Despite the White House initially claiming to avoid putting "boots on the ground," President Obama recently announced the addition of 1,500 more American troops, doubling the total amount of US troops in Iraq to 3,000. According to the Obama administration, these new troops will help train the Iraqi and Kurdish forces that are combatting Isis, but will not be directly participating in the fighting. In order to cover the expenses, the White House has requested that congress approve of an extra 5.6 billion dollars to continue operations like air strikes and help train and arm the Iraqi and Kurdish forces (1.6 billion out of the 5.6 billion dollars will be for the Iraqi and Kurdish soldiers' training). Another additional 3.4 billion dollars is also being requested for more covert-esque operations such as intelligence gathering and military advisers, as well as more basic needs such as ammunition and aid for nearby countries. None of the newly appointed troops will be able to arrive unless congress approves these funding measures.
Questions:
1. Do you approve of Obama's decision to continue to put more US troops in dangerous areas of Iraq, even if they are there strictly for training purposes?
2. If carried out, how effective will the White House's funding strategy be? Should funding the Kurdish and Iraqi soldiers' training be a bigger or smaller priority than other actions, like airstrikes?
3.Will Congress agree to grant the Obama administration's financial requests?
3 comments:
First of all I do not support anymore military in the middle east, honestly it feels like the same war has been fighting on in the middle east and it is time to stop wasting money and lives there. I however understand that in the grand scheme of thing 5.6 billion dollars is not a lot but it seems the strong fotthold we stake once again in the middle east the more committed and responisble we are to fight off Isis and as we have learned in all of the other wars in the middle east, It is extremely difficult, if not impossible to defeat terrorist groups in those areas. As for the funding I feel the training is the only thing we should be funding, just as to get US troops out, as we have seen with drone air strikes there is often innocent casualties and leads to even more US hatred and controversy. However I feel with the US congress being ever more non-interventionists, they will be wary in giving more money though in sight of the atrocities done by Isis they might not have a choice.
To some extent, I agree that furthering our influence in the Middle East is not a good idea and could be detrimental in the future, but I also think that the recent ISIS attacks have called for some pretty serious action from the White House. While I don't know if training these groups will effectively combat terrorist organizations, I think the idea of preventing ISIS attacks should definitely be considered a priority. As for Congress approving the grant, I think there might be some tension in the fact that we are putting more troops on the ground.
While I certainly agree that it is high time the US leave the Middle East, I also have to acknowledge that recent provocations from ISIS are not ones to be simply ignored. Additionally, while I want those US troops home as soon as possible, the training that will be happening there is extremely important to our eventual withdrawal of troops from the area. We cannot (in good conscience) leave the chaos to expand and spread to other areas surrounding these places and it's impertinent that they are taught how to govern themselves and manage against other adversaries. As far as the money being approved from Congress, I'm not exactly sure how this one will go, because I doubt the Republicans dominating Congress will want to spend money to send more troops overseas, but they also will feel that the recent actions by ISIS do deserve and warrant some real attention, which will probably divide the party on this vote.
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