bombing campaign to essentially kill the ones left in caves and so forth. Nothing else. Oh and kill all the goats and live stock as well.
“Give them NOTHING! But take from them EVERYTHING!” King Leonidas.
An unnamed Air Force officer told USAToday that airstrikes in Syria will require “boots on the ground” in that country . . .
In the words of the immortal . . . well, anyone with common sense: “No sh!t.”
We don’t do “carpet bombing” any more (moral considerations aside, frankly IMO we no longer really have the capability to do so). We’re not going to use nukes. That leaves precision bombing.
And if we’re going to go in with precision weapons, we’ll need “boots on the ground” to designate the targets.
I’m thinking of the Chinese Embassy building in Belgrade.
Yep. As I recall, published accounts indicated that was a “no boots on ground” operation done using only GPS coordinates determined at a distant location. Those coordinates turned out to be wrong.
Oopsie.
Honestly Hondo, I wonder if the Chinese don’t think of that oopsie every time they have put the screws to us since. Soem cultures and regimes have a long memory. And yeah, form what I have read it was the CIA that supplied the targeting data. The coords. had been determined by inferring the physical location of the building by using its address and addresses of other buildings in the vicinity on a map, a technique called “intersection and resection”. The inaccurate data was then programmed into the JDAMS prior to A/C launch in Missouri. No one one the ground lasing anything, much less the correct target. I do believe however, that targets can be lased by UAV platforms and other A/C including rotary. How effectively, I do not know.
True, to a point. But the CIA wasn’t the only agency that may have screwed the proverbial pooch in that incident. This NYT article gives more details. Squares with what I remember reading about the incident then.
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/17/world/chinese-embassy-bombing-a-wide-net-of-blame.html
Adding to the confusion was the fact that according to article the Chinese Embassy had fairly recently moved, and both US and UK DoD/MoD records still listed the old address.
“No boots on the ground… they will wear tennis shoes instead.”
The collective mentality that is IVAW suffers from sever anal-cranial inversion and should immediately seek competent medical help… or they could just line up in front of us and will kick them in the ass hard enough to dislodge their heads. I think the latter would far more entertaining.
IVAW = Losers.
Given the current pace of troop level increase, I’d say Hayden could be right about 5000 troops being on the ground by the end of the year. Slow buildup strategy we’ve been employing seems to agree with that pattern. Not sure he’s right about non-combat part though. Naive much?
Hayden is anything but naive.
He’s technically correct. Army Special Forces are not generally considered “combat maneuver units”.
Special Forces elements are indeed combat forces, but are usually not referred to as “maneuver units”. That’s not their normal role.
In this context, the term “combat maneuver unit” refers to conventional infantry/armor/cav/artillery/combat aviation units and associated support troops. These units have the primary role of maneuvering against/closing with/destroying the enemy in combat.
And the first time Barry gets called on that, it’ll be explained as “Well, what I really meant by no combat boots on ground was, combat maneuver units…”
The administration is just playing on the ignorance of the general populace (and the “educated” Media).
The camel is getting it’s nose under the tent flap.
Camel’s nose has been under the tent flap since “Odyssey Dawn”, mike. It’s more like the neck and shoulders by now.
“the United States should be cleaning up environmental contamination, investigating allegations of torture, and allowing democracy to blossom in both government and labor, without US intervention.”
Investigating torture and cleaning up environmental contamination? The IVAW must live in a parallel universe. What a bunch of petulant children. Fuck the IVAW and that poser piece of shit Jagoff Millard.
They’re merely examples of those Lenin* called useful idiots, Climb to Glory.
(* – Yes, I’m aware that it has never been definitively established that Lenin first coined this phrase. The phrase is, however, often attributed to Lenin.)
If a bombing campaign is all that is required to win a war then Germany would have England right now and we would have Germany.
I wonder what the SF/SoF guys think about being called non combat units.
WTF is a “combat maneuver units”?
See my reply to “LastBrotherHome” above.
And so it begins….
Well, what were you expecting? Did any of you think Bodaprez the Incompetent would keep his word? Did you?
I asked if anyone wanted to lay odds on ground troops being sent to Iraq, and no one took me up on it. I knew this would happen. This is just the beginning.
I hope these ‘non-cmbat’ troops are not hampered like they were the last time.
1960 all over.
This is going to blow up or escalate or whatever you want to call it, some time around Sept. 25 lasting into the first 10 days of October.
Might include upticks in action by (Vlad Putin) pro-Russians in Ukraine, against anti-Russian Ukrainians, as well.
Could be another attack of some kind at a public event. This is a very volatile time period. Lots of things can happen, including severe ups and downs in the stock market and wild swings in commodities prices, e.g., crude oil.
Keep an eye out. And don’t say you weren’t warned.
This article gives me a sick feeling in my stomach.
http://news.msn.com/us/top-general-us-ground-troops-possible-in-iraq
I’m not saying that ground combat is inevitable, but rather that it seems to be the direction in which we’re heading.
I would much rather be wrong than right in my prediction. I don’t like any of this. It is directionless, clueless and purposeless, no matter what comes out of Washington.
(yawn) This diagram discusses Islam’s division into main branches and various smaller sects/schools. Though it’s from Wikipedia, it’s a decent overview, albeit somewhat incomplete – I don’t see any mention there of the Sufi, Ahmadiyya, Ibadi, or Mahdavia branches/schools there, and there may a few smaller branches/schools/sects that don’t come immediately to mind that aren’t represented there as well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Islam_branches_and_schools.svg That diagram and a $5 bill will get you a cup of coffee at a coffee shop. Depending on one’s profession, it may or may not be relevant information one needs to know off the top of one’s head. For most people worldwide – even for most Muslims – it isn’t. In layman’s terms, the 5 Pillars of Islam are (1) Declaration of Faith, (2) Mandatory Prayer, (3) Mandatory Charity, (4) the Ramadan Fast, and (5) Pilgrimage to Mecca. Islam’s core principles are not particularly objectionable, and are not significantly more “weird” than any other religion’s. However, the vast majority of Islam today – probably 70% or more of the ummah, actually – is overlain by a backwards culture that appears fixated in the Middle Ages, treats women like property, is relatively accepting of pederasty in particular and extreme violence in general, and is in many respects quite barbaric. The culture also seems to foster more than its share of intolerant extremist idiots. The main division in Islam was Sunni/Shia. It occurred to do with succession to rule the nascent Caliphate after Mohammed’s death – specifically, after the death of his grandson Ali, as I recall. Beyond that, I have neither the time nor inclination to refresh my memory regarding the details such nonessential (for me) information so I can discuss it here. It’s as irrelevant to me as Calvin’s precise reasons for breaking from other Christian denominations and forming his own Christian sect several hundred years ago. FWIW: no, I don’t happen to speak Arabic. I’d guess you aren’t fluent in Russian, Ukranian, Hindi, Urdu, Farsi/Dari, Pashto, Spanish, Manadrin, Hangul, Japanese, Tagalog, or a number of other languages. Each of those languages I listed by-name is also presently relevant… Read more »
Mark L. It’s “Speicher” you idiot.
Wow.
Reading IVAW would cause my eyes to cross, but dude… Really?
Someone piss in your frootloops this morning?
Oh, fuck Markie-boi. We should be focusing on the real problem, not him and not those IVAW queefs who are just a bunch of bitchy, whiny boys. They’d complaing if they were hung with a brand new rope.
Let’s focus on the real problem: bodaprez said ‘NO BOOTS ON THE GROUND’ and we now know he lied his flabby ass off.
That’s the discussion at hand.