"On the ground these days, ISIS is engaged in a war of inches that will likely test its capacity to the limits, like its (lack of) ability to manage and operate supply lines, for example. The poor training and quality of its fighters will also now matter more. And the absence of dramatic victories, indeed the reality of setbacks and retreats, will reduce the enthusiasm and undercut the morale of current fighters, to say nothing of the impact on potential recruits.
This may be one reason why ISIS has apparently shifted to prioritize attacks like the Paris horror. It likely needs the acts of drama and violence to replace the revolutionary theater that its military advances once gave it. Running wild through the streets, gunning down the crowds in a night club: This is fantasy violence, video games brought into the real world. ISIS is again the coolest of jihadi brands, the cutting edge of the war against the real. The intent is not so much to terrorize the West as to galvanize the faithful.
Understanding ISIS’ methods can help us counter its aims. One key for us: to step up the grim war of attrition against ISIS on the ground. Life for the average ISIS fighter has to become a miserable affair of holing up, getting shot, running out of food, and putting up with bad medical care and low supplies even as the higher-ups live it up in the ruins of Raqqa. That word needs to filter out across the jihadi grapevine. To cut the flow of recruits and funds to ISIS, we must make ISIS look unattractive and weak—drab. If at the same time we work aggressively to reduce its ability to repeat the Paris attacks, ISIS will continue to fade."
http://www.the-american-interest.com/2015/11/16/how-to-beat-isis-the-president-is-partly-right/
"While the U.S. and France have ramped up airstrikes against Islamic State targets, both countries have ruled out deploying ground troops in Syria in the midst of a civil war."
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-16/france-widens-crackdown-at-home-as-bombs-rain-on-islamic-state
------------------
I think this is the way to go. We've lost enough soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Besides, The Muslims do better at crazed savagery than us. Let us do supplies and air support and let the Shia and Sunni take it to the mat. If Russia wants in on the ground fight, more power to them.
86 comments:
"We've lost enough soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan."
That is the ISIS ace in the hole. They are counting on that keeping us out of the fight for real. Attrition, while part of the package, cannot succeed alone. It has been tried and failed in nearly every conflict of the past with dedicated foes. It never works, because with people like ISIS, they just adapt, they get even more brutal, they capture and torture, they hold hostages. They will wear us down long before we tire them of the fight. We want peace - they want a fight and they want vicory. We just want to be left alone. We get excited after an attack, but our attention span is no match for theirs. They live for this. It's a doomed strategy. The whole point of asymmetrical warfare is to wear down the political spine of the superior force. We are starting out admitting we are already worn down.
If we want to rid ourselves of this scourge, we need to be looking for total victory not the path of least resistance. Yes, that means collateral damage, and dead American soldiers. I think the alternative is dead American civilians. Am I wrong? That's the real question. Can they be dissuaded without being destroyed. You tell me.
bagoh20 ...no, you are not wrong and that is the sad part. This latest iteration of terrorists actually wants the west to attack them on the ground...and why not, they have no Air Force or Navy? I do not think they can be dissuaded, since as you've said, it what they live for...although I doubt they even have a concept of "victory." Eventually there will be western troops on the ground in large numbers because there really is no other way to meet them head on. Large catastrophic air campaigns (1000+ sorties daily for weeks on end) to work must be savage and unconcerned with collateral damage. Are we up to that today?
Doesn't matter really because they are determined to draw the west in to their realm by any means necessary...there's no where else they can claim "victory" if they achieve it...and eventually we will grow angry enough to do so. And as in almost all "wars" the greatest loss will be the innocent and the children...a reason I keep a large 16x20 photo of two Vietnamese kids, maybe 2 or 3 years old, just outside of Danang in 1965, encircled in barbed wire, on our living room wall...a reminder of who always "pays" for war, as well a nominal homage to then journalist Jules Roy writing from Hanoi in the 1950's, about the insanity of barricading against children.
I doubt I'll see any real change in my lifetime. I'm cynically convinced we never learn....on all "sides."
Good article, as far as it went. Meaning specifics on shutting off ISIS funding, there wasn't much.
How about some air strikes on Doha? on Riyadh?
Sounds like he's waiting for the cold Russian winter to annihilate them.
bagoh20 said...
We've lost enough soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.
That is the ISIS ace in the hole. They are counting on that keeping us out of the fight for real. Attrition, while part of the package, cannot succeed alone.
They can't attrite us because our training and weapons are that much better. We beat the Hell out of them in both Iraq and A-stan when Dubya was in. The only way it happens is when the media starts playing the casualty game of how many lost this week and people go all wussy.
Did you know 75% of casualties in A-stan were on President Pissy's watch, in addition to 92% of Marines there?
It's Pissy's excuse, but if you have Dubya's will to win, they can't win.
Besides, the Demos with bylines just might be starting to get scared. If IS comes to DC, a lot of their necks are on the line.
An AP article today:
German media say police canceled friendly match after 'concrete' threat
Then, the 5th paragraph:
Members of the German government including Chancellor Angela Merkel had not arrived, but were scheduled to attend the match to send a signal that Germany wouldn't bow to terrorism in the wake of the deadly Paris attacks on Friday.
I say if it looks like a bow and it stinks like a bow, its a bow.
And nobody will go in on the ground, even with a catastrophe on their homeland, except us. If they do get their own personalized catastrophe, they will need us to go in with them anyway.
