If we are not committed to destroying the enemy then we will only succeed in making them stronger.
Obama is not even willing to call this operation a “war”. He has no plan for Victory. He is not even willing to identify the Enemy by name “Islamic....”
This is a lost cause from the get go.
Obama denies ISIS is Islamic. He’s insane. 25th Amendment, before it’s too late.
We can't wage "war" anymore; we're broke. Too many "citizens" in this country we are forced to give our borrowed money and taxed dollars too thanks to DC (let alone the friggen illegals) and the un-funded liabilities that range up to the 100 Trillion dollar mark. If we wanted to send a strong message and be done with it, nuke Medina and tell the islamo-kazis publicly "we left you mecca; don't F around". Only problem is we have a muzzie at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, an Iranian advising him, A Dem party bought and paid for by the muzzie brotherhood and a GOP corrupted by muzzie oil money.
It smells far too much like check and mate; only question is, how many moves are left.
That is because there is no military solution, only political.
Obama has picked General Allen to head up the effort. During the 2007/2008 surge, General Petraeus killed the Sunni and General Allen used diplomacy and bribes to get Sunni to shift their alligeince to the central govt and he was very successful. Later, Obama would give Allen the same job in Afghanistan trying to shift the Taliban.
The strength of ISIS in Iraq flows from the Sunni. The Sunni support ISIS because they have been shut out in Iraq. The Kurds have also been shut out.
The promises made to the Sunni in 2007 and 2008 about jobs in the govt and the military were slowly broken and they were purged. It is also said that the oil revenue that was supposed to go to the Sunni was reduced.
So it is better to reform the central govt to include Sunni and Kurds. No doubt, Gen Allen will have to kill some Sunni but also use his experience working with the Sunni.
If you want a military solution to the problem you will have to put US troop levels in Iraq the same as they were in the 2007/08 surge. Spend 2 more trillion dollars, and get a lot of Americans killed and maimed.
Here's what you need to do: Impeach Obama, put the NeoCons in charge(Cheney as prez, Bill Kristol as VP, and Paul Wolfowitz as SecDef). Invade, conquer, and hold for decades.
Except for the awesome ability of our special forces and our CAS pilots, I’d say that the military side of this is a doomed mission. However, having met an upper echelon Kurd commander, and knowing that the Kurds truly do want independence and see it just around the corner, I’d say that the SpecOps community could pull this off.
The real danger is Obama then interfering to make the mission fail. He’ll see “collateral civilian casualties” as an excuse any time he wants to manipulate the close air support into being useless. CAS is the ultimate key.