Drone attacks

[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by Griff

The CIA under Obama has been training and arming Syrian rebel fighters right along so that intervention is well under way just not acknowledged.

The number of rebel fighters we have trained is almost negligible though...

The agency has trained fewer than 1,000 rebel fighters this year, current and former U.S. officials said. By contrast, U.S. intelligence analysts estimate that more than 20,000 have been trained to fight for government-backed militias by Assad’s ally Iran and the Hezbollah militant network it sponsors.

....

But the limited scope also reflects a deeper tension in the Obama administration’s strategy on Syria, one that has sought to advance U.S. interests but avoid being drawn more deeply into a conflict that the United Nations estimates has killed more than 100,000 people since it began in 2011.

The constraints have become a source of frustration within the CIA and drawn criticism from senior lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), who as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee meets regularly with senior officials from the CIA and other agencies, said there is a “high degree of frustration in the executive branch” with the Syria strategy.

“The situation in Syria is changing faster than the administration can keep up,” Rogers said. He declined to discuss CIA operations, which are classified, but said that U.S. support for moderate opposition groups is “less than robust” and has been hobbled by “inconsistent resource allocation with stated goals.”

CIA veterans expressed skepticism that the training and weapons deliveries will have any meaningful effect. In Jordan, operatives involved in training and arming rebels lament that “we’re being asked to do something with nothing,” a former senior U.S. intelligence official said. The former official spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of agency operations overseas.

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2...-program-rebel

Even though we do have a presence, it is very small compared to the Gulf States, Iran, Al-Qaeda, etc. Also, there are definite tensions between the CIA and White House about this strategy. This scale of this "intervention" is very small compared to past interventions.

[Griff]

I thought that was an interesting tone, minimizing the effect of hundreds of armed and trained fighters.