Foreign Fighters against ISIS

Apologies if there's a similar thread to this; I went looking but didn't see one.



I'm curious to know what people may think of this article on CNN today. A few points of note:

Quote:

For Lt. Colonel John Schwemmer, the scenery is all too familiar. This is his sixth tour in Iraq, and he's back doing a job that he's been tasked with before: training Iraqi soldiers. Schwemmer and other active U.S. military personnel are on the ground in Iraq, whipping often ill-equipped government troops into shape. They've been here before, but this time, he feels, they're getting it right. But the U.S. military isn't the only contingent of Western forces in the region -- dozens of foreigners, including Americans, have volunteered to take the fight to ISIS.

Quote:

While it is difficult to say how many foreign volunteers are fighting ISIS, a spokesman for a Kurdish militia fighting against them in Syria -- known as the YPG -- told the New York Times their forces include more than 100 American citizens. U.S. law enforcement officials say it is illegal to join a Syrian militia. But some organizations have set up recruitment drives online, featuring applications for foreign fighters complete with checklists of what to bring and advice on bringing body armor across international borders.

Quote:

But foreign fighters aren't universally welcomed by those opposing ISIS. The Peshmerga, the military wing of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) that has been one of the most effective counterbalances to ISIS' expansion, has said they don't want or need foreign fighters, according to Bradbury. ..................... Peshmerga spokesman Helgurd Hekmat also told Kurdish news wire Rudaw that it was illegal for foreigners to join their ranks.

Quote:

Across the border in Syria, Matthew VanDyke, an American who fought alongside rebels against Ghaddafi's troops and was a Libyan prisoner of war for six months, has been putting his recruits through their paces. His organization, Sons of Liberty International, has trained over 300 Christian militia soldiers, with another 2,000 recruits, he claimed, ready to enter boot camp. He said the first graduates of his training program are almost ready to do battle with their ISIS foes.

On the one hand, given the sad state the Iraqi military has fallen into subsequent to the US departure from the country in 2011, I do applaud the idea of foreign fighters TRAINING the Iraqis (and to some extent the Kurds, although they probably need it less) to fight ISIS. On the other hand, it sounds to me like some of these people are actually going over there in order to FIGHT ISIS; an illegal proposition given that the Iraqi (and Syrian, since they're mentioned as well) governments have not given permission for any foreign fighters to come to their countries and join the fight against ISIS. Then too, that last group mentioned, Sons of Liberty International, that stresses their Christian background so strongly makes me wonder about their ultimate motives; that and the fact that their website stresses very strongly that they are training a Christian Army to fight ISIS in Iraq and other countries makes me lean toward the extremely reluctant idea that they would not object to sparking a sort of new Crusades. However, it's entirely possible I'm reading into things that aren't there, so I wanted to see what everyone here thought about the idea of foreign fighters training Iraqi and Syrian troops to fight ISIS; would you be for, or against the idea, and why?

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