“The collapse of the American trainee force in Syria should not come as a surprise to anyone who watched a few hundred ISIS fighters rout 30,000 Iraqi troops, who dropped their weapons and ran (or raced away in cars) abandoning the city of Mosul,” writes Amitai Etzioni .  

“This is after the Iraqi army was trained by the US for 12 years — and recently beefed up by thousands more American trainers and advisors and, of course, support from the US Air Force and boatloads of cash… The armies the US trains are corrupted to the core, as are the nations they are supposed to fight for. (Afghanistan is ranked the fourth most corrupt country in the whole world; Iraq the sixth.) Officers buy and sell their commissions, take a cut of the salaries of those under their command, and do not think about going near the front. Weapons and ammunition meant for the Iraqi Army ends up on the black market and in the hands of ISIS.”  

“No wonder that despite the US providing ‘100 million rounds of ammunition, 62,000 small arms, more than 1,000 Hellfire missiles,’ and 300 mine-resistant patrol vehicles by April 2015, the Iraqi forces defending the city of Ramadi ran out of ammunition before surrendering.”