They’re certainly not done. But I think consensus is that its momentum is gone. Reality is setting in for ISIS. This is especially true for foreign fighters that were looking for an “adventure”. [/quote]
Interestingly enough, a few weeks back, maybe a month, a there was news of a Japanese man who traveled to Syria looking for adventure…he was captured and killed by ISIS. So, even if you go there to fight for them, if you’re not a muslim, you’re pretty much doomed.[/quote]
And if you show up, and try to leave you are doomed as well. Killed and then ISIS will claim you smoked or weren’t muslim or whatever. I don’t feel bad for the foreigners who came in and didn’t get what they bargained for, but I feel terrible for the locals who never got a choice.
Unfortunately, even though I believe momentum is being lost, ISIS may become increasingly desperate. That could lead to some really horrific stuff before it gets better. Terrible for the poor people who have nowhere to go and no one to save them.
I really don’t care if a threat is existential or not. This seems to be were we are missing here. I don’t differentiate between the two. And technically your wrong anyway. Terror has already fundamentally changed our lives for the worse, further threats from it will cause even more changes. Just because a place call the United States of America will still exist and will still have a Republic for a government doesn’t mean they haven’t and won’t fundamentally change the way we live. They have already succeeded there. So yes, their very presence, and the threats they make are existential threats to us. They threaten our freedoms and the way we live our lives and what we believe in as a country.[/quote]
This isn’t because the terrorists attacked us. It’s because the citizens of the U.S. apparently decided that it’s worth sacrificing some freedom for security.
[/quote]
I disagree that we subscribed to any such notion, at all. That may have been the result, but it’s hardly popular
It would have meant an unparalleled resolve the to few posses. We shouldn’t change how we do things because some people in the world threaten us. We rather should dissolve the threat rather then give up even a shred of freedom. Truly we win far more if we don’t change than if we do. We eliminate the threat, not change the way we do things.
[quote]
But we’d have less restrictions on us.
The point I want to make is- We did this to ourselves. And I personally believe that, had cooler heads prevailed in the months and years following 9/11, we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in now. If we had taken the time to genuinely gauge the damage they did to us (horrible in human tragedy, but ultimately irrelevant in the grand scheme of things), then perhaps we might not have enacted the Patriot Act and give the NSA a lot of scary legal powers.
And I am arguing much of the same here.
[quote]pat wrote:
As far as methodology, I don’t really care how they are taken care of. Whether it be land, sea or air so long as they are done away with and done away with quickly. Dragging it out is the sure fire way to ensure maximum casualties for all involved.
Now when I said we are going to need boots on the ground regardless, I also specified, that if not for combat then to better assign targets from the air. I didn’t specify we needed ground troops to do war. But we do need at the least somebody on the ground to tell us where to put the missiles.
We lack the intelligence to be successful completely by air without more targets. We don’t carpet bomb like we did in ww2.
In other words there’s no way to avoid boots on the ground. And we already have a small but growing contingent. It’s not my desire to put people in harms way, but when war comes knocking it has to be fought with conviction. Not half measures.[/quote]
See, I simply disagree that not sending in ground troops is resorting to half measures. I disagree because I don’t think the situation calls for it.
While ISIS is certainly holding onto its major places of power, it is being chipped away at more minor places. Furthermore, it is apparently suffering internal issues, as shown specifically by the article BPCorso posted.
Given what we as a public know, ISIS is slowly being defeated. Perhaps not as quickly as you would like, but being defeated nonetheless.
And if we go by the Atlantic article posted a while ago, ISIS’s claim to legitimacy depends largely on victories and the ability to actually hold onto its territory. Both of these are currently being undermined.
Our disagreement lies fundamentally on the fact that you believe sending in U.S. ground troops will have a positive effect. I don’t believe this is the case, and I’ve explained why before. As far as I recall, you’ve never explained why you think it’ll have a positive effect. Mind doing so now?[/quote]
We did this to ourselves? That’s plain retarded. We did no such thing. Whether or not ME policy is the source of their anger or not, is not really the issue. It’s a ridiculous notion. It’s plain opportunism, on the part of our enemies. The shoot first and then find a reason for having done so.
