Clinton Syria Fact Check: "Safe Zones" = "Ground Troops"

[MattSh]

During the first Democratic presidential debate, the following exchange took place between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders about US policy in Syria: [my emphasis]

CLINTON: ... And, to -- provide safe zones so that people are not going to have to be flooding out of Syria at the rate they are. And, I think it's important too that the United States make it very clear to Putin that it's not acceptable for him to be in Syria creating more chaos, bombing people on behalf of Assad, and we can't do that if we don't take more of a leadership position, which is what I'm advocating.

SANDERS: Well, let's understand that when we talk about Syria, you're talking about a quagmire in a quagmire. You're talking about groups of people trying to overthrow Assad, other groups of people fighting ISIS. You're talking about people who are fighting ISIS using their guns to overthrow Assad, and vice versa. I'm the former chairman of the Senate Veterans Committee, and in that capacity I learned a very powerful lesson about the cost of war, and I will do everything that I can to make sure that the United States does not get involved in another quagmire like we did in Iraq, the worst foreign policy blunder in the history of this country. We should be putting together a coalition of Arab countries who should be leading the effort. We should be supportive, but I do not support American ground troops in Syria.

CLINTON: ...Well, nobody does. Nobody does, Senator Sanders.

Clinton's claim that "nobody" supports sending US ground troops to Syria was fundamentally misleading, because whoever calls for the US to establish a "safe zone" in Syria - as Clinton did in her previous utterance to which Sanders was responding - is calling for "ground troops."

This fact was made clear by a well-publicized exchange in a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on September 16 between Sen. John McCain, chair of the committee, and General Lloyd Austin, head of US Central Command ["CENTCOM"], in which McCain pressed General Austin to say that he favored establishing "safe zones" in Syria and General Austin refused to do so, on the grounds that a "safe zone" would require a "ground force." The video of the exchange is here. The full video of the hearing is here.

-----> http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/33299-clinton-syria-fact-check-safe-zones-ground-troops

[DanTex]

1. False Clinton-bashing from the ironically named "Truth Out."

The "safe zones" idea has been floated before, and it involved US air support but no US ground troops. The ground forces would be Syrian insurgents. Maybe McCain wanted US ground troops, but the safe zones Hillary was referring to did not. For example...

BAGHDAD — Turkey and the United States have agreed in general terms on a plan that envisions American warplanes, Syrian insurgents and Turkish forces working together to sweep Islamic State militants from a 60-mile-long strip of northern Syria along the Turkish border, American and Turkish officials say.

The plan would create what officials from both countries are calling an Islamic State-free zone controlled by relatively moderate Syrian insurgents, which the Turks say could also be a “safe zone” for displaced Syrians.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/28/world/middleeast/turkey-and-us-agree-on-plan-to-clear-isis-from-strip-of-northern-syria.html?_r=0