What job could be worse these days than having to be the foreign ministry official from some so-called American ally who has to listen to the latest American begging effort for them to join up with the “coalition” to defeat ISIS.
Those poor diplomatic bastards have been suffering through American pleas to join various failed coalitions for more than a decade, as evil bad guys intent on world domination come and go. Think back — the Taliban, al Qaeda, Saddam, Gaddafi and now ISIS. There’s almost a sort of pattern there.
So this week U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter (above) offered a glimpse of his own apparent frustration at all this coalition fun last week when he referred to “our so-called coalition” and suggested the slackers need to step up and support the American Empire Project.
“We need everybody, and that’s all the Europeans, the Persian Gulf states, Turkey, which is right there on the border. So there are a lot that need to make more contributions,” he said. Carter appeared totally ignorant of why nobody wants to hop in and help fight America’s wars.
Carter left Tuesday for Brussels, where he will convene a meeting of defense chiefs from about two dozen countries, including most NATO members, Iraq and the Gulf states.
“What I’m going to do is sit down and say, here is the campaign plan. If you’re thinking World War II newsreel pictures, you think of an arrow going north to take Mosul and another arrow coming south to take Raqqa,” he said, as if the organized nation state ground combat of WWII had anything at all to do with the current multi-dimensional firestorm in the Middle East.
“And I’m going to say, ‘OK, guys. Let’s match up what is needed to win with what you have, and kind of give everybody the opportunity to make an assignment for themselves,'” Carter said. “The United States will lead this and we’re determined, but other people have to do their part because civilization has to fight for itself.”
Sure thing boss, will say the would-be coalition members before doing nothing of substance.
A few coalition countries have made promises of increased support in recent days. The Netherlands, also known as Sparta, which has been carrying out very, very limited airstrikes in Iraq, said it would expand its efforts to Syria. Saudi Arabia indicated last week it could send ground troops into Syria. Canada announced it will quit conducting airstrikes in Syria and Iraq but will expand its contributions to training Kurdish and other local forces and provide more humanitarian and developmental aid.
Over the course of a decade and a half of coalition warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. officials have frequently found themselves pleading and cajoling with the Europeans to contribute more, and they generally have responded with pledges to do just a little bit more. The pattern may be repeated in Brussels.
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John Poole said...
1Carter Ash to the so called coalition, “And after a decisive victory we can all enjoy cigars and brandy in the Potsdam Conference Suite at the Dubai Hilton. Right guys?”
02/10/16 8:32 AM | Comment Link
John Poole said...
2Off subject of course. Sanders needs to choose a female running mate NOW and have her on the campaign trail with him NOW. That would end Clinton’s run permanately and immediately.
02/10/16 8:35 AM | Comment Link
Philip Ebersole said...
3The anti-ISIS coalition consists of Russia, Iran and Syria.
02/10/16 8:48 AM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
4“The anti-ISIS coalition consists of Russia, Iran and Syria.”
George W.: You are either with us or with the terrorists.
That would be US.
http://atimes.com/2016/02/no-sleeping-with-the-enemy-opposition-grows-to-cia-backed-al-qaeda-proxies-in-syria/
02/10/16 12:04 PM | Comment Link
U.S. Allies Have No Interest in Anti-ISIS Coalition | Planet Free Will said...
5[…] By: Peter Van Buren | We Meant Well […]
02/10/16 10:51 PM | Comment Link
U.S. Allies Have No Interest in Anti-ISIS Coalition | Eyes Open Report said...
6[…] By: Peter Van Buren | We Meant Well […]
02/11/16 7:01 AM | Comment Link
teri said...