You keep hammering a point I didn’t actually make, which is the implementation of ground forces in a combat role. While in the end, such a thing may be necessary, that’s not what I am or have been advocating.
I have said, now repeatedly, if we want our air campaign to work, we need information from the ground. We no longer take out entire cities as we did in WW2. We target specific threats. We don’t have enough information to target enough specific threats to take out ISIS. We have just enough to slow them up a bit. If we expect to win, it has to be a brutal campaign. For one out ours we take out 10 of theirs. We hit them hard and consistently without end. That will take ground resources. That does not mean we have to deploy a half million troops in the region to wage a ground war. It means we have to developed an effective strategy from the ground up.
Fact of the matter is that obama screwed this up from the get go. Pulling out our troups with out negotiation of an effective SOFA to protect the power vacuum that came to exist was predictable and indeed predicted.
Now that it is happening, we have to be forth right and effective in our response. Arguably, much of it came to little to late. I am not arguing for a ground force in a combat role necessarily. I am arguing that help from the ground is necessary. Can we do most of it from the air? I believe so, but we need to hit the right targets and hit them with ferocity and frequency. For that we need ground intelligence. The fact the this administration has pussy-footed around ISIS and Iraq and Syria in general has put us in a negative position. We have to make up ground and make it up quickly. That requires a strategy that comes from the ground, it always does.
We can carpet bomb, like we did Hamburg in WW2. Sure we’ll get a lot of civilians, but we will get the enemy too. Since we are no longer interested in such warfare, we have to be vigilant, we have to get targets from the ground and we have to pound them relentlessly. Do I support a ground operation? Absolutely. I am not however, necessarily advocating a combat operation from the ground. That may become necessary, but right now, I am merely advocating using it to gather intelligence, develop strategy, and if necessary to engage the enemy.
If you commit yourself to a military campaign, it is your responsibility to neutralize the threat and defeat your enemy as quickly as possible. Anything less puts lives at risk unnecessarily, and that I am never for. Ending it as quickly as possible is the only. sane and moral thing to do for all involved.
I disagree that we subscribed to any such notion, at all. That may have been the result, but it’s hardly popular.
It would have meant an unparalleled resolve the to few posses.
[/quote]
I get the general sense of what you’re saying, but I don’t think these two passages jive with one another.
The fundamental point is- the public didn’t oppose the Patriot Act. Politicians never raised the issue of how these acts can infringe on the rights of American citizens. As far as I can tell, this means that they agreed to surrender freedom in return for security.
[quote]pat wrote:
We did this to ourselves? That’s plain retarded. We did no such thing. Whether or not ME policy is the source of their anger or not, is not really the issue. It’s a ridiculous notion. It’s plain opportunism, on the part of our enemies. The shoot first and then find a reason for having done so.[/quote]
…
When I wrote “we did this to ourselves”, I was referring to the Patriot Act and saying that the U.S. public allowed themselves to surrender freedom. It has nothing to do with whatever justifications Islamic fundamentalists use for whatever they choose to do. This passage of mine is a direct continuation of what you quoted earlier.
I honestly don’t even know why you chose to break up what is clearly two distinctly different train of thoughts in my post in this manner.
[quote]pat wrote:
You keep hammering a point I didn’t actually make, which is the implementation of ground forces in a combat role. While in the end, such a thing may be necessary, that’s not what I am or have been advocating.[/quote]
No. I never claimed you wanted to send ground troops in specifically for a combat role.
You wrote earlier that using only aerial bombardment is resorting to half-measures, and that we need to move to full measures. You then followed this by talking about boots on the ground. The only reasonable way to interpret this is that having U.S. troops on the ground is the full measure.
And, as I wrote, I disagree on the notion that using only aerial bombardment is resorting to half-measures, and that we don’t need boots on the ground.
That’s it. I never said you wanted to send troops in for actual combat, though I did touch on what I believe might happen if the U.S. did send troops into combat. Perhaps you’re taking this and so thinking that I think you mean sending troops into combat when you write “boots on the ground”? Well, no.
