Attacking ISIS in the Middle East is a serious strategic error

I know very little about Israel's involvement other than knowing the PNAC was Israeli friendly, and its founders were Jewish. My involvement with the PNAC came after 9/11.

 

I heard they were decimated and on the run. Not much since.

 

"First of all, one doesn't send in troops where they are not wanted." You are joking. That is a preposterous statement to make.

Did you know Assad views American troops as invaders?

ISIS will not fold when they lose Mosul. There is only a small group of fighters there hanging on to the western part of Mosul. The bulk of the fighters have been withdrawn to Syria. Keep in mind, in urban warfare a few hundred fighters can hold off a brigade or two. Iraqi artillery just creates more hiding places and shooting positions for defenders.

Basically, what you are describing is the unarguable fact that the Middle East is a hell hole. We will never be able to create stability there, and we should not even try. We should get out, period.

 

The raid took place Jan. 29. This article appeared on Feb. 2. I can assure you AQAP is not on the run.

The Yemeni branch of al-Qaeda (AQ) is stronger than it has ever been. As the country’s civil war has escalated and become regionalised, its local franchise, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), is thriving in an environment of state collapse, growing sectarianism, shifting alliances, security vacuums and a burgeoning war economy.

Much more can be seen on this link.

https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-...ula/yemen/174-yemen-s-al-qaeda-expanding-base

 

Sarcasm doesn't translate well to internet forums.

 

What a silly question ? Of course the sanctions, no fly zone,and blockade was working. Saddam was locked down like an animal in a cage.

That you think the Bush admin did not create false narratives, engage in misrepresentations, and tell lies is absurd. This has be proven 6 ways to Sunday.
How was Saddam an imminent grave threat to the US homeland ? A threat that was likened to a "Mushroom Cloud"?

Just because you have no clue about international law does mean the attack on Iraq was not a violation of international law.

 

Unfortunately - the raging masses are woefully ignorant of foreign policy. The Establishment relies on this ignorance. A few intelligent voices in the room do not matter - as long as the masses are kept ignorant these voices have little chance of amounting to much.

That said - the raging masses to seem to be starting to realize that they are being sodomized - they just do not know who or what their assailant is.

This makes them ripe for demagogues - like Trump who is looking more like a wolf in sheep's clothing.

 

It is an ideology that was very popular prior to WWII. This ideology seeks to justify hierarchy in society - that elites are where they are solely because of strengths or weakness of character which is rooted in one's genes.

It is basically elitism on steroids. It is almost a form of "caste system" where the lower classes should not be able to rise above their station and helping them to rise would be to mess with the "natural order".

 

I'm sorry, but where was the sarcasm? I meant no sarcasm.

 

With Blackbeard it is like arguing with a stone wall. He knows very little history, so he just makes stuff up, whatever is convenient for his argument at the time.

 

It's no wonder I don't know anything about the subject. It sounds awfully distasteful to me.

 

Thanks for the heads up. It is one thing to disagree - quite another to disagree without having any valid material to back up that disagreement.

 

Read up a little on "biological determinism". It is early yet but some of Trumps moves seem right down that ally.

 

Not to change the subject, but I am going to change the subject, the original subject, actually. I am getting rather concerned. The silence coming out of the White House concerning ISIS is deafening.

The Christian Science Monitor has reported, "Is it possible to defeat the Islamic State in a year? President Trump has directed the Pentagon to deliver plans to achieve that goal.

"The answer may depend on how one defines “defeat.” But whether it’s a matter of months or of years, stamping out the world’s most threatening and widespread Islamist terrorist organization is likely to take much more of a long-term US commitment than the new administration has so far suggested it wants to make, some regional experts say.

"It will also require more commitment from the 68 countries and international organizations of the counter-ISIS coalition meeting in Washington Wednesday."

Similar to Iraq and Afghanistan this is going to bad. Does Trump really want to bog his administration down in the Middle East?

 

Here here. I remember being spit at and called many names because I served during the Vietnam era. The liberals of today are the hippies of that era. I have never been thanked for my service until recently. I do remember back then our troops were fighting with their hands tied behind their backs because of all the politicians at home and I do agree we could have won that war if the generals were allowed to do their jobs. Even the last few wars they were limited and could have succeeded even sooner than they did. We also were making the mistake of rebuilding the countries we took and giving it back to them and now we have a major problem with terrorists because of it.

