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Unknown Beatle

(2,672 posts)
Tue Oct 20, 2015, 08:12 PM Oct 2015

Clinton Syria Fact Check: "Safe Zones" = "Ground Troops"

During the first Democratic presidential debate, the following exchange took place between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders about US policy in Syria: [my emphasis]

CLINTON: ... And, to -- provide safe zones so that people are not going to have to be flooding out of Syria at the rate they are. And, I think it's important too that the United States make it very clear to Putin that it's not acceptable for him to be in Syria creating more chaos, bombing people on behalf of Assad, and we can't do that if we don't take more of a leadership position, which is what I'm advocating.

SANDERS: Well, let's understand that when we talk about Syria, you're talking about a quagmire in a quagmire. You're talking about groups of people trying to overthrow Assad, other groups of people fighting ISIS. You're talking about people who are fighting ISIS using their guns to overthrow Assad, and vice versa. I'm the former chairman of the Senate Veterans Committee, and in that capacity I learned a very powerful lesson about the cost of war, and I will do everything that I can to make sure that the United States does not get involved in another quagmire like we did in Iraq, the worst foreign policy blunder in the history of this country. We should be putting together a coalition of Arab countries who should be leading the effort. We should be supportive, but I do not support American ground troops in Syria.

CLINTON: ...Well, nobody does. Nobody does, Senator Sanders.


Clinton's claim that "nobody" supports sending US ground troops to Syria was fundamentally misleading, because whoever calls for the US to establish a "safe zone" in Syria - as Clinton did in her previous utterance to which Sanders was responding - is calling for "ground troops."

This fact was made clear by a well-publicized exchange in a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on September 16 between Sen. John McCain, chair of the committee, and General Lloyd Austin, head of US Central Command ["CENTCOM"], in which McCain pressed General Austin to say that he favored establishing "safe zones" in Syria and General Austin refused to do so, on the grounds that a "safe zone" would require a "ground force." The full video of the hearing is here.

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Clinton Syria Fact Check: "Safe Zones" = "Ground Troops" (Original Post) Unknown Beatle Oct 2015 OP
We don't seem to do well intervening in another nation when merrily Oct 2015 #1

merrily

(45,251 posts)
1. We don't seem to do well intervening in another nation when
Tue Oct 20, 2015, 08:49 PM
Oct 2015

our allies and our enemies in the nation all speak the same language, don't necessarily wear uniforms and "look alike."

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