In any case, I honestly find this “we need boots on the ground to provide intelligence and targets for aerial bombardments but not to actually engage in combat” confusing.
To be able to provide such intelligence would probably require said boots to be close enough to provide accurate intelligence, and in doing so likely place them within the cross-hairs of ISIS. If they are that close, aren’t they already in a combat situation?
Here we go. This is what I’m talking about…or at least, what I was talking about a few pages ago.
Ex-Marine goes to Kurdistan to do some merc work, otherwise known as “pest control”, shooting at ISIS scumbags.
Sadly, of course, the government discourages this sort of freelance work, preferring to do fucking nothing.
But it needn’t be so. If Congress were simply to reinstate the letters of marque and reprisal, and put a bounty on the head of anyone caught in flagrante delicto doing ISIS shit, of say, an ounce of gold per head, how many ISIS heads could a platoon of US combat veterans harvest in just one month? It wouldn’t cost the government that much, and I’ll bet we could eradicate the ISIS scourge within a year at most.
EDIT: not a few pages back. It was on another, similar thread. Oh well.
Here we go. This is what I’m talking about…or at least, what I was talking about a few pages ago.
Ex-Marine goes to Kurdistan to do some merc work, otherwise known as “pest control”, shooting at ISIS scumbags.
Sadly, of course, the government discourages this sort of freelance work, preferring to do fucking nothing.
But it needn’t be so. If Congress were simply to reinstate the letters of marque and reprisal, and put a bounty on the head of anyone caught in flagrante delicto doing ISIS shit, of say, an ounce of gold per head, how many ISIS heads could a platoon of US combat veterans harvest in just one month? It wouldn’t cost the government that much, and I’ll bet we could eradicate the ISIS scourge within a year at most.
EDIT: not a few pages back. It was on another, similar thread. Oh well.[/quote]
Maybe not, but they still lured that Palestinian guy over there to join, and killed him & a lot of other members who wanted to quit. They also seem to use Westerners as suicide bombers. At this point, I can’t understand why someone would even want to get involved with them. Weak people with weak minds I guess.
I disagree that we subscribed to any such notion, at all. That may have been the result, but it’s hardly popular.
It would have meant an unparalleled resolve the to few posses.
[/quote]
I get the general sense of what you’re saying, but I don’t think these two passages jive with one another.
The fundamental point is- the public didn’t oppose the Patriot Act. Politicians never raised the issue of how these acts can infringe on the rights of American citizens. As far as I can tell, this means that they agreed to surrender freedom in return for security.
[quote]pat wrote:
We did this to ourselves? That’s plain retarded. We did no such thing. Whether or not ME policy is the source of their anger or not, is not really the issue. It’s a ridiculous notion. It’s plain opportunism, on the part of our enemies. The shoot first and then find a reason for having done so.[/quote]
…
When I wrote “we did this to ourselves”, I was referring to the Patriot Act and saying that the U.S. public allowed themselves to surrender freedom. It has nothing to do with whatever justifications Islamic fundamentalists use for whatever they choose to do. This passage of mine is a direct continuation of what you quoted earlier.
I honestly don’t even know why you chose to break up what is clearly two distinctly different train of thoughts in my post in this manner.
[/quote]
I see, I didn’t gather that from your earlier post. In the sense of things like the Patriot Act, I would agree we did this to ourselves. I don’t necessarily agree that the public signed up for it per se. The public, both democrat and republican, seem to dislike the law and want it gone. I know I do. I don’t think it’s a popular law, but one that keeps getting renewed nonetheless.
The aerial bombardment in which we are engaged is a half measure. That does not mean that aerial bombardments are typically half measures, the way we are going about it, in this case, it is. It’s not nearly enough and the problem is mostly a lack of intelligence, that can only come from the ground.
Ground troops in a combat role is an inevitability if we truly intend on completing the job. How much combat they will see will largely depend on how vigorously we pursue the aerial campaign.