I know we don't want to face it, but Islamists are much more dedicated than us, and in that way, stronger than us. We have superior weapons and methods, but without the will to win at all costs, we are vulnerable to their superior dedication in the long run. They kill dissenters - we pay them very well, and sometimes hire them to run the country.
I suppose if they commit enough atrocity and spread it around, we can get a real coalition against them that would hold up for maybe a year, but the West is weak in it's comfort and constant self-reflection.
bagoh20 said...
And nobody will go in on the ground, even with a catastrophe on their homeland, except us. If they do get their own personalized catastrophe, they will need us to go in with them anyway.
If it's bad enough, Coalition of the Willing II.
Thing is, we'll need a new bunch in charge.
John, I'd rather go after the Saudis in Riyadh. Every time they're detected sending aid to rebels, bomb something important. Let them know that spreading Salafism carries a karmic punch. Let the gulfies look on and learn.
I think the time for nuance is over. Remove the rules of engagement that have hampered us for decades and allow us to utterly annihilate these sub-humans and whoever gets in the way.
deborah said...
John, I'd rather go after the Saudis in Riyadh. Every time they're detected sending aid to rebels, bomb something important. Let them know that spreading Salafism carries a karmic punch. Let the gulfies look on and learn.
Salafies aren't as big a problem as Wahabists. Since it is Wahabists that started AQ which has not transmogrified into ISIS.
deborah said...
John, I'd rather go after the Saudis in Riyadh. Every time they're detected sending aid to rebels, bomb something important
Problem is, there are Suadis and there are Saudis. Some are (believe it or don't) working with Israel.
We want the right ones.
Methadras said...
I think the time for nuance is over. Remove the rules of engagement that have hampered us for decades and allow us to utterly annihilate these sub-humans and whoever gets in the way.
Got my vote.
It stand corrected, Meth, thanks.
Ed IIRC SA is the chief financer of the worlds fastest growing religion...Wahhabism. Israel or no Israel, cut off the money and it will help.
Aaaright. So far be it from me to stand in the way of a good patriotic wave of the sword. But permit one question:
How will you know when you've won?
When will that "Mission Accomplished" banner be unfurled, as it was when GWB stood under it nearly a decade before we left Iraq?
Estimates of ISIS fighting strength both inside and outside vary wildly, from 52,000 to 258,000. I'm assuming you want to kill them all, right? So how do you go about dispatching the tens of thousands outside of Da'Ish, first of all - especially the ones in Europe? Second, even one fled fighter can be disastrous, if he's got enough leadership skill.
So do we just do all this by numbers? Do we assume that a few hundred thousand dead means that we got all of them, or do we have to adjust with a "fudge factor" for all the collateral damage and up the ante accordingly? And how many more trillions than Iraq the First Try will it cost?
All this for some desert territory that's being squeezed by Kurdish good guys and a mixed bag of Syrian tyrannical regime and an opposition not much better than ISIS/Da'Ish. And with the sunk cost of ending one of Islam's most notoriously bad propaganda campaigns.
One thing's for sure. You'd better go the Trump route. If you do this and don't snatch their oil to pay for every last cent of Operation Convert All Muslims then I'm raising the taxes for all the cost exclusively on whomever supported it so unreservedly. Which will be great, because then most Republicans will finally be paying their fair share.
Bonus points to any civilian Republicans who want to be parachuted in and go it alone. You have my blessing 100%. (And don't think I'm being snide. There are actually some skilled U.S. mercenaries who are more than happy to help train with the Kurds).
And mercenaries also get the luxury of being able to stay as long as they want before getting killed. None of this premature "Mission Accomplished" crap for them! No tender-bellied civilian's moaning about "How long!"
They can stay as long as they like. Which is the best solution for undercutting all the silly (liberal, of course) complaining about such things as "logistics" and "resources" and "materiel and command and control support"! Screw that!
It's a wonderful solution. They get to stay forever, if they want.
Which is what they wanted all along.
Bon courage!
On the news they said that Russia flew 1300 sorties against ISIS yesterday. Russia isn't overly scrupulous about rules of engagement. Perhaps all that death and destruction will serve as an inhibiting factor for further recruits. The liberals claim that the deaths caused by our drone program is a spur to recruitment. Perhaps deaths caused by Russian ordinance don't have these unwelcome side effects.......My own view is that this crap will continue for another thirty or forty years. It will not end in some dramatic fashion. It will just evaporate......It's very difficult to plot a rational strategy against a homicidal, suicidal maniac. Killing them seems to help, but there's always another generation.
"How will you know when you've won?".
The middle east will look like it did just before Obama and Hillary started calling the shots.
How will you know when we have won the real battle of our times and have global warming vanquished?
The Japanese were suicidal maniacs too, with a similar preference for death over surrender. They were millions stronger, better armed at a level near our own technologically, and they were pounded into submission with what we had 60 years ago. I think we could do this if we had the will, and success meant WE ALL win instead of my party wins.
The middle east will look like it did just before Obama and Hillary started calling the shots.
Lol. A force of how many then and costing how much? And for how long?
For a businessman you really think that funding the business of America's interventional corrections of every failed nation's business grows on trees, don't you?
Rehab costs money. National statecraft rehab also costs money. And 9 times out of ten the rehab participant is not willing, escapes, relapses, or kills him/herself with their renewed addiction or through some related device.
