Coalition ?

tetvet

Banned
Obama and Kerry are trying as best they can to get something going against ISIS-ISIL , Mr. Obama recently announced that a number of allies will come together to deal with the growing threat of ISIS , the names of the coalition Countries read like , what and who , the coalition has one member who might actually do something , Australia other than that not much .:tank:
 
Obama and Kerry are trying as best they can to get something going against ISIS-ISIL , Mr. Obama recently announced that a number of allies will come together to deal with the growing threat of ISIS , the names of the coalition Countries read like , what and who , the coalition has one member who might actually do something , Australia other than that not much .:tank:

Do you mean our Commander in Chief?... our President?... President Obama declared war?.. Or does it (his plan) not have that title? What's in a name anyway? Just the words "Obama, coalition, deal with, and ISIS" lead me to believe that Our president has declared war on murderous cowards.
 
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The more important issue is not ISIS-ISIL over there but to keep them from coming here , some would say destroy ISIS before they could come here , that is a pipe dream if ISIS crashes and burns there will be another to take its place and another it just keeps on going . Obamas grand strategy is put a finger in the dike and hope for the best .
 
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What a bloody mistake the 2009 pull-out was. I heard these guys have 20,000 to 31,000 fighters. I highly doubt anything significant can be done with air-strikes (even if they are stepped up to an extreme level). The Iraqi army seems incompetent, as does the Free Syrian Army. IS will continue to grow until large scale coalition ground operations ensue.

Chances of this happening ... well ...
 
I don't know how many people ISIS has but they have the Guns so that makes them King of the hill . Air Strikes alone forget it won't work , I was in Vietnam when they had a jillion Air Strikes a day with little effect got to have people in place to make it work and there's no guarantee that would work .
 
B-52's

I don't know how many people ISIS has but they have the Guns so that makes them King of the hill . Air Strikes alone forget it won't work , I was in Vietnam when they had a jillion Air Strikes a day with little effect got to have people in place to make it work and there's no guarantee that would work .

The bombing on the trail and jungle bases didn't do much from what I understand. However it did help to win certain victories like Khe Sanh, which was a hollow victory since they gave the territory they won back, crazy.
However the sustained bombing of Hanoi with the B-52's nearly reduced the city to ashes and shook up the NVA considerably.
Didn't Nixon's sending in the B-52's to bomb Hanoi bring the NVA to the peace talks, even though they lied and crossed the DMZ a few years after the peace treaty was implemented?
 
It's important to keep in mind that these are non-state players. ISIS or ISIL, if you will, is not a country. Conventional military operations don't very much apply. They have no capitol to capture, no infrastructure of their own, no territory of their own. This is unconventional warfare in the raw. The need to to "attrit" their leadership, as they say in the Pentagon. Kill or capture ( preferably kill) their leadership, when new leaders take over, they move up on the hit parade. How is this to be done? ISIS has enemies. So in addition to drone strikes, air strikes and all the rest, it's important to play one group against the other. Some of that is going on now, It's risky. You may replace ISIS with something as bad or worse, but it doesn't require much in the way of troop commitments and that is critical in the U.S. with our current political climate.
 
It's important to keep in mind that these are non-state players. ISIS or ISIL, if you will, is not a country. Conventional military operations don't very much apply. They have no capitol to capture, no infrastructure of their own, no territory of their own. This is unconventional warfare in the raw. The need to to "attrit" their leadership, as they say in the Pentagon. Kill or capture ( preferably kill) their leadership, when new leaders take over, they move up on the hit parade. How is this to be done? ISIS has enemies. So in addition to drone strikes, air strikes and all the rest, it's important to play one group against the other. Some of that is going on now, It's risky. You may replace ISIS with something as bad or worse, but it doesn't require much in the way of troop commitments and that is critical in the U.S. with our current political climate.

I don't beleive you'll find a worse terrorist organization. Mainstream Al Quada broke away from these guys because they were to radical. They may not have a country in the conventional sense, but they have a lot of land under their control. Nor is it unconventional warfare they wage. In fact they are operating more like a conventional army then other terrorist groups. Using all the US hardware taken from the retreating Iraqi army and hardware purchased with their oil money. This was the problem with there fighting the Kurds. The Kurds didn't have heavy equipment and artillery IS does. They have many enemies, countries that feel threatened that this radical group could spill over: Jordon, Iran, Arabia. The way they would start is likely with bombing to create unrest (like they are doing in Bagdad which remains out of their reach) and to try and to send in subversives to innate grassroots support.
 
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The Christmas bombings of Hanoi in '72 did bring the North too their knees as General Giap ( Jape ) said three more days and they would have no choice but surrender and they agreed to go to Paris an talk about it an talk an talk giving the North time to regroup which they did , the rest is history .
 
What a bloody mistake the 2009 pull-out was. I heard these guys have 20,000 to 31,000 fighters. I highly doubt anything significant can be done with air-strikes (even if they are stepped up to an extreme level). The Iraqi army seems incompetent, as does the Free Syrian Army. IS will continue to grow until large scale coalition ground operations ensue.

Chances of this happening ... well ...

You mean 2011 right?
 
2009 - 2011

Correct brinktk - it was a process.

It certainly was. Of course, I'm not sure I would have wanted to remain there if I could be prosecuted under Iraqi law for anything they deemed a crime. We all knew it was a mistake to pull out and so did their people and troops. I absolutely hate being right in this regard. It wouldn't have taken that much to give the ISF the guidance and steady hand they needed....sigh
 
Syria is the homeland of the Cult of the Assassins. It shouldn't be too hard to find some guys in that area who would kill their own mothers if the price was right. It's going to be necessary to fund and support individuals and groups who are willing to do dirty deeds dirt cheap. Every nation has people on staff who are recruited and trained to put a bullet in the back of someone's head, ( eg. 007) but for political reasons Western nations are afraid to use their own people. So surrogates will have to be employed as was done in Colombia against traffickers like Pablo Escobar. The West will just have to find the right people, feed them intelligence, funding and support and let them eliminate the competition. Then it's only a question of taking out the last man standing. It's going to take a Western leader who is ballsy and Machiavellian. Someone like, say Henry Kissinger to clean this up. Today, no Western leader has the guts to do what has to be done.
 
I'm not certain that large scale strategic bombing won't set ISIS back. Using AWAKs we can locate their hardware, armored vehicles, artillery, the weapons that are giving them the edge in their conventional style war, that has gained them so much territory. After pinpointing these weapons we can then destroy all this hardware faster than they can replace it. This should take the steam out of their offensive capabilities. Yes they can still plant bombs and snipe but that's not how they are defeating Assad and the Iraqi army. The radicals will not be completely defeated by heavy - sustained surgical bombing but it could cripple their offensive abilities.
 
I'm not certain that large scale strategic bombing won't set ISIS back. Using AWAKs we can locate their hardware, armored vehicles, artillery, the weapons that are giving them the edge in their conventional style war, that has gained them so much territory. After pinpointing these weapons we can then destroy all this hardware faster than they can replace it. This should take the steam out of their offensive capabilities. Yes they can still plant bombs and snipe but that's not how they are defeating Assad and the Iraqi army. The radicals will not be completely defeated by heavy - sustained surgical bombing but it could cripple their offensive abilities.

Agreed, it is certainly a start in the right direction. At the end of the day though, to fully eradicate them there WILL have to be a ground force willing and capable of rooting them and their ideology out. There are candidates that could fit the bill and it seems the Peshmerga are actually having some success in retaking lost territory. The Iraqi security forces also seem to be getting back on the horse and making some gains or at least holding what they have. The elephant in the room is how is the government in Iraq going to give the Sunni's a stake in the country's future that lasts? Without a resolution to that question I don't see any military success on the ground against ISIS lasting. The Sunni tribes in Iraq hold tremendous local power and could really make life miserable for ISIS in the areas they have gained control over...yet, if they see that they'll be marginalized in the future, it'll just more of the same.
 
First Spear . Obama went from no strategy to negative strategy . General Dempsey said it would take a year to bring the Iraqi Army up to speed by American advisors in the mean time what , who , when , ISIS may be a lot of things but stupid they aren't they shield themselves in a cocoon of innocent civilians knowing full well the Americans won't bomb such targets .
 
Agreed, it is certainly a start in the right direction. At the end of the day though, to fully eradicate them there WILL have to be a ground force willing and capable of rooting them and their ideology out. There are candidates that