My sense is that obama wants to pass this along to the next president. He doesn’t want to be doing anything at all in the first place, given his initial dismissal of ISIS, proclaiming the to the world shortly before the air campaign started that “we don’t have a plan”, and doing a fairly soft air campaign. There is much more we can be doing from the air. It seems to be very much a mission of containment, rather than defeating the enemy.
[quote]
And, as I wrote, I disagree on the notion that using only aerial bombardment is resorting to half-measures, and that we don’t need boots on the ground.
That’s it. I never said you wanted to send troops in for actual combat, though I did touch on what I believe might happen if the U.S. did send troops into combat. Perhaps you’re taking this and so thinking that I think you mean sending troops into combat when you write “boots on the ground”? Well, no.
In any case, I honestly find this “we need boots on the ground to provide intelligence and targets for aerial bombardments but not to actually engage in combat” confusing.
To be able to provide such intelligence would probably require said boots to be close enough to provide accurate intelligence, and in doing so likely place them within the cross-hairs of ISIS. If they are that close, aren’t they already in a combat situation?[/quote]
Well, I should perhaps have been more clear on what I meant. In general, I do not consider aerial campaigns as half measures in general. This air campaign is a half measure. I generally fully support a vigorous and generous aerial bombardment, particularly when the enemy has not air power of their own it certainly can easily do 3/4’s of the work needed to be done to defeat the enemy.
This air campaign only seems to be in a phase of containment, as I previously said. I am not totally certain as to why, save for the admission of top-brass military folks stating that we lack proper intelligence to hit the right targets.
We are also not doing the other things we need to be doing, of a non-military nature to to degrade their capabilities. For instance, we have not shut down their social media campaign, hell it looks untouched. That hacker group ‘Anonymous’ has done more to shut them down in cyber space than the U.S. or other coalition partners have. I haven’t seen where we are making any sort of strong efforts to undercut their funding, stop their sex trafficking, and various other nefarious activities they are engaged in. I haven’t seen any effort in cutting or infiltrating their internal communications or taking out their supply channels. In other words, there’s lots of things we can do to them that we have not done, yet. All we’ve done is drop bombs on them and made a few counter propaganda videos and train up Iraqi forces. While these are good things, it’s a far cry from causing them some real pain and truly degrade them into a dysfunctional state.
It is possible, we are doing some of that in a ‘black-ops’ sort of way, but they still make videos, they pump gas out the wazoo, they are receiving funding and support from places out side their little caliphate. We are annoying them, but we are not beating them. They are a dangerous group and they need to be beaten hard. I just don’t know what this administration needs to see in order to switch gears and commit to annihilating them rather than just bother them.
And yes, if we have troops gathering intelligence, they are in harms way and we have to be prepared for that. But if intelligence is a problem, we either have to solve it or expect a large civilian casualty.
I think both you and I can agree that we don’t want large civilian casualties if it can be avoided. But to avoid it, requires risk.
War is always a lose-lose situation. We didn’t ask for war, but it came nonetheless.
Here we go. This is what I’m talking about…or at least, what I was talking about a few pages ago.
Ex-Marine goes to Kurdistan to do some merc work, otherwise known as “pest control”, shooting at ISIS scumbags.
Sadly, of course, the government discourages this sort of freelance work, preferring to do fucking nothing.
But it needn’t be so. If Congress were simply to reinstate the letters of marque and reprisal, and put a bounty on the head of anyone caught in flagrante delicto doing ISIS shit, of say, an ounce of gold per head, how many ISIS heads could a platoon of US combat veterans harvest in just one month? It wouldn’t cost the government that much, and I’ll bet we could eradicate the ISIS scourge within a year at most.
EDIT: not a few pages back. It was on another, similar thread. Oh well.[/quote]
Bounties do not seem to have much effect on those people. We had a $25 million bounty on bin laden and it was never collected. If 25 mil doesn’t motivate people, I doubt gold would fare better.
But I do agree that anybody being found to support ISIS needs to be dealt with harshly; where ever they are. That is something those people do understand.
