I read this article on Obama's recent decision to deploy American troops to Chad in order to help find students, schoolgirls, that have gone missing. Here's the link:
http://mashable.com/2014/05/21/obama-troops-nigeria-schoolgirls/
The person who wrote this article, Brian Ries, has come to the conclusion that Obama has sent troops to do something else. The troops, according to Brian and the information he found, are going to work on drones, not actually save the missing children. "Their main priority is to work on drones — not walk through a forest to search for the missing girls" is outrageous to the common man's mind. If our nation is aware of horrific events and has the resources to help another nation that has people clearly suffering, why wouldn't we help? Why would we put up a false front that says, "Oh ya, we'll help find those missing children!" when in reality, our nation is simply going to go work and test the drones that we've spent so much money on.
In many ways, it's hard to believe Rie's conclusion, but it does make sense. However, other articles from much more reliable and trusted sources take no mention of the "true" intentions behind sending Armed forces. Organizations such as ABC and The Washington Post have articles that state American troops are there to help the missing and captured Nigerians in Chad, and make no mention of the work with drones except that they will be surveying the area.
Those articles can be found here:
Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-deploys-80-military-personnel-to-chad/2014/05/21/edd7d21a-e11d-11e3-810f-764fe508b82d_story.html
ABC News:
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2014/05/u-s-sends-drone-80-troops-to-chad-for-missing-schoolgirls-search/
I wouldn't go as far as saying this is a "conspiracy" that the government is hiding because if it is, it's clearly not well hidden if it was, as Mr. Ries said, publicly announced as a "War Powers Notification". But this is an interesting event, very modern and contemporary, and I happened to read multiple articles on it. So, what do you guys think is really happening? Is Ries correct? Is American right in sending troops to help a foreign nation?
This is definitely an interesting post, and I'm wondering if there's more information out there to either back up or refute Ries's claims. I did a quick search and I haven't been able to find any articles corroborating Ries's claims. Jason or anyone else, is there more information on this out there that I just can't find?
ReplyDeleteI'd have to agree that it does seem a bit of a stretch. 80 personel is hardly enough to test drones, I would think. I guess we'll just have to keep our eyes peeled. A few more articles:
ReplyDeleteNPR: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/05/21/314602646/obama-u-s-military-in-chad-to-aid-search-for-missing-schoolgirls
TIME: http://time.com/108025/nigeria-chad-boko-haram-american-troops-obama/
Surprisingly, the New York Times hasn't written about this yet!
I wasn't able to find any other definite articles about that possiblity, but whether or not it is true it is clear that the government does often avoid disclosing all information about what is going on with their involvement in other nations. The question is, should the American public be more involved in these decisions? I used to think that we definitely should be, but learning about Franklin Roosevelt and the efforts he went to to help Britain before America entered WWII has caused me to reconsider. Britain might have fallen before we got involved if Roosevelt hadn't been helping Churchill out, occasionally without even telling Congress all the details, and that would have been a really bad situation. I don't know where the balance is, but it's something to consider as we head into an age where we're increasingly involved in international affairs.
ReplyDelete