Securing Syria's Weapons May Require US Troops

[n2doc]

Sep 14, 2013
Military.com| by Richard Sisk

The White House and the Pentagon have repeatedly ruled out "boots on the ground" in Syria, but Defense Department officials were less certain Thursday on whether U.S. military personnel might be sent to help secure or destroy Syria's chemical weapons.

Pentagon Press Secretary George Little gave a vague answer when asked if U.S. troops were prepared to assist should an international agreement allow Russia to take control of the tons of chemical weapons believed to be in the stockpiles of President Bashar al-Assad.

"I'm not going to speculate on who may or may not be participating in a process that may or may not take place," Little said. "We've got to see where the process goes" before the U.S. military considers involvement, he said.

The first steps in the process were taking place in Geneva, where Secretary of State John Kerry was meeting for a second day with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Moscow's proposal to have international teams take control of the chemical weapons.

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http://www.military.com/daily-news/2013/09/14/securing-syrias-weapons-may-require-us-troops.html

[Scuba]

1. Why not Russian troops?

[bunnies]

2. +1.

Russia owns this mess now.

[rug]

6. Or Chinese or Saudi troops.

[Igel]

3. Ooh, if so then there's a nice opening.

US soldier on ground to secure weapons.

He dies from a gunshot wound. Caused by a Syrian soldier.

A prima facie occasio belli. We bomb the crap out of them. (Sorry, don't know the standard Latin phrase for "we bomb the crap out of them". 'Pax americensis'?)

Only later is there an investigative reporter who determines that the American soldier was bonking some Syrian officer's daughter and wife and was killed by an irate father who just happened to be in the Syrian military when he came home to the rut.

[jakeXT]

11. Lot's of possibilities there, scouting targets, bribing officials etc. /nt

[woo me with science]

4. Play us like fools once, shame on you...

[jsr]

5. It will be an unbelievably small presence.

[rug]

7. I don't believe that.

[dixiegrrrrl]

9. Something about a camel's nose in the tent comes to mind...

I'm old...I remember history...

[NV Whino]

8. Who could have foreseen this?

[dixiegrrrrl]

10. Did we have troops on the ground looking for WMDs in Iraq????

I can't remember the details of that, there was so much going on.

[woo me with science]

12. Two more countries on the PNAC list:

Syria and Iran