^ Correct. Again, that is a Western, rational solution. But we are simply dealing with 8th century humanoids. They are motivated by blood, power and virgins in heaven. The only thing they respect is force and violence.
How does Obummer expect to negotiate with cro-magnons???
Here we go. This is what I’m talking about…or at least, what I was talking about a few pages ago.
Ex-Marine goes to Kurdistan to do some merc work, otherwise known as “pest control”, shooting at ISIS scumbags.
Sadly, of course, the government discourages this sort of freelance work, preferring to do fucking nothing.
But it needn’t be so. If Congress were simply to reinstate the letters of marque and reprisal, and put a bounty on the head of anyone caught in flagrante delicto doing ISIS shit, of say, an ounce of gold per head, how many ISIS heads could a platoon of US combat veterans harvest in just one month? It wouldn’t cost the government that much, and I’ll bet we could eradicate the ISIS scourge within a year at most.
EDIT: not a few pages back. It was on another, similar thread. Oh well.[/quote]
Bounties do not seem to have much effect on those people. We had a $25 million bounty on bin laden and it was never collected. If 25 mil doesn’t motivate people, I doubt gold would fare better.
But I do agree that anybody being found to support ISIS needs to be dealt with harshly; where ever they are. That is something those people do understand.[/quote]
Who said anything about “those people”?
The gold bounty isn’t to encourage the Iraqis or Syrians or whoever to fight ISIS, it’s to encourage Western mercenaries to gear up and go out and do some pirate-hunting. We had a 25 million dollar bounty on bin Laden because supposedly we couldn’t find him, and we wanted someone to turn him in. ISIS, you may have noticed, is not exactly hiding.
Here we go. This is what I’m talking about…or at least, what I was talking about a few pages ago.
Ex-Marine goes to Kurdistan to do some merc work, otherwise known as “pest control”, shooting at ISIS scumbags.
Sadly, of course, the government discourages this sort of freelance work, preferring to do fucking nothing.
But it needn’t be so. If Congress were simply to reinstate the letters of marque and reprisal, and put a bounty on the head of anyone caught in flagrante delicto doing ISIS shit, of say, an ounce of gold per head, how many ISIS heads could a platoon of US combat veterans harvest in just one month? It wouldn’t cost the government that much, and I’ll bet we could eradicate the ISIS scourge within a year at most.
EDIT: not a few pages back. It was on another, similar thread. Oh well.[/quote]
Bounties do not seem to have much effect on those people. We had a $25 million bounty on bin laden and it was never collected. If 25 mil doesn’t motivate people, I doubt gold would fare better.
But I do agree that anybody being found to support ISIS needs to be dealt with harshly; where ever they are. That is something those people do understand.[/quote]
Who said anything about “those people”?
The gold bounty isn’t to encourage the Iraqis or Syrians or whoever to fight ISIS, it’s to encourage Western mercenaries to gear up and go out and do some pirate-hunting. We had a 25 million dollar bounty on bin Laden because supposedly we couldn’t find him, and we wanted someone to turn him in. ISIS, you may have noticed, is not exactly hiding.[/quote]
Good point. I have no problem with mercenaries hunting them down like the animals they are. May the Lord make them fast and accurate.
Here we go. This is what I’m talking about…or at least, what I was talking about a few pages ago.
Ex-Marine goes to Kurdistan to do some merc work, otherwise known as “pest control”, shooting at ISIS scumbags.
Sadly, of course, the government discourages this sort of freelance work, preferring to do fucking nothing.
But it needn’t be so. If Congress were simply to reinstate the letters of marque and reprisal, and put a bounty on the head of anyone caught in flagrante delicto doing ISIS shit, of say, an ounce of gold per head, how many ISIS heads could a platoon of US combat veterans harvest in just one month? It wouldn’t cost the government that much, and I’ll bet we could eradicate the ISIS scourge within a year at most.
