We are operating at a very high tempo right now. The Pentagon says they hit targets wherever they locate them. Not only CIA targets in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan, Yemen, Somalia, and as of yesterday Libya, but battlefield targets in Syria and Iraq. And not just drones but Air Force and Navy tactical aircraft are hitting targets everyday supporting the Kurds and Iraqis on the ground as well as hitting strategic targets all over the Levant with high-flying B-1 bombers dropping GPS bombs. We are doing exactly what you suggest. Ok, so what is the ROE actually and what don't you like about it? We hit ISIS regularly wherever they pop up. What exactly are you expecting us to do? Nerve gas? Carpet bomb? They really don't have any revenue other than low output from oil fields that they don't have much of a market for. We haven't flattened them for two reasons . . . avoiding the ecological disaster that happened during the Kuwait war and because the Kurds and Iraqis want those refineries back so that they can generate income, too. But I could go for flattening them to deny ISIS funds. They can be rebuilt, and damage can be remediated when ISIS is finished. But we will end up paying for it. We are doing so but guerrillas, by nature, do not often concentrate. I tend to agree, but it is not simple at all. Turkey is the main miscreant and we are tied to them by NATO treaties. This Paris attack may finally get the Euro's to back us in pressuring Turkey. Cutting them out of NATO risks their going over to or being submissive to Russia and Russia is a more important threat to us than ISIS. We can't go gorilla on the Gulf States that host vital US bases that we cannot lose. I think pressure is being applied, but not publicly because we have vital interests that must be protected beyond ISIS--middle east security, the war on Al Qaeda, world oil supply, and Russian meddling on our turf. Well, now you are raving. You know good and well you can't go total war with divisions on the ground and nuclear weapons. It's the wrong kind of target. That failed in Vietnam and in Iraq and you should know better. Furthermore it is a huge waste of resources versus targeted killings and using our technological advantages that they can't contest. We're killing them every day and taking no casualties. Explain. Well he's talking with Putin right now to deal with ISIS, but that is complicated to because of Assad and Syria. What "mercy" are we giving them right now? We hit them in the middle of the night with GPS bombs that that never expect and they hate it. Despite our attempts civilians are being killed. We are not being all that surgical. ISIS thinks were are pretty merciless already. Who is nation building? Iraq has their own government and so does Syria, we occupy neither of them. We are focusing on ISIS already. Yet he is doing all of the things that you advocate, you just think "more" should be done. Easy to say. I think your politics is showing, because Republicans will not do much different if they were in charge. Do you seriously think Trump or Bush or Rubio is going to put a division on the ground in Syria or commit genocide in the middle east as a way of combating jihadists? It would only make more jihadists. Better to kill them wherever we find them no matter how long it takes. Do it smart, do it economically, and do it without leaving our allies hanging in the wind. Let the Russians occupy Syria and become the Great Satan if they want to. We just keep blowing them up whenever they show their heads.
I found something red disagrees with Obama about. Obama famously mocked Romney for saying Russia was more of a threat than Isis.
Post of the year. Of course red will disagree with a man with your military experience. It doesn't fit with Obama's narrative of not offending ragheads.
Red, Right now I am in the Sanders camp. So don't think it s my politics that are showing. I don't vote on single issues. Never. Recommend you peruse the NYTimes editorial from today's paper, or better yet, track down the Mayor of Paris quote about the politicians. It is not just me. I would never take nucs off the table here. We have a lot of people to kill, eventually, and nucs are quite efficient.
Yeah, it's getting them to all set up in the same camp at the same time that is hard. A sledgehammer will flat fuck up an ant. But it won't eliminate fire ants from your yard no matter how hard you bash the place with your hammer. It just kills the grass and the ants adapt. Its the wrong weapon for the target. The right weapons against guerrillas are counter guerrillas, preferable from the same country. We arm our side to the teeth, train them up, and back them up with airpower, intelligence, and reconnaissance. Which is exactly what we are doing. Despite what they call themselves, ISIS is not a country. They have no infrastructure, no economy, no currency, no commerce, no supportive population, no allies, no foreign policy, nuthin'. We can't cripple them like we can a real country, they are an international criminal gang like SPECTRE with a room-temperature IQ. They have enemies on all sides and have managed to get themselves into a shooting war with the Russia, NATO, and the United States of America as well as every one of their neighboring countries. They can't win. We will strangle them, degrade them, and assemble a large coalition of countries and when the time is right . . . the Kurds will take Kurdistan back, the Iraqis will take Iraq back, and whatever Syrian faction is toughest will take Syria. Every self-respecting world power has their pet Syrian militias. They have to settle this shit themselves and we just need to protect our national interests. This is what I see as "scale of life and scale of time". We're going to win this one, we need to win it smart. Let the rags do the dying for ragland. We will spend a ton of money to keep American casualties low. And it will be a lot cheaper and more effective than special weapons. But Bernie Sanders will never utilize the military. Hillary is actually probably more likely to use military power when needed than Bill or Barrack even though neither of them was ever shy about using the Big Stick. She is no pacifist. Bernie is.
Red there version of winning, is destruction of civilization. Which admit it or not they are making gains in that direction, every non Muslim nation that joins the fight against them, serves to sale their argument that this is a crusade which every Muslim should come to their aide. There is no easy answer, but one thing is for certain they only understand brutality. We will have be willing to be brutal to win this, to which we don't have the stomach.
That is their delusion. Hitler had a similar one, Genghis, the Huns, many others. They are impractical dreamers. Religious zealots for whom logic has no relevance. Even the sack of Rome did not destroy civilization. No, these crises wax and wane in throughout history. We just have a new evil empire to combat. Use the force, Luke. What they want is to draw the West onto their turf to engage in a lengthy IED and ambush guerrilla war. They want to die in spectacular fashion on their terms taking as many of us with them as they can. They will become martyrs for a new generation of crazies. I say do not give them what they want. That is not the American way of war. We don't need to get into a knife fight with crazies. We will fight this one smarter than the last one and on our terms. Strangle them, turn their own people against them, use technology so that they do the dying and we don't. For evil oppressors, death often comes from within. The key to peace in the middle east is for the middle easterners to decide that they want peace more than constant war. So we kill the bad rags and support the good rags and let them fight it out amongst themselves until the good rags prevail.