 

Before we get to ISIS - think about Yemen. We have been fighting a war in Yemen now for 2 years but, the silence is deafening = we are doing bad stuff ... again. I did hear Yemen mentioned the other day on some news program and the commentator stated something like "deafening silence". Everyone in the media knows we are at war in Yemen yet, no one wants to tell the US citizens.

My take is that if our tax dollars are going towards war- whether directly or indirectly - there is a requirement that we know why we are there and what our involvement is. When we were supporting death squad dictators in El Salvador and Guatemala back in the days of Rotten Ronnie - at least congress stepped up and stopped funding. I do not think this happens anymore. I will leave this one hanging.

I think what happened with Trump is that when he got into the big house - he found out what was going on. He found out that we were arming and supporting really nasty people in Syria - Radical Islamist Jihadists - including the same group who did 911 (Al Qaeda/Al Nusra).

Obama is gone and at some point this is going to be reported - like what happened with Iraq after Bush left. The Syria debacle however is a much bigger deal than Iraq as there is much less grey. It was not like Obama had intelligence telling him "these are moderates".

When Trump stated "Obama created ISIS" he was referring to the false narrative - pulling out the Troops led to ISIS. The problem with this narrative is that the pullout of the Troops happened in Iraq where-as the rise of the modern incarnation of ISIS happened in Syria.

ISIS existed in Iraq - but it was a small insignificant group. When the CIA (in conjunction with Saud, Turkey, Qatar and others) started arming the Salafi Islamist's
in Syria in 2011 - the modern incarnation of ISIS did not exist.

Armed and supported by various nation states the Islamist rebels quickly took over most of Syria in a relatively short period of time. Jihadists were flowing in from all over the place to join the effort to turn Syria in to a Strict Sharia/Theocracy.

It was in 2013 that a members from various rebel Islamist groups banded together to form an Islamic State in Syria (the Levant) - IS . In early June 2014 IS launched the Norther offensive into Northern Iraq. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Iraq_offensive_(June_2014)

On June 29, 2014 IS declared the creation of a caliphate that would include Syria and Iraq - Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. ISIS. The trained attack dog had gotten off it's leash.

This eventually created a big dilemma because (as Rand Paul trotted out on the CNN Sunday morning program State of the Union) we were fighting with ISIS in Syria but fighting against them in Iraq.

So it turns out that Trump accidentally hit the nail on the head although should have amended his "Obama created ISIS" comment to "Obama created the modern incarnation of ISIS".

But, Trump did not know this at the time. Now he does - and it is a huge problem. What would you do if in your first couple of weeks in the Oval Orifice you find out that the the previous administration was arming Al Qaeda ? the 911 terrorists, with sophisticated weapons such as shoulder launched anti aircraft missiles.

The thing is though is that it is not "just" Obama. The CIA, Pentagon, DOD and so on have been involved in this fiasco for years. What started out as a covert OP - turned into this giant monster and there is a whole lot of people who have dirt on their hands and all but Obama and Hillary are still working for you.

It is no just that we were arming these Islamist groups. The caliphate was operating as a State - selling huge amounts of oil and generating revenue. This means big time supply lines were established shipping huge quantities of oil to other countries such as Turkey (A NATO member).

This is all going to come out at some point - and this Elephant in the room is huge. There is not even a semblance of "plausible denial" like there was in the case of Iraq (although Iraq was not plausible under scrutiny- few of the raging masses are going to scrutinize that deeply).

There is no such deniability in relation to the mess in Syria. The "moderate rebel" lie was not only a lie - it was a fabrication - a false narrative with the intended purpose of deceiving the US public.

Trump walked into a huge mess - one that he would like to just go away but, it is not going to. This is why we have not heard much about ISIS.

 

Bolded your thoughts, first thing you've posted I agree with. Let them kill each other and let Allah sort their sorry asses out. It's a losing proposition trying to police mongrels, mutts, and walking dead. Eff them all and the camel they rode in on. The best policy is to leave them to their own devices, and ban their azzes from the USA. If they decide to get dicey,and threaten our mainland, a lot of superheated sand makes very nice vases.