EDIT: not a few pages back. It was on another, similar thread. Oh well.[/quote]
The 1856 Declaration of Paris may make that course of action legally dubious. Although the US was not a signatory at the time, the abolition of privateering essentially constitutes international custom, a source of international law that represents usage with a definite obligation attached to it. It does seem to fulfill 1) a material element defined by systematic practice over time; and 2) a psychological element, the opinio juris or evidence that states regard the practice as a legal obligation. It’s further complicated by the fact that such operations would be conducted against non-state actors and on the sovereign soil of a state and not the open high seas.
Here we go. This is what I’m talking about…or at least, what I was talking about a few pages ago.
Ex-Marine goes to Kurdistan to do some merc work, otherwise known as “pest control”, shooting at ISIS scumbags.
Sadly, of course, the government discourages this sort of freelance work, preferring to do fucking nothing.
But it needn’t be so. If Congress were simply to reinstate the letters of marque and reprisal, and put a bounty on the head of anyone caught in flagrante delicto doing ISIS shit, of say, an ounce of gold per head, how many ISIS heads could a platoon of US combat veterans harvest in just one month? It wouldn’t cost the government that much, and I’ll bet we could eradicate the ISIS scourge within a year at most.
EDIT: not a few pages back. It was on another, similar thread. Oh well.[/quote]
The 1856 Declaration of Paris may make that course of action legally dubious. Although the US was not a signatory at the time, the abolition of privateering essentially constitutes international custom, a source of international law that represents usage with a definite obligation attached to it. It does seem to fulfill 1) a material element defined by systematic practice over time; and 2) a psychological element, the opinio juris or evidence that states regard the practice as a legal obligation. It’s further complicated by the fact that such operations would be conducted against non-state actors and on the sovereign soil of a state and not the open high seas.[/quote]
Surely no more or less of a legal grey area than extrajudicial abductions and executions by CIA or Mossad, drone strikes against civilians in Yemen and Pakistan, or indeed, any of ISIS’ actions up until now. Anyway, which sovereign states do you imagine would complain about foreign mercenaries assassinating ISIS Memberson their soil, to whom would they direct their complaints, and in which international courts do you imagine the offending mercenaries would be tried?
When I say half measures, this is what I mean. Start at 12:15.
You will hear 2 familiar themes, it’s Bush’s fault and it’s poverty and social services to prevent terrorism. Forget the fact that a lot of ISIS fighters are educated and middle class or higher. So no sense of urgency in a military campaign designed to take out an enemy:
[quote]pat wrote:
When I say half measures, this is what I mean. Start at 12:15.
You will hear 2 familiar themes, it’s Bush’s fault and it’s poverty and social services to prevent terrorism. Forget the fact that a lot of ISIS fighters are educated and middle class or higher. So no sense of urgency in a military campaign designed to take out an enemy:
First, President Obama didn’t even mention former President Bush verbatim. He stated that ISIL evolved from al-Qaida in Iraq, ipso facto, a consequence of the invasion of Iraq.
I’m unsure what “it’s poverty and social services to prevent terrorism” is meant to convey. If it is a criticism of “poverty breeds terrorism”, there is debate within the literature regarding the role economics plays in the phenomenon. There are empirical studies that support both positions. With validation, Obama invoked what Jerrold M. Post calls the “psycho-logic of terrorism”, which I personally find compelling. Psychological factors very often drive individuals to become terrorists. In particular, studies of terrorists indicate that many rely on the psychological mechanisms of “splitting” and “externalization”.
USCENTCOM commander General Lloyd has stated that as of 23 February, 2015, approximately 8,500 ISIL terrorists have been killed in the US led air campaign in Iraq and Syria. 58 tanks, 184 HMMWVs, 303 technicals, 26 miscellaneous armored vehicles and 394 other vehicles have been destroyed according to statistics from the Pentagon. Given that CIA has estimated that the strength of ISIL front-line and garrison fighters - constituted by their regular forces (jund), the elite paramilitary (inghimasiyalone may have up to 15,000 members), and death squad (dhabbihah) personnel - numbers between 20,000-31,500, those numbers are hardly insignificant. Your “half-measures” narrative is not hard headed, empirical defense analysis; nor is it an educated guess. You aren’t merely shooting from the hip, but in the dark as well.
