The Pentagon’s failure in training the so-called anti-Daesh militants in Syria, despite spending millions of dollars, shows that the US military is “impotent” in dealing with the terrorist group, says an American journalist and political analyst.
“It is really puzzling to me, why it is that after 4 years, the US military seems to be completely impotent and at a loss to deal with a bunch of crazies wearing basketball shoes and driving around on Toyota pickup trucks in Syria and Iraq,” David Christie told Press TV on Friday.
“The fact that we actually seem to be the idiots who financed and paid for the arming and training of these maniacs should really make you scratch your head,” he added.
“The more money we print up and the more weapons we dump into the conflict the more it deteriorates,” he noted.
Christie, a broadcast journalist, made the comments when asked for his views on reports that the Pentagon’s failed attempt to train militants in Syria has cost the US $2 million per trainee.
Washington pulled the plug on the so-called “train-and-equip” program last month after doling out $384 million on 180 militants. From those, 145 militants remain in the program while only 95 are stationed in Syria.
Initially, US President Barack Obama’s administration had set aside $500 million for the plan, seeking to produce 3,000 so-called “New Syrian Forces” this year, and 5,000 more annually thereafter, who were allegedly trained to take on Daesh terrorists.
The report also revealed that the program provided the militants with $204 million equivalent of ammunition and $77 million worth in weapons.
According to The Telegraph, a cadre of militants, dubbed the “Division 30,” who had just graduated from the US-led military training program were taken captive by the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front in Syria.
Some militants deserted the program mid-course and others either defected to groups fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad or surrendered their arms to them in exchange for safe passage.
“What we have here is another routine American nation building scheme gone wild,” Christie said of the failed program. “It goes like this: we decide for the people, in an entirely alien and foreign region of the world of which we know absolutely nothing, who the leaders of their government should be.”
“So we send in the US military, to trample and lay waste to their entire society, kill thousands of innocent civilians, blow everything up, and when it is over, we declare freedom as triumphed, [and] once again install a US puppet at the top of their new regime and fill their coffers with loans from the World Bank to pay for the cleanup,” he added.
“What is perplexing is that in our unrelenting colossal and supreme arrogance, we keep repeating this scenario over and over regardless of the utter and demonstrative failures, disasters and interminable catastrophes we incur time after time, in financial, moral and human cost to ourselves and our victims,” he concluded.
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