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Ideology isn’t a strategy, and sound bites don’t win wars. The Islamic State caliphate (ISIS) and its rivals can be annihilated, but only if we have a clear objective, a realistic assessment of the means needed to achieve it and — above all — a president with the vision, courage and fortitude to lead.
What will it take? Here are the requirements for a serious military effort (only a military approach will stop ISIS):
Congress must declare war.
Define the mission.
Stop pretending that war can be waged gently.
Concentrate on effects, not numbers.
Accomplish the mission and leave.
Conventional forces must think unconventionally.
Hyperexpensive weapons can be the enemy within.
Choose allies for their utility, not from habit.
Presidential support of our military.
Descriptions of each bullet point are at the link. Last line of the article...
We can defeat ISIS, but first we have to stop defeating ourselves.
I think we are violating everything in the bulleted list.
I just saw a movie about a young farm boy whose family was killed by the overwhelming military of a large power. He went off to get trained to fight them and got radicalized into becoming a rebel -- and grew into one of the rebellions leaders. Using the tactics that he learned, he staged an attack and bombed his adversary's base -- killing thousands.
What was that movie? Oh, yeah, the original Star Wars.
Descriptions of each bullet point are at the link. Last line of the article...
We can defeat ISIS, but first we have to stop defeating ourselves.
I think we are violating everything in the bulleted list.
I largely agree.
In this article,In ISIS Strategy, U.S. Weighs Risk to Population (link) the U.S., under Obama's "leadership" is favoring the civilians living under ISIS control to the lives of Westerners. This is contrary to his duties to both his country and his allies. It is the job of the people living in and near ISIS controlled regions to bring down their murderous overlords, on the grounds of either morality or self-preservation. The grounds or reasons don't interest me. But it is not our duty to fight a war in an ineffectual manner.
Make no mistake, this is a war. They have taken "credit" for both Paris and San Bernardino. Even if the ISIS leadership or caliph had nothing to do with the massacres they now own the attacks, plain and simple. If we had to fight Germany and Japan this way in WW II the monster governments would still be in charge. A brief article excerpt from the left-leaning New York Times illustrates this:
As the capital of the Islamic State’s self-declared caliphate, Raqqa holds a dense concentration of potential targets: The group’s top leaders work and live in the city, and the bureaucracy they have created to run the self-declared caliphate is based there. There are financial specialists, computer experts, field commanders and as many as 10,000 foot soldiers, and they congregate in dozens of places, including the headquarters buildings.
Raqqa’s city hall is Exhibit A in the difficulties in targeting in an urban environment. Even the most advanced and precise missiles and bombs cannot achieve the surgical precision needed to target only militants in the city hall building, American officials said.
The top floors are a dormitory for fighters from across the region, residents of Raqqa said, estimating that there are about 150 men, most of them from Saudi Arabia or Tunisia. But the rest of the building is used by civilians.
One thing is clear; the responsibility for the death of civilians is on ISIS, not those trying to dislodge them or retaliate for the bloodbaths they perpetrate.
Send in half million US troops, occupy the country, depose the dictator, rout ISIS. Wait! we did that already. So, what to do. Here is what I think now. When ISIS is fighting Al-Nusra is fighting A-Qaeda is fighting Hezbollah is fighting Assad is fighting Iran is fighting Russia.
Ideology isn’t a strategy, and sound bites don’t win wars. The Islamic State caliphate (ISIS) and its rivals can be annihilated, but only if we have a clear objective, a realistic assessment of the means needed to achieve it and — above all — a president with the vision, courage and fortitude to lead.
What will it take? Here are the requirements for a serious military effort (only a military approach will stop ISIS):
Congress must declare war.
Define the mission.
Stop pretending that war can be waged gently.
Concentrate on effects, not numbers.
Accomplish the mission and leave.
Conventional forces must think unconventionally.
Hyperexpensive weapons can be the enemy within.
Choose allies for their utility, not from habit.
Presidential support of our military.
Descriptions of each bullet point are at the link. Last line of the article...
We can defeat ISIS, but first we have to stop defeating ourselves.
I think we are violating everything in the bulleted list.
Great bullet points, more like homilies, so where's that pretty basic stuff otherwise known as strategy?
What is your definition of the mission, please "to destroy ISIS" isn't going to cut it.
9,000 bombing sorties doesn't sound that gentle to me, but perhaps you know better. So a direct question is who do you ungently wage a war when a large number of the inhabitants of ISIS controlled terrorist are more hostages than supporters?
Concentrate on effects, not numbers which means what exactly?
Conventional forces must think unconventionally, that would seem to contradict not waging war gently, along with eliminating ground troops as opposed to special forces.
My favorite, Choosing allies for their ability not from habit. Who would those allies be? I hope the answer is arm the Kurds, because then the question becomes which Kurds? The most effective Kurds so far have been the Syrian PYD (Democratic Union Party) who have established an autonomous region called Rojava in northern Syria. The only problem with that is the Turkey, or NATO ally doesn't particularly like them because they are aligned with the PKK which Turkey and the U.S. have designated as a terrorist organization. To complicate matters a little more, the Iraqi Kurds under the leadership of Masoud Barzani doesn't like the PYD much either and Turkey's Erdogon is more than happy to enlist Barzani in his war against the PKK.
Then there is our "ally" in Iraq that is more closely aligned with Iran than they are with us, and Iran, Iraq and now Russia are far more interested in defending Assad than they are concerned about ISIS. Also there is the issue of Iraq's distaste for Turkish or any foreign troops operating in their territory. On the other side of the ledger, we have Saudi Arabia and Qatar who are more interested in dealing with the situation in Yemen than ISIS. They are also more interested in getting rid of Assad by any means necessary than dealing with their Sunni coreligionist in ISIS and other al Qaeda types (there is good suspicion that funding for both ISIS et.,al is flowing in from both).
And last but not least there is this hodgepodge of anti-Assad militias, some we will support some we will not, and good luck figuring out the good guys from bad guys and the really bad guys.
Now if that post is confusing, it is no where as confusing as what is going on in Syria. So good luck with your bullet points.
One thing is clear; the responsibility for the death of civilians is on ISIS, not those trying to dislodge them or retaliate for the bloodbaths they perpetrate.
There is one thing that we learned at a steep price in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, is that you can tell yourself that if it makes you feel better, but that rational is lost on the victims who didn't support our enemies before but did afterward.
There is one thing that we learned at a steep price in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, is that you can tell yourself that if it makes you feel better, but that rational is lost on the victims who didn't support our enemies before but did afterward.
I give up. Do we just surrender and allow ourselves to be punching bags or targets?
I give up. Do we just surrender and allow ourselves to be punching bags or targets?
But we did what you suggest. Occupied the country, toppled the government and installed a democratically elected government and see what we got. What is your idea that does not end where we are now?
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We Must Fight to Protect Ourselves, Not ISIS Residents
