BeauBo: I think you’re closer to the real situation than many newspaper reporters. We can destroy ISIS strongholds in Raqqa, Mosul, etc just by bombing the hell out of the cities (but Mosul has a population of around 500,000 or more, with many being held captive in that they will be killed by snipers of they try to leave, according to sources in Syria.
However, ramping up the airstrikes on every known ISIS target at one time (but over a couple of days), will take out a lot of their camps, depots, communication facilities, and just plain old tank, artillery and checkpoint positions.
It’s called “a war of attrition”, meaning that you keep the pressure on them 24/7 so that they can’t regroup, move freely like they used to, get enough supplies to keep their forces at close to 100% efficient, and keep their lines of communication open to other ISIS and Al Qaeda groups in the neighborhood.
This is when we send in the small sniper teams and commando teams to pick off their sentries (instill the fear of God in them because they know they will be killed if they main checkpoints, towers, or even drive on the roads outside of their base cities).
This is one way to break their hold on their captive populations and if enough flee the cities, then you can “carpet bomb” (selectively), use the beautiful Daisy Cutters to level specific areas (like killing a circle of cockroaches by dropping a huge telephone book on them), and if they flee en mass, it’s crispy critter time (Napalm - bring it back now) and A10 thunder runs.
Meanwhile we need to do more in Nigeria/Mali to destroy the leadership and massed troops of Boko Harum. It seems that this is happening but on what scale I do not know. News reporting from that area is pisspoor.
The same for Al Shahab in Somalia, and most Islamic terrorist groups in Libya, Tripoli, Serte, etc. When you kill them by the dozen or score, it demoralized them so we need good targeting intelligence. That is the secret to blowing the bastards to hell.
Meanwhile, Europe is going to have to close their borders to almost everyone, at least for a while (Trump was right on this approach), and we have to stop this crap of letting people who we know have fought in Syria/Iraq come back to the US. The same for the Brits, French, Italians, Belgians, etc.
If you know they are the enemy, either arrest them and jail them or kill them outright. The Europeans have to quite being so damned timid and fight this as a war because it is.
Also, we should encourage Egypt and Israel to continue their join collaboration in the Sinai Desert. That place has to be cleared out of Al Qaeda, ISIS, Hamas, Bedouin smugglers and any other troublemakers.
The best defense is a good offensive based on good intelligence, firepower, and the will to win.
If we get a new administration that is serious about stamping out ISIS, they can be stamped hard and fast in Syria, and taken out in Iraq just a bit later. Turkey and Saudi Arabia would probably squeal like stuck pigs though.
I suspect that ISIS will be driven from their capital of Raqqa before our November election, just because of the political needs of the Democrats.
The Saudis have been the the font of the extremist Wahabbi ideology that motivates most of the many groups popping up, and the main funding source. They are like the old Soviet Union was to worldwide communist insurgencies. They are the center of gravity in the fight against islamists.