And the Ineptitude Continues Apace . . .

Doyle McManus, in his op-ed column in today's Los Angeles Times, discusses how the $500 million that Obama requested (and received) from Congress a year ago to train 15,000 opposition fighters in Syria has resulted in only 60 trained fighters to date. 

"Sixty?" he asks, incredulous. "UCLA has more men on its football roster." 

McManus says that skeptics figure this amounts to about $9 million per fighter. "Not an impressive number," Defense Secretary Ashton Carter apparently conceded during his report to Congress on the training program's progress. 

Writes McManus: "[T]he story of the Pentagon's amazing shrunken training program — an idea that almost looked bold when Obama first proposed it — could serve as a metaphor for the whole of U.S. strategy in Syria: ambitious in its goals, but so risk-averse in design and so hamstrung in execution that it remains painfully ineffective" (italics my own). Yes, italics are often necessary when discussing this administration's gross incompetence. 

McManus's column is linked at the end of this post, if you like. Meanwhile, there's this: 

At least 4,000 Assyrian Christian families are believed to be among the 120,000 people who in recent days have fled the Syrian city of Hassakeh. ISIS forces are entering the city and looking to carry out a mass ethno-religious slaughter, humanitarian groups said, warning that the world still has not provided an adequate response" (italics mine).

 . . . Meanwhile over 200 Assyrian Christians remain captured by terror group ISIS, taken from a raid on Assyrian villages back in February. Though the Khabur river villages have since been liberated, the jihadists are believed to be asking close to $23,000,000 for the release of all 227 captive Assyrians, an amount which is impossible for families to pay.

Ethnic cleansing continues, the world's greatest superpower is flaccid and impotent, and this administration's ineptitude (or is it disinterest?) continues apace.

**** 
For Further Reading

"In Syria, $36 Million to Train 60 Opposition Fighters?" (Doyle McManus, Los Angeles Times, Sunday, July 12, 2015)

"ISIS Commits Mass Ethno-Religious Slaughter of Assyrian Christians as the World Ignores Genocide, Humanitarian Groups Say," (Stoyan Zaimov, Christian Post, July 2, 2015)