7Our friggin’ allies, man. In the ME, we created ISIS, just like we did al Qaeda before that, and our “allies” help us fund and back them. Turkey has been intent on getting rid of Assad for a long time and backs ISIS, helping them route their oil to the black market, Saudi Arabia actually agrees with the ISIS fundamentalist beliefs and backs them, and Israel (which interestingly enough is not EVER mentioned as a “coalition member” or encouraged to help with the fight by putting themselves in harm’s way, although you’d think they’d have the biggest dog in this hunt) buys ISIS oil and takes wounded ISIS fighters into their hospitals. Ironically, and lost on the dufus-butt American public, the real enemies of ISIS – Russia and Iran – are postulated to be our enemies.
In Europe, we have conned the EU countries into taking more and more aggressive postures against Russia through their participation in NATO (did you see the latest military build-up we are massing in the EU and Balkan states?), as though Russia were a threat to them instead of a major trading partner. Tell you what; Russia WILL be a threat if they keep this up, and the EU is a way closer target than the US. They must be retards to listen to us and join in this Fight Club suicide pact.
Poor decimated Iraq is hard pressed to do anything. Everyone talks about how Iraq is such a mess and can’t get its shit together to defend itself and their army keeps running away and they have a corrupt government and and and….
I say: Fuck you talking that smack trash for? We ruined Iraq. We fucking bombed the fuck out of them 13 years ago – not counting all the times we fucked up them and various other countries in the ME before that – and then we fucking did it some more and then we still fucking interfered in their trying to get a government back together ever since, and we fucking did it for no fucking reason except to steal their shit. And we are still fucking doing it now. Fucking killed a million or two people (who knows how many? we don’t fucking count our kills, like it doesn’t matter) in a country that did not do a thing to us. They still don’t have fucking electricity but a few hours a day in a large part of the country, there are cities that still can’t guarantee running water, they have no money to rebuild the shit we destroyed to “save them” from Saddam because we fucking stole their money and blew up quite a bit of their major source of state funds (the oil fields) and, anyway, we won’t let them have nationalized oil any more. And we aren’t going to pay reparations for ruining their country; as a matter of fact, W. said they would have to pay us – via oil profits – for our invasion of their country. And now we have sent ISIS in there to finish them off. We (and our bestest friend, Israel) want Iraq divided up. Those poor people haven’t got a chance. Imagine for one fucking second what it would be like to be an Iraqi who has been living through the last 13 years there.
We did the same fucking thing to Afghanistan and Libya and – what a shocker – now ISIS has mysteriously popped up there too. Going to go back in, we are, because we didn’t fucking kill enough people there or ruin enough infrastructure. And castigate these countries for not doing enough to get rid of the terrorists we created.
And even Bernie Sanders is talking about how he’s going to keep us safe. Keep US safe. Who’s going to save the rest of the world from us? And you know what? Ain’t nobody can keep us safe from our fucking selves.
I just can’t figure out why anyone would want to be the president of this misguided country.
Shit’s fucked up and shit.
Good luck.
02/11/16 7:40 AM | Comment Link
Rich Bauer said...
8How stupid do we think they are? Oh yeah.
Here is something worth fighting:
http://11oclocknews.typepad.com/the_11_oclock_news/2016/02/t-the-results-of-the-new-hampshire-primary-are-in-and-the-big-winner-is-the-new-populism-that-mysterious-pro-outsider.html
02/11/16 8:05 AM | Comment Link
Bruce said...
9HooHah! The Coalition of the Wahhabi; lead by the “THE FINEST FIGHTING FORCE IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD”! EPITOMIZED in the headliner above? Or driving hard for the Ash-heap of his story??
02/11/16 9:45 AM | Comment Link
Links 12/2/2016: Russian’s Government With GNU/Linux, India’s Wants FOSS | Techrights said...
10[…] U.S. Allies Have No Interest in Anti-ISIS Coalition […]
02/12/16 6:26 AM | Comment Link
USAMNESIA said...
11Teri’s comment is a good blend of anger and facts. …as Chomsky stated, “the best way to prevent terrorism…is to stop participating in it.”
02/16/16 4:41 AM | Comment Link