- Sgt Mag1
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- Fabled Mythic Member
Posted by: Co M4N
Posted by: oaklandp8ntbalr
This is why the United States should intervene.
By allowing the rebels to go it alone, we allow extremist groups to rise up and gain power and influence. Extremist groups that will, very easily, begin targeting us when this whole thing is over.
This fight will be very long, and very bloody. The Syrian people will be extremely bitter over the fact that we refused to help them; and there's no easier way for an extremist group to seize power than by labeling a scapegoat. In this case, that scapegoat is the USA.
Why waste money and men trying to help a rebel faction that will have no idea what to do when they get into power? A reason why a country, like the US, should step in is because of the resurgence of Al-Qaeda. They're actually using this chaos to grow.
From another group:
As we all know the United States completely withdrew from Iraq, a move that was highly welcome. Just one problem...we completely withdrew, meaning we left no troops to deal with the counter-terrorism threats. A force of American SOF troops to deal with these threats would have been tasked with keeping AQI down in-country and protecting the western boarder from jihadi's wanting to use it as a safe-haven for cross-border attacks into Syria and Jordan.
As a result of this negligence, we're currently seeing a trend with this cell of AQ. It's no longer just about Iraq, the cell is making themselves a regional threat (or as they see it "regional revolutionaries"). Because of the chaos in Syria, they're able to feed off the chaos to better their goals. Al-Nusrah Front, which is soon to be labeled a terrorist organization, is pretty much Al-Qaeda in Syria. But they will never officially say that, as they've learned from past mistakes. If they were to come out and say that they pledge their allegiance to al-Zawahiri, they would stop getting aid from Qatar and Saudi Arabia. It will be interesting, to say the least, to see what they will do when and if this conflict spills over into Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Turkey.
It's safe to say that if the United States would have left SOF troops in country (especially Al-Anbar province) the situation might be different. But, what's done is done. However, there is one thing we could do that would definitely help the growing chaos. Our old alliances in Anbar. We should be exploiting our alliances with these anti-AQ Sunni tribes. With their help, we could cut off Anbar from being used as safe haven for the Syrian AQ cell. Sadly, this probably won't happen. But, I digress.
Furthermore, AQIM (Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb) has fully taken advantage of the chaos in Mali and has formed an alliance with Ansar Dine. Ansar Dine and AQIM have recently taken over literally half of Mali (Source). Now that they have a large stronghold in North Africa (their stronghold is roughly the same size as Texas), they're able to spread their jihad to Libya, which we all know what has happened there in recent months.
Another area that AQ is thriving in is the Sinai Peninsula. This group has pledged allegiance to al-Zawahiri and uses the peninsula to stage attacks on both Israel and Egypt.
We all know the AQ is very active in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan (AQ is attempting a resurgence here too), Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and in the South Pacific so I'm not gonna talk about them.
tl;dr: Despite many politicians claims that al-Qaeda is beaten, or weakened, their claims are not necessarily true. While some cells of AQ are losing ground, like in Yemen or Somalia, another group is gaining ground. AQ is something that can be stopped (not even going to argue this. Yes, they can be beaten) but not without continual drone strikes, raids, funding to anti-AQ groups, etc.