But if you want to fund that rehab, be my guest. Just make sure you sign your own name on the tab and stop hitting me up for donations.
How will you know when we have won the real battle of our times and have global warming vanquished?
Well the answer to that is so easy that I'm sure even you know it. But I'm making a decision to no longer answer purely rhetorical questions. It wastes time. Be as entertaining as you want. But don't pretend that using your entertainment to hijack real issues is a good trade-off, please.
The Japanese were suicidal maniacs too, with a similar preference for death over surrender. They were millions stronger, better armed at a level near our own technologically, and they were pounded into submission with what we had 60 years ago. I think we could do this if we had the will, and success meant WE ALL win instead of my party wins.
Interesting parallel.
Here are the first differences that come to my mind:
1. Japan was influenced by the mainland and lacked the long history of successful conquest inherent to Islam.
2. Japan's emperor was a respected and influential "God on earth" with a long line of unbroken succession whose dictate was heeded by all Japanese - none of which are the case with these caliph buggers.
3. While the Japanese code of bushido was long and illustrious, it was relegated to the special samurai class. Not to every Japanese as a whole as had recently become the (innovated) case during the much shorter war itself.
4. The Japanese are a people with their own religion. Not a religion that is bent on conquering all the people around them. What occurred during WWII was an aberration borne of its perceived, recent need to modernize, industrialize and compete. Whereas Islam's perceived need to dominate has been its defining feature since Muhammad's first revelations.
In short, Japanese society was much more deferential, without the epic, never-ending power struggles and attendant aggression and internecine violence that is everywhere in Islam.
No answer. Just like every time I ask it. I wonder why that is.
So you think ISIS will just go away by itself like bell bottoms. No cost, no risk, no problem. Just chill, ma homies.
Rhythm and Balls said...
How will you know when you've won?
Good point and one not easily divined. To the savages in ISIS just getting the west to confront them on the ground is "victory" from their point of view. They can then claim we're the invading bad guys and recruit happily from the collateral damage. The solution will be ugly. It always is...
No. In short, Japan was 10 times the challenge of ISIS. Your points do nothing to diminish that. The true obstacle is not the enemy here.
Unless you are suggesting that our current efforts against ISIS could defeat Imperial Japan?
bagoh20 ... no, ISIS will not go away like bell bottoms. They will persist until destroyed physically. They thrive on encouraging violence, it is what they do, and won't stop until they cannot do so anymore. I wish I knew a simple solution, but in the 70 odd years of my life we've not yet found one for situations like ISIS...when a weaker physical enemy can drive us up the wall. Our conscience may kill us yet...
So you think ISIS will just go away by itself like bell bottoms.
Not at al. But I think it can be contained and implode the way the USSR did. And I'm fine with helping to degrade them in proportion to the power they've acquired and used to terrorize the civilized world. But I think the primary goal should be to contain them with proxies, the same way we did with the proxy wars we fought against Soviet Russia. Although the Arab states are morally lazy assholes who prefer following to leading, the Kurds are not. I don't mind them conquering territory that stretches far beyond the gains they've already made. I also have no problem with Putin doing what he wants with the Syrian part of the rest of it. In fact, it appears no one has a problem with that.
Again, in response to terror attacks, degrade them all you want. I'm on board. But be realistic about your goal of "elimination." And let others lift the load.
Rhythm and Balls said...
Aaaright. So far be it from me to stand in the way of a good patriotic wave of the sword. But permit one question:
How will you know when you've won?
When you and your allies are the only ones left standing. Then once you've utterly crushed these people and whoever the fuck gets in your way, you raze it all to the ground afterwards and bury it. Remove any vestiges that it ever existed. Wipe out their borders because they are no longer the property holders any longer. It's our now, come take it if you can. Oh wait, we've totally eviscerated you. You can no longer reproduce fast enough to fight back because you will be torn asunder wherever you pop up. Oh and if your friends think they can join in, sure the more the merrier. They will become extinct as well.
You can rest on some idyllic notion that there should be rules to fighting this war, but ISIS is proving they don't need to comport to them and I say we don't need to anymore either as long as they and anyone who supports them and gets in our way does. Then once they are gone, we can be civilized once more and go about our merry way.
No. In short, Japan was 10 times the challenge of ISIS. Your points do nothing to diminish that. The true obstacle is not the enemy here.
It was a different challenge. The one difference you point to is a case of "No shit, Sherlock." Japan was first off, for all intents and purposes, a largely conventional belligerent. Its people were not all suicidal - just the kamikazes. But it wanted to survive and prosperas a society, and had material aims that preceded its entry into war. Whereas ISIS only wants enough money to fight. So it had massive weapons of war with which to attack us, which made a protracted conventional struggle back against them inevitable. This gained American the momentum for defeating them. They were scientifically advanced, and were not opposed to advancing socially. ISIS/Da'ish is neither of those things.
Japan's ultimate aims (including those with which they could live under a surrender) were definable. ISIS's are not.
You are not distinguishing between people who merely like to fight and people who live for nothing but fighting.
When you and your allies are the only ones left standing. Then once you've utterly crushed these people and whoever the fuck gets in your way, you raze it all to the ground afterwards and bury it. Remove any vestiges that it ever existed. Wipe out their borders because they are no longer the property holders any longer. It's our now, come take it if you can. Oh wait, we've totally eviscerated you. You can no longer reproduce fast enough to fight back because you will be torn asunder wherever you pop up. Oh and if your friends think they can join in, sure the more the merrier. They will become extinct as well.