 

I've been suggesting this for some time now. In fact, given Obama's handling of the ME and North Africa, this seems to be US policy: to inflame Islamist passions and provide just enough support for the various sides to continue their wars indefinitely. If Russia gets drawn in, so much the better. Let Syria be the 21st C Russian Afghanistan.

I think it is too Machiavellian to be accepted by the American people, though.

 

First, thank you for the positive note on my UserName. Second, thank you for a most challenging and thoughtful response to my former post. Your question, "What would President XploreR do?" caught me by surprise, and elicited a great deal of agonizing reflection. You're right. . .it's a lot easier to find fault and attack the failures of others than offer viable solutions yourself. I spent several days digesting the impact of your question and insight, with the result that I found myself incapable of devising a rational and direct answer to the ISIS dilemma. It's obvious to me that a military component is a necessity for any success against ISIS and its horrors, but all your points above regarding the personal, familial and societal responses locally to our military and its actions, or even our presence, will be strong and overwhelmingly negative. In past decades I was personally involved with some local Muslim families, and recognize that there are large numbers of Muslims in the U.S. and Europe who adopt western values into their personal lives and who disagree with the extremism so prominent in the Middle East. I've had conversations with some of them who have expressed their own frustrations with that extremism and their willingness and desire to change it to a more positive interpretation of Islam. I think some policy of encouragement and support toward those westernized Muslims in their efforts to change Islam to a more tolerant, positive interpretation globally, must become a part of our strategy to defeat ISIS or any of the other extremist groups. Unlike some Americans, I am convinced that the vast majority of Muslims world wide are opposed to the extremist views and actions, but the severity of the actions taken by the extremist minority is so overwhelming that their impact on societies everywhere is much higher than their numbers. The restrictive, authoritarian system governing Islam world wide today is also a barrier to change, and a real challenge to those who wish to make a positive difference. There's no easy answer here.

 

I made nothing up, and I am often a stone wall. Presented fact makes one fairly difficult to argue with....what....with you and giftedone winging it here.

 

Now that one's worth a Rep . . . can't give you one for some reason, so have a Like instead.

 

Working on Saddam....if devastating the Iraq economy and containing his military were our goals then I would agree, sanction was working. But, our endless vigilance and presence and policy were unleashing hatred and forces that then became a threat rolling up on our shores on 9-11. Saddam left in power required a huge American presence and blockade of their economy. Our Oil for Food program an example of corruption and incompetence inevitable in keeping a lid on Hussein, he should not have been left in power after the first Gulf War.

By whom was it proven? You? The media? Some political committee? Bush II went to war citing UN Resolutions 678 and 687, the original terms for the Gulf War that nearly all of you supported. The mistake made then was we left Saddam in power......requiring then our remaining vigilance, no fly zones, and devastating blockade.

Oh, I've US law. And a vote from Congress. With votes from Hillary Clinton. John Kerry. And Joseph Biden. Who were using the exact same narratives. Exact same representations. President Bill Clinton.....in 1998 bombed Iraq for 5 days for wmd violations calling Saddam a threat to these United States.

It was never the US' responsibility to go into Iraq and find weapons of mass destruction. It had been Saddam's responsibility to adhere to these international laws was it not? Who was in material breach of each and every UN Resolution and "international law" you now want to pretend I know nothing about. It was Saddam who continued to defy, who had started wars in each of the last two decades. And our naïve policies were to attempt to contain him. Run blockade on the Persian Gulf, fly endless no fly zone enforcements, and economically devastate Iraq. Saddam should have been handed over to the Hague, we boned the duck with these 'working' sanctions. Saddam was indeed bottled militarily, his economy devastated, but our policies unleashed unseen hatred, were seen as support for Israel, and were the primary reason for our fate on 9-11.

And all that can be shown as well, giftedone, you merely haven't been educated. Your reporter friend there has....he knows I speak the truth and can back it up. Comments?

 

perhaps arming, funding and facilitating them in our lust to oust a legitimate leader of Syria was wrong ?

 

This is a solid, well presented. grammatically correct post Sir and you are thanked for it.

 

They're using civilians for shields, Mosul has been cut off preventing many from withdrawing to Syria, and the US is providing the bulk of artillery and airstrikes at least in Mosul.

Get out? We just got there!