Vox Sentences: The US is putting (a few dozen) boots on the ground in Syria

The US is sending special forces to Syria; how Indonesia became the world's worst polluter; and a pre-election sword attack in Myanmar. Happy Halloween!

TOP NEWS

Boots on the ground

The Washington Post/Getty Images

• The Obama administration announced today that it's sending 20-30 special forces troops to Syria to be stationed as "advisors."

  [CNBC / Jim Miklaszewski, Richard Engel and Cassandra Vinograd]

• Special forces have been used in ground operations in Syria before. The difference is that these advisors will be there full-time.

  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]

• What's more important is who they're training: the Syrian Kurdish militia called the YPG and a new rebel alliance called the Democratic Forces of Syria, which are rumored to be led by the YPG.

  [NPR / Bill Chappell]

• The US and its allies are training the militias with an eye toward retaking the city of Raqqa, ISIS' de facto capital.

  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]

• The administration is taking pains to emphasize that this isn't a "ground combat operation," or a big shift from previous policy.

  [Reuters / Arshad Mohammed, Phil Stewart and Patricia Zengerle]

• But they still have to contend with the 16(!) different times President Obama promised the US wouldn't put "boots on the ground" in Syria.

  [USA Today / Gregory Korte]

Indonesia is burning

let Ifansasti/Getty Images

• For the last two months, intense forest fires in Indonesia have been enveloping Southeast Asia in haze and smoke — and releasing tons of carbon dioxide into the air.

  [Vox / Brad Plumer]

• This map by Global Forest Watch, based on NASA satellite data, shows only the fires reported in the past week. Much of the Indonesian archipelago is lit up.

  [CityLab / Linda Poon]

• The fires — which are so intense because they're burning peat forests, which contain much more trapped carbon than typical trees — have vaulted Indonesia ahead of the US and China to be the biggest polluter in the world this fall.

  [Bloomberg / Alex Morales]

• Indonesia is promising reforms to prevent the fires from getting this bad again. Namely, it wants to limit permits to clear and develop peat-forest land, and to create a "one map" policy that will clarify land ownership.

  [Jakarta Post]

• There's a lot the US can do to help those reforms along.

  [Grist / Nigel Sizer, Fred Stolle, and Nirarta Samadhi ]

• And the US (and non-governmental groups) can also exert a lot of pressure on companies that use palm oil — the product that cleared peat land is used to produce — to support only sustainable farming practices.

  [Grist / Nathanael Johnson]

Democracy put to the sword

Lauren DeCicca/Getty Images

• A little over a week before the first election in Myanmar in 25 years, a member of parliament from the opposition party was attacked with a sword while canvassing.

  [AFP]

• The sword attack isn't a sign of broader coordinated violence. But it's not the first time a member of the opposition party's been attacked on the campaign trail. Observers are also seeing indications of election irregularities and voter intimidation.

  [Council on Foreign Relations / Joshua Kurlantzick]

• The election has helped promote peace in one regard: in mid-October, the country's president signed a cease-fire with 8 ethnic militias — including one group that's been fighting the government for over 60 years

  [New York Times / Wai Moe and Thomas Fuller]

• It's been very unhelpful in another regard. The Rohingya Muslims who live in Burma — 140,000 of whom have been displaced and are living in internment camps — have been stripped of voting rights, barred from putting up candidates, and targeted by discriminatory laws.

  [Human Rights Watch / David Mepham]

• Earlier this year, President Obama called his 2012 trip to Myanmar — the first by a sitting president — an "opening" like Nixon's trip to China. But, he added, "we still don't yet know how that experiment plays out." Indeed.

  [Vox / Max Fisher]

MISCELLANEOUS

Bill and Hillary Clinton claim the Defense of Marriage Act was meant to prevent a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. Nonsense. [BuzzFeed / Chris Geidner]

• Poor Jim Gilmore: the GOP presidential candidate who can't even get verified on Twitter.

  [Washington Post / Elise Viebeck]

• McKamey Manor is a haunted house experience so extreme that it doesn't allow safewords. Participants are "bound, masked and held under water, slapped and stomped on, and compelled to eat your own vomit." How is this legal?

  [The Guardian / Rory Carroll and Mae Ryan]

• I really can't recommend strongly enough that you visit TailorSwift.biz.

  [Tailor Swift]

• Charles Kleinert was one of the tiny minority of cops to get indicted for killing an unarmed black man. And then a judge dismissed the charges, citing an obscure 1889 ruling.

  [Washington Post / Wesley Lowery]

VERBATIM

"This is about where we see the Grinch for the first time, and his entrance line is an all-time great: 'It’s a wonderful night for eyebrows.'" [Grantland / Holly Anderson]

• "When I think about how I understand my role as citizen, setting aside being president, and the most important set of understandings that I bring to that position of citizen, the most important stuff I’ve learned I think I’ve learned from novels."

  [NY Review of Books / Barack Obama]

• "If Scouts Guide To The Zombie Apocalypse is the future, maybe the world should end."

  [AV Club / Katie Rife]

• "Halloween isn’t a social service or a charity in which I have to buy candy for less fortunate children."

  [Anonymous Garbage Person to Slate / Emily Yoffe]

• "You should fight for your outfit. Don't be a slave like I was. You keep fighting against that slave outfit."

  [Interview / Carrie Fisher to Daisy Ridley]

WATCH THIS

The quiet epidemic of soldiers haunted by what they did during wartime [YouTube / Amanda Taub and Johnny Harris]

Shutterstock / Anand Katakam