The reason this doesn't work in a pride-honor-shame based society like the Islamic Caliphate Bandits is because it doesn't humiliate them anywhere nearly as effectively as can be done when we allow them to humiliate themselves.
Choke them off. Humiliate them. But minimize your engagement with them because they see that as humiliation of their enemy, which only increases their pride. Trump had the right idea.
Squeeze their balls. Don't castrate them. Squeeze them. And keep squeezing.
Aridog said...
Rhythm and Balls said...
How will you know when you've won?
Good point and one not easily divined. To the savages in ISIS just getting the west to confront them on the ground is "victory" from their point of view. They can then claim we're the invading bad guys and recruit happily from the collateral damage. The solution will be ugly. It always is...
I also think it's high time we disabuse ourselves of the notion of collateral damage. If you want to fight a PC war, then please by all means have at it, but please step aside and let the real work take place. Oh yes it will be ugly and as well as it should be. Annihilation requires that those who know that they are about to become extinct should see the utter ugliness they have been perpetrating for so long be reflect right back at them.
Everyone wants to enter into schools of contemplation on what should be done or not done. How to conduct wars with sub-human bearded monsters as if they will even remotely engage with you on a rules based basis. Fuck the Geneva conventions and fuck anyone who would suggest it anymore in fighting these animals. I defy any candidate in any party to suggest what I've just outlined and I assure you, they will be carried on the shoulders of the people right into the white house.
If I was a natural born citizen, I would suggest it without equivocation, then you can watch me work with glee.
Squeeze them until they are forced to re-define what "pride" is, and what it means to them.
Rhythm and Balls said...
The reason this doesn't work in a pride-honor-shame based society like the Islamic Caliphate Bandits is because it doesn't humiliate them anywhere nearly as effectively as can be done when we allow them to humiliate themselves.
Choke them off. Humiliate them. But minimize your engagement with them because they see that as humiliation of their enemy, which only increases their pride. Trump had the right idea.
Squeeze their balls. Don't castrate them. Squeeze them. And keep squeezing.
I'm going to make a large assumption and say to you that you are neither an Arab nor a Muslim. The one veritable ingredient you are missing in your assumption in a pride/honor/shame culture that infests the middle-east and most of the whole of the eastern European/Asian continent is one of the over-arching blame culture. You cannot have pride/honor/shame culture without knowing that these people never take responsibility or accountability for anything they do. It's always someone elses fault for why they do what they do. Most of all it's a blame others culture as seen currently in our culture and universities.
You did this to me, they did this to me, it's not fair why they are doing this to me, I did nothing, it's not my fault, you made me feel this way, you shamed our family, you took my honor, you sacked my pride. It's always someone elses fault. Well, you know what? I wonder what their tunes will be as they are eviscerated wholesale on their way to the lowest depths of hell.
There is no penning in of these people. They are the cockroaches and we are the flame thrower. Squeeze the balls to make them feel the hurt and when they can't take anymore, then cut their balls off. Then cave in their skulls with the heels of your boot or the butt of your rifle. Move on to the next one, rinse and repeat until none of them are left standing. They do not understand humiliation because they were humiliated by someone else that did it to them and they will shift that blame there. They are a deflection culture, so I'd like to see them deflect ordinance instead. When your enemy is extinct, then tell me why you should care about them being humiliated? There is no one left anymore to worry about that and therefore it should never weigh on your mind on whether or not you got your point across.
Degrading would be just fine if there was anything to degrade, and if degrading included killing them off enough to put them on the endanger species list. We don't want their territory. We want them to stop murdering people. The part of what they do which we find so unacceptable doesn't take much. They were fully degraded a couple years ago. They had nothing. So under this degrading strategy we will know we have won when they are back to just mass beheadings and killing thousands of Iraqi's again.
We are only discussing this safe strategy out of fear. Fear of our own fecklessness, our disunity, our lack of common will, and not because it's the answer. We are trying to play it safe with people determined to not let us. I think they will win that game eventually, and force our hand, after a lot of deaths - ours.
We only here with this ISIS problem today because we believed we had them degraded and that was enough 7 years ago.
I don't know. I could be wrong. Maybe just finding a way to massacre as many of a few hundred thousand (or more, remember, collateral damage be damned) is the way to go. We'd have to end our participation in the Geneva Conventions to do it quickly, though. And maybe even use a nuke or two. But hell, you guys are convincing.
Where are your own limits? Would you really use a nuke? I think if you do that any moral claim we'd have to being unjustly targeted by a suitcase bomb would be totally gone. And then it wouldn't just be Iran you'd have to worry about getting one of those things.
I'm just wondering what your own limits are. I mean, hell. Maybe you also have none. But that gives me less reason to believe you've thought this through well enough to be taken seriously.
You cannot have pride/honor/shame culture without knowing that these people never take responsibility or accountability for anything they do. It's always someone elses fault for why they do what they do.
Uh, yeah. I knew that about them, too.
bagoh20 said...
Degrading would be just fine if there was anything to degrade, and if degrading included killing them off enough to put them on the endanger species list. We don't want their territory.
Too late for this kind of reasoning. They can't be reasoning with and I say take their territory, scrape it over and plunder the resources that can pay back our time and effort for making them extinct. Insult to the last memory of who they were and no one will care after it's done. They are likened to the shits we flush down a toilet never to be seen again. Thanks for your oil. We'll put it to better use.
