Posted on 08/20/2014 9:57:36 PM PDT by blam
Michael B Kelley and Mike Nudelman
August 20, 2014
Just about everyone agrees that the world would be a better place without the brutal terrorist group known as ISIS (or Islamic State or ISIL).
On Wednesday, Barack Obama compared the group to a "cancer" whose spread must be contained and that the group "has no place in the 21st century." And Secretary of State John Kerry tweeted that "ISIL must be destroyed/will be crushed."
But there is one thing everyone must realize in the anti-ISIS crusade: Given the momentum that ISIS has built over the past two years in Syria and Iraq, it would be very difficult to dislodge them from the region. To actually do it would require a full-scale war.
"If destroying ISIL becomes the near-term policy goal—which seems the likely outcome of saying you are going to 'roll back' the group—then 10,000-15,000 troops vastly understates the true commitment, which will actually require years, direct military action on both sides of the Iraq/Syria border, tens (if not hundreds) of billions of dollars, and many more than 15,000 troops," counterterrorism expert Brian Fishman writes in War on the Rocks. "ISIL is an inherently resilient organization—look how far they have come since getting 'rolled back' during the Surge in 2007 when 150,000 American troops were occupying the country."
ISIS has gone through many iterations since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and is now at its most powerful point as they control a vast swath of territory across Syria and Iraq. What has become a de facto criminal petrostate brings in nearly $12 million a month in revenues from extortion and other shady practices in the Iraqi city of Mosul alone in addition to $1 million to $3 million a day selling oil illegally.
(snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
> Let me get this straight. The Syrian “rebels” Obama was supporting have morphed into the worst terrorists the world has ever known?
Yes as planned and directed by Soros through Jarrett while 0 chases the stupid golf ball around the greens while his country burns to the ground.
SCREW THAT! Throw out the geneva convention on this one FRiends. Gear up the stealths, load them with neutron bombs.
After a few dozen, the muslims MIGHT get it.
Sigh. We don’t have the stomach for what it would take, and half measures will just make things worse.
It happened very suddenly, last Thursday.
Neutron bombs? Why neutron bombs?
So the land can be used efficiently by western cultures.
you should consider my reasoning on this one .
As long as any country gives immigration status and shelter to the muslim families that produce the children that turn into these men ( and some women ) it will be a continually perpetuating problem . It has to be attacked at the source .
The sources now including so-called western countries .OUR countries , which are not their countries , no matter what their so-called immigration status .
There should be ZERO muz coming from western countries and feeding into these conflicts . And if there are , their entire families must pay a terrible cost . The gloves must come off , in OUR countries .
ps: I have no objection to the use of any sort of munitions . IF neutron weaponry exist . However FAE’s and large BLUs will work just fine . We need to see carpet bombing with FAE’s ....send the BUFFs
Some people tend to have a very simplified black/white approach to issues, where the fact that a certain person is a monster means that the person needs to be kicked out. So far not a bad thing, but where the seminal mistake kicks in is that these powers-that-be NEVER seem to consider what/who will replace the vacuum.
Thus, a decision is taken to take out Saddam Hussein. A decision is taken to take out Qaddafi. A decision is taken to take out Hosni Mubarak. A decision is taken to take out Assad.
Decisions are taken that are rife with good intention, but unfortunately there is no consideration given to what will replace them. I often use the analogy of taking out the angry dog in your backyard and replacing it with a rabid wolf. Yes, the angry dog needed to leave, but making changes blindly without considering what happens after is ...mildly put ....stupid.
Now, ISIS has become a veritable monster. It is taking over ground in Iraq and Syria. Add to ISIS a resurgent Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Add to those two Al Qaeda in the Mahgraib and Boko Haram. Add to those four Al Shabaab. Add to those five Al Qaeda in the Philippines (Abu Sayyaf). Then have the radicalized elements in Europe, especially in the United Kingdom. The state of events in Pakistan. The Sword of Damocles that consistently hangs over the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
People think that the Long War on Terror will be long and global, but the ironic thing is that it is only just beginning AND it is not even gone truly global yet.
With that said, I will not be at all surprised to hear the powers-that-be deciding that yet another country will benefit from 'regime change.' There are absolutely no lessons learned when it comes to government.
And the sad thing is that eventually something will have to be done to stop what I call Amalgamated Terror, but because of all the wasted time it will lead to a far greater cost in terms of lost lives and increased monetary cost. If people think the Iraq war was expensive they have no idea how expensive the coming wars will be. Additionally, the enemy has been adapting to the US style of warfare. JDAM attacks will not be as easy as people know what to expect when the congregate, and while the West will always maintain a significant advantage the enemy has been learning. A good example is the attack that Al Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, did against Abu Ghraib prison - freeing hundreds of prisoners. Not a commando style attack in the style of the SAS/SBS or Delta/DEVGRU, but all the same very different from what jihadis used to do before.
An Africa proverb states that the best time to kill a crocodile is when it is still in its egg. The next best time is when it is a little youngling the length of your finger. But it appears the way some would prefer to take would be to wait until it is an 18 foot leviathan before trying to go to engage it.
When Al Baghdadi says 'see you in New York,' believe him. Whether or not he can achieve it he definitely does intend to do his best. The West needs to reconsider regime change ....unless they also consider who replaces the person they took out. There is also a need to hit these various groups hard ...NOW ...before they get even bigger and start joining. Sure, Boko Haram is currently a Nigeria-centric problem. Abu Sayyaf is only an issue in Indonesia and the Philippines. Al Shabaab in East Africa. ISIS in Syria/Iraq. However, they will get bigger, get richer, join up. They will move from killing Kenyans in malls and Iraqi/Syrian Christians in villages to turning their attention on the US. Many of their plans will not be successful, but the one that will be will make the US take a stand against them ...then.
The problem is that it will have cost more lives and coin that would have been necessary.
Neutron weapons may not exist. But it would not be hard to build some. In fact, it would be very easy. I don’t endorse or advocate genocide, but I sincerely believe it is going to come down to that. Either them, or us. One day.
Well, Obama is a cancer too.
Isn’t one of the standard courses of treatment for cancer...radiation?
If the superpowers aren’t willing to take the necessary steps like Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden, and etc., then the metastasis will continue until they have no other choice then to start conducting military campaign’s within their own borders.
Israel possesses them , they were the original inventors
What a very good rant :) I agree with you - they don’t seem capable of ruling themselves they need strongmen to rule over them. Supporting stability, in whatever form, is the best thing you can do for them and the rest of the world!
I know, Americans have not a lick of common sense. Our wealth, vanity, greed, and lust have made us STUPID. Political Correctness is the worst kind of stupid, that phrase will go down in history as starting World War III, and leading to the decline of western civilization.
Probably won’t be much recorded history after that.
Yep, just one year ago we were supporting them against Assad.
I’ve read that their numbers total approximately 15,000. That is approaching a division minus of the US Army.
IOW, one of our US divisions could wipe them out in a head to head conflict. But that’s not how they’d fight. They’d imbed in the population, the same as Hamas, the same as the insurgents in Fallujah and Samarra when we won those cities building by building.
What is the best way to draw them out and kill them, OR identify them and kill them? I’m in favor of IDing them and killing them. Because of that, I’d favor a very rigorous US air presence with native speakers leading the ground presence. These natives (Kurds + Iraqi government troops) would have the capacity to ascertain over time those who need to be killed without giving them one free shot in order to determine who the bad guys are. (Then there are the US ROEs, which I’m sure would prevent us from firing on anyone who isn’t personally found to have a family photo including al Baghdadi or al Zawahiri).
The US airpower + local fighters seems to be working with the Kurds around Mosul dam. Let’s see if it works with the Iraqi forces around Tikrit.
We have two stark choices:
A. Fight them over in that part of the world NOW, before that rapidly growing cancer metastasizes beyond control, or
B. Do nothing now only to defend against them HERE, in our neighborhoods and on our streets.
There is no “C: None of the Above,” America.
“We have two stark choices:
A. Fight them over in that part of the world NOW, before that rapidly growing cancer metastasizes beyond control, or
B. Do nothing now only to defend against them HERE, in our neighborhoods and on our streets.
There is no “C: None of the Above,” America.”
Complete hyperbole.
“They” are already in our neighborhoods and streets. Nothing we do “there” will impact what they do “here”.
We do not have to “fight them over in that part of the world NOW” which was the whole argument used $2 Trillion ago in Afghanistan and Iraq.
One of the many reasons “they” are here and we will have to fight them “here” is because we let them come here in great numbers - many as war refugees escaping the fighting we were doing over “there” for “them”. We’ve bankrolled them here through the welfare state.
ISIS will face the same brutality they mete out when they fail to deliver on governing and stability. We should let that happen first.
Unless our rules of engagement say “kill them all” we will wind up with them running through our streets
Yep, just one year ago we were supporting them against Assad.
I’ve read that their numbers total approximately 15,000. That is approaching a division minus of the US Army.
IOW, one of our US divisions could wipe them out in a head to head conflict. But that’s not how they’d fight. They’d imbed in the population, the same as Hamas, the same as the insurgents in Fallujah and Samarra when we won those cities building by building.
What is the best way to draw them out and kill them, OR identify them and kill them? I’m in favor of IDing them and killing them. Because of that, I’d favor a very rigorous US air presence with native speakers leading the ground presence. These natives (Kurds + Iraqi government troops) would have the capacity to ascertain over time those who need to be killed without giving them one free shot in order to determine who the bad guys are. (Then there are the US ROEs, which I’m sure would prevent us from firing on anyone who isn’t personally found to have a family photo including al Baghdadi or al Zawahiri).
The US airpower + local fighters plan seems to be working with the Kurds around Mosul dam. Let’s see if it works with the Iraqi forces around Tikrit.
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