We want them to stop murdering people. The part of what they do which we find so unacceptable doesn't take much. They were fully degraded a couple years ago. They had nothing. So under this degrading strategy we will know we have won when they are back to just mass beheadings and killing thousands of Iraqi's again.
We must make them stop murdering people by killing them and making them extinct. You are still operating under the assumption that degradation actually has value and merit with these people. It doesn't. ISIS came into existence as a birthed notion from AQ in Iraq. If you kill these people and anyone who gets in the way, you will solve the problem of them coming to kill you. Once the 'innocents' see the real score, they will know what's good for them and get the fuck out. If they get caught in the crossfire, then too fucking bad. Their twenty thousand year reign of fecklessness needs to come to a swift and abrupt end. Their time is past to make them a quickly forgotten memory.
We are only discussing this safe strategy out of fear. Fear of our own fecklessness, our disunity, our lack of common will, and not because it's the answer. We are trying to play it safe with people determined to not let us. I think they will win that game eventually, and force our hand, after a lot of deaths - ours.
You can discuss it all you want, but as far as I'm concerned, it's over for me. I want them all wiped out post haste. Want to call me a genocidal maniac, fine. I'll wear that moniker proudly in the face of what I would do to them to assure the survival of my country and my countrymen over theirs and their death cult religion.
They were fully degraded a couple years ago. They had nothing.
They reconstituted. It happens.
Again, you two are basically saying we can't stop until every last one is slaughtered. Maybe there's a way to do that and maintain our credibility with the Western laws of war we've always endorsed, maybe there isn't. Maybe it doesn't matter. It seems you guys are so sure of yourselves so I don't see what good challenging it will be. I don't think either of you are military, either - which is a shame. It would kind of help make the argument for having no military limits - no matter how impractically so - sound less non-credible.
I don't agree with those who say ISIS wants a ground war with us. They know that would end their fantasy of a caliphate. I'm sure they sabre rattle that whole line of shit, but the strategists among them know better. No, they hope to wear us down politically without ever risking it all, and just taking their lumps until we tire of the collateral damage theater that they know they can count on, and even fabricate if needed. That's a pretty safe bet to take on their part. The West sucks that shit up.
Meth, your mis-reading me 180 degrees. I'm arguing against a degrading strategy alone. I think that they need killed off in numbers like the Passenger Pigeon, so that nobody knows an ISIS anymore, or at least anyone who will admit to being ISIS.
Rhythm and Balls said...
I don't know. I could be wrong. Maybe just finding a way to massacre as many of a few hundred thousand (or more, remember, collateral damage be damned) is the way to go. We'd have to end our participation in the Geneva Conventions to do it quickly, though. And maybe even use a nuke or two. But hell, you guys are convincing.
Where are your own limits? Would you really use a nuke? I think if you do that any moral claim we'd have to being unjustly targeted by a suitcase bomb would be totally gone. And then it wouldn't just be Iran you'd have to worry about getting one of those things.
I'm just wondering what your own limits are. I mean, hell. Maybe you also have none. But that gives me less reason to believe you've thought this through well enough to be taken seriously.
No, it is going to have to be total evisceration of entire societies and cultures. You basically let the world and them know that you are abandoning the Geneva Conventions, there will be no prisoner taking and that our allies can join us or get the fuck out of the way and if they choose to oppose us then they will be dealt with as well, but it's in their best interests to just look the other way (and they will and they know it). Then as you stage all the assets and ordinance you need to get the job done, you inform those in the area you that you are going to sterilize everything including them. i don't think we need nukes, but we can use the next best thing, MOABS, and air/fuel bombs, cluster ordinance, etc. every single structure will come down, your entire countries and anyone in them will be reduced to rubble. You've totally forefeited your claims to land, borders, country or culture. You are persona non grata globally. Abandon all hope, you will have nothing to come back to. I would give carte blanche to my JCoS and remove all rules of engagement as a standing order and leave theater of operations discretion to field commanders. Some my quit over it, but they will be easily replaced.
Even they understand what is at stake and you make the case to your chain of command why this is necessary, proper, and how to execute it and once the mission is complete, no matter how long it takes, you can then resume your own USA Conventions and rules of engagement elsewhere. You cut everything off to your enemy, food, water, electricity, any succor, set up a non-humanitarian zone. If the red cross gets in your way, too bad, if doctors without borders gets in your way too bad. You let all humanitarian organization know they are not welcomed into the theater. At this stage I would have no limits. Once extinction of these monsters is credible, total and complete, then we can resume civility again.
The whole world knows how to beat a western power now days, even the greatest one of all time. Politics, optics, divide and wait... reconstitute.
bagoh20 said...
Meth, your mis-reading me 180 degrees. I'm arguing against a degrading strategy alone. I think that they need killed off in numbers like the Passenger Pigeon, so that nobody knows an ISIS anymore, or at least anyone who will admit to being ISIS.
I may have possibly misread you, but in my own way, i was simply preempting any necessity to go around on it which is why I said it the way I did.
Rhythm and Balls said...
They were fully degraded a couple years ago. They had nothing.
They reconstituted. It happens.
Again, you two are basically saying we can't stop until every last one is slaughtered. Maybe there's a way to do that and maintain our credibility with the Western laws of war we've always endorsed, maybe there isn't. Maybe it doesn't matter. It seems you guys are so sure of yourselves so I don't see what good challenging it will be. I don't think either of you are military, either - which is a shame. It would kind of help make the argument for having no military limits - no matter how impractically so - sound less non-credible.
No, I'm not military, but as a civilian contractor, I've done enough work in theater overseas and been on the inside to understand what is what? I've done the rounds, but I would never claim full and total understanding. And I'm saying that a total and utter slaughter in this regard is necessary. That's it. And yes, I'm beyond being reasoned with on this topic.
Until we change the playbook, the world will never be safe from these large organized asymmetric threats. The advantage of being a 7th century warrior is that you get to use 7th century rules.
And that shouldn't stop us either. If they want 7th century, I think we can improvise.
Good luck getting the chain of command to agree.
Military leadership is used to conducting war in a way that they can be proud of themselves for having done.
I don't think they're going to change that just because a loud minority chorus tells them that they haven't been savage enough to win.
Incidentally, the average global temperature during the 7th century was the same as now. Coincidence?
Is there any ISIS attack on the U.S. that would turn this discussion unanimous? Kill 10,000 at a stadium with a dirty bomb? Wipe out an elementary school? Get the President in the White House. You know all three of those are quite possible with their resources - even all three at once. Or would it make no difference? We still go for gradual degrade?
Rhythm and Balls said...
Good luck getting the chain of command to agree.
Military leadership is used to conducting war in a way that they can be proud of themselves for having done.
I don't think they're going to change that just because a loud minority chorus tells them that they haven't been savage enough to win.
Which is why i said what I did. There would long and lengthy discussions and agreement set up with chain of command to 'convince' them of what needs to be done and that I would assume all responsibility for it and no one else and put that in writing for everyone in the world to see. All the NCO's i know and have talked to know the score and they are even more militant than I am in some cases. So don't think there is some desire for commissioned officers to fight a proud war, but rather victory placates all of that and this country at this moment can certainly use a big fat win.
Also, if CoC doesn't want to get their hands dirty, then I would have no issue using nukes to placate them. Since nukes are a political tool more than a military tool, I would have no issue using politics as the means to make our enemies extinct.
Is there any ISIS attack on the U.S. that would turn this discussion unanimous?
No.
Because differentiating the emotion of total vengeance from the rationality of effective counter-measures is what makes people Western.
If you inverted the subject and object in that sentence however and posed the question in Arabia, you might have a chance at making the discussion unanimous.
Woe is you, Bag. You have the severe misfortune of having been born into the wrong culture. One that doesn't believe vengeance supersedes other needs.
Note that we could have been more vengeful to Germany after WWII. Avoiding what happened after WWI is one reason why we didn't.
And then there was Truman going on about "Christian" treatment.
We're just not Arabian and jihadist enough to win, it seems. Pity.
Also, this took place in France. Not the U.S.
I know. Minor point.
Sounds like R&B is a "turn-the-other-butt-cheek" kinda guy.
And then there was Truman going on about "Christian" treatment.
To short-circuit any attempt to make that a partisan point, I'll interject that Herbert Hoover had a hand in that too. Actually, it was FDR's confidant and Sec. of Treasury, Henry Morgenthau who really wanted to annihilate Germany after WW II: link
So these attacks just keep happening and the civilian American death toll rises to 20K 50K and keeps going because they have a hundred sleeper cells placed here and poised to get here on short notice, but no change in strategy on our part?
Sounds good.
I wonder when would be a good time to develop and deploy those sleeper cells. Maybe during those years of gradual degrading. That would be now. Welcome refugees. Make yourself at home.
So these attacks just keep happening and the civilian American death toll rises to 20K 50K and keeps going because they have a hundred sleeper cells placed here and poised to get here on short notice, but no change in strategy on our part?
Well you see, Progressives are much better Christians than the "christianists" they loathe. So, hugging and embracing one's enemy -- even one wearing a strapped-on explosive belt -- is the way to go. It's much better to commit suicide that way.
@R&B: Perhaps we can worry about Marshall Plans for the Mideast after we've helped vanquish the scum. If you're already thinking "hold the vindication" back in 1941, you're a sorry lot and you haven't read much.
Nurse! I think he needs his pills.
Well you see, Progressives are much better Christians...
AND THEY CAN COUNT!
Yeay! Let's hear it for numeracy!
Chick (the chemist) didn't think to distinguish between a single U.S. death and the "20K or 50K" that Bagzos is all into.
BTW, why the "K"? Did he somehow become an enumerate human accountant?
Yep. Just keep throwing some numbers out there, Bagsies.
Bilbo Bag o H2O. And the ring of destiny.
50 thousand rings to rule them all. 50 thousand to find them.
50 thousand to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them.
Give or take about 49 thousand, nine hundred ninety-nine, Bilbo Bagsins is really not all that far off the mark.
Let's get him to fight our wars for us now and create out budgets.
Someday, someone will uncover the mystery of the missing 49,999 dead Americans, and where it is that they disappeared to.
Damn, those terrrrrrrrrsts are sneaky!
In the land of Mordor, where the shadows lie,
Avogadro's number is just much too high!
Soon a "mole" will consist of 5.
And 6.02 times ten to the 23rd will no longer be alive.
In the land of Mordor, where the shadows lie.
Halsey detested the Japanese Empire and seldom missed an opportunity to excoriate the enemy while encouraging his men to slay the foe in increasing numbers. Halsey was about results, and his priorities were expressed in visceral terms: “Kill Japs! Kill Japs! Kill more Japs!” Later in the war he told a stateside audience, “The only good Jap is one that’s been dead six months.” link
That's the kind of military commanders we'll need in the future.
That's the kind of military commanders we'll need in the future.
Yes.
And we may also need military commanders who confuse the number "one" with fifty thousand.
That way, they can kill six ISIL terrrrrrrsts, multiply that by 50 thousand, and be satisfied that they've killed off the entire 300,000 strong army (highest estimate) of the caliphate.
Bag math is fun! Just multiply 50 by a thousand and one.
The numbers are off, the whole thing's shot.
But Bagsies, Bagsies needs more terrrrrrrsts to rot.
We must clean their clock.
But they are many. And he is not.
So invent a number, and say you'll kill a lot.
After all, that's what he imagined they did to us.
6.02 x 10^23 people?
Ha! only 1.07 x 10^11 have ever lived.
Ritmo, what's your take on admitting Syrian refugees?
So imagine you see a baby carriage on the train tracks a hundred yards ahead, but no train in sight. You start walking toward it to move it off the tracks. You hear the baby crying, and then you hear the train, and you see it coming around the bend at a speed that will clearly beat you to the carriage if you just keep walking. Do you start running to it or keep walking at your safe pace. You don't want to trip and fall trying to get there.
IOW, "A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week." - George S. Patton
In the ISIS warfare scenario, that baby carriage would also have bomb in it set to go off if anyone came near it. This is the barbarity of those animals. I can only imagine how our sailors reacted to kamakazi bombers in the Pacific war. Hopefully it resolved our determination to ultimately nuke them.
deborah said...
Ritmo, what's your take on admitting Syrian refugees?
You didn't ask me, but I'm betting not a shade of difference from BHO's and HRC's opinion.
George S. Patton was one of those army boss people in that big war around the world. I'm not sure which one, but it was back in history before people had Iphones.
Ritmo, what's your take on admitting Syrian refugees?
I'm not sure.
I was inclined to believe that opposition was based on the narrow xenophobia expressed toward Mexicans.
Then I saw some scary LiveLinks videos on how many of these ingrates almost seem entitled to taking over the society, forsaking the generosity and hijacking the welfare they're shown.
I also remember that many of the violent Arabs in Europe today had parents or grandparents who arrived peacefully or in a state of asylum yesterday.
I think Europe has too big an Arab-Muslim population. But they won't do anything about it. We create wars in the ME and give Europe the refugees.
I hardly see how the 10,000 Obama agreed to admit will provide us with the same problem - especially if they're vetted to the degree that he promises.
But anything's possible.
Refugees from Arabia are probably only a problem to the extent that they provide more hostile, unassimilable, Islamist subpopulations.
So it's more of a problem for Europe.
But I won't stand in the opposition to it, here.
It's not like there's no merit to the argument that they should be strong enough to change things here, before being weak enough to require handouts here or in France.
And then there are these kids
If you ask me, they're braver than Bags. And make a more coherent and effective point.
" I can only imagine how our sailors reacted to kamakazi bombers in the Pacific war."
I bet they thought about it for about 30 seconds and then decided to throw everything at them on sight without hesitation. A maniacal enemy makes your options simple.
Ritmo, what's your take on admitting Syrian refugees?
They should all live at Bag's house.
Seeing how fond he is of a surgically immaculate war.
By his account, after he's done with their tormentors, they should have no reason to exist as refugees.
So let him take them in. Expand his compound on the sea, if he has to.
And the accommodations will be less boring than they found the ones they stayed at in Germany.
Uncle Bags. Like Daddy Warbucks.
He promises his War to the Finish will be immaculate.
And if not, and if your life or house is ruined, you can stay with him.
His war will be cost-free. Or your money back.
And it will get all the bad guys.
The good kids can come to L.A. and live under his aegis.
He puts his money and morals where his mouth is, that Bag O Water!
What a guy.
What a righteous dude.
I see fifty thousand jobs opening up at Bag o Water, Inc.
It's great to have such a generous employer in the area.
So far, hundreds of French, thousands of innocent Arabs, and a few assorted journalists and aid workers are not too fond of your plan. Actually they are saying anything about it now, but I'm guessing they don't like it. Not that it matters since 20K or 50K or whatever are just numbers - happy funny numbers.
I think the comparison should not be to a state actor like Japan but rather to a movement. I'm thinking of the anarchists. They were active for over fifty years. They had an impressive body count. It was said that they were responsible for that Wall St. bombing in the twenties that killed over a hundred people. They tried to kill only rich, important people but they were willng to settle for bank guards or just people who were in the vicinity of banks......I don't think that they were ever defeated in a clear cut way. Assholes just stopped being anarchists. They didn't stop being assholes but they just moved on to the SDS or the Bader Meinhof gang or wherever they could work out their grudges by killing people......Some day in the Middle East the assholes will stop joining ISIS. Perhaps they'll go back to the Ba'ath Party or join up with the hidden Mahdi, but someday ISIS will disappear, and it will not be a clear cut military victory. The Middle East will, however, continue to produce murderous lunatics.
ISIS has hundreds of millions of dollars that is growing. They hold a territory larger than many nations, and they have tens of thousands of fighters, including half the homicidal maniacs currently on the planet, and a fabulous 401K plan. Just saying.
Bago will be the Oskar Schindler of Syria.
Thanks, Ritmo. I think the non-assimilation was a two-way street, that is both factions were happy to keep separated. Also IIRC back when Europe, or maybe just one particular country, needed Muslim foreign workers, there was an actual agreement from the supplying countr(ies) that no attempt would be made to proselytize them.
France did ban the burkha, but I haven't heard how that worked out.
chick, I am not a hawk like some folks here. However, I have said ISIS presents an opportunity for tactical nuclear weapons. The Arab culture worships strength as much as they do Allah. They see ISIS as strong and the West as weak. That dynamic could change instantly.
Nick, to be clear, my "nuke them" comment referred to the Japanese in WW II.
Nick, I was thinking nukes last night in the context of terror attacks in the US getting way,way out of hand. Riyadh would be a likely target with regard to their funding of global jihad and geographic isolation. But I doubt it will come to opening up that can of worms. Economic sanctioning of SA would be a good start...sooner rather than later.
William said...
Some day in the Middle East the assholes will stop joining ISIS. Perhaps they'll go back to the Ba'ath Party or join up with the hidden Mahdi, but someday ISIS will disappear, and it will not be a clear cut military victory. The Middle East will, however, continue to produce murderous lunatics.
You have it backwards. As long as the ME continues to produce people who cling to the culture of blaming others and use institutional abuse across all of their demographic strata, then ISIS will always be there to accept them with open arms. Look at the history of Islam overall. It has never been peaceful or pacified. It had it's moments of relative contemplative quiet and some cohesiveness with other cultures it conquered, but there was always the the sabre of Islam hanging overhead and it would come down hard quite often. Fast forward to today and look at the utter devolution of the ME as nothing more than a shit pit of producing nothing but thugs and murderous lunatics and ISIS is just a faceroll to that sweeping they have to the notion of convert or die or any other dogma they want to inject at the point of death. Ask yourself why Israel allows the Muslims to enforce a non-Muslim prayer law on the temple mount at the point of arrest? What's the matter Islam? Don't like competition? And that's exactly the point. Islam is intolerant of anything else. it doesn't allow competing ideas to infest what it believes to be the pureness of the doctrine of the Ummah and so Islam has become the equivalent of an immune response to anything it perceives to be an attack against it regardless of size, regardless of origin.
How long are you willing to let your scenario play out? How long are you willing to see how fast the assholes quit joining these subhumans? Ritmo wants to see a plan of containment like his president has said in the past that they were contained and not two hours later you got the french boom boom. In the face of such lying and political cowardice, you still want to see your scenario played out? Or would you rather see an extinction to islam and it's followers. What are you willing to stomach? I'm willing to commit genocide happily and with glee at the prospect that this religion and anyone who practices it will be an afterthought in history.
If there is to be forced immigration of any of these people, this country must start a forced assimilation program and every single person that legally immigrated to this country must undergo it. The first part of this program is to make English the official language of this country and everyone will have to pass a basic english proficiency test. All government documents will be in english only at that point. That's where I would start.
I am not at this time pro genocide. I would wish, however, all Muslims to consider that there are provocations that would trigger a response that they would consider disproportionate. Perhaps, as Trump proposes, if we have to move back into Iraq that we should take control of the oil fields. The revenue gained could be used to pay for the invasion and to pay reparations to those harmed by ISIS and, of course, our soldiers.........If this works out, similar arrangements could be made for Libya and Iran. With stock options and profit sharing, we could probably recruit a Muslim army for the wet work.
Ritmo wants to see a plan of containment...
Just to clarify - though I've argued the merits of containment, I'm not 100% pro or contra any single specific policy on this. As with immigration. I could go for the more hawkish positions on either, but still see major oversights with both that I'm happy to point out. I'm not ruling anything out, but I think we should definitely be completely clear-headed and tolerant or even solicitous of enough arguments and suggestions to get the best strategy or combination of strategies.
Yes, wiping them all out in a single stroke or two has its appeal. I don't deny that. But it also has its drawbacks. There is no such thing as a perfect strategy or one that is immune to backfiring.
Rhythm and Balls said...
Ritmo wants to see a plan of containment...
Just to clarify - though I've argued the merits of containment, I'm not 100% pro or contra any single specific policy on this. As with immigration. I could go for the more hawkish positions on either, but still see major oversights with both that I'm happy to point out. I'm not ruling anything out, but I think we should definitely be completely clear-headed and tolerant or even solicitous of enough arguments and suggestions to get the best strategy or combination of strategies.
Yes, wiping them all out in a single stroke or two has its appeal. I don't deny that. But it also has its drawbacks. There is no such thing as a perfect strategy or one that is immune to backfiring.
I can certainly respect your position and even my strategy wouldn't take a single stroke or two. I would imagine it would take 5 to 10 years to accomplish. Maybe a little less. I suppose my only concern would be is supplying enough ordinance and ammunition to the front line scythe brigades that I would create. They will create so much steel rain that we would have to have dozens of ordinance factories open up to keep them fed. But accomplish it I would in the way I've described, total and utter extinction. I'd even go into non-Mideastern countries like Indonesia, the Philippines, india, and pakistan to find them and hunt them down. But I'd start in the cradle of Islam and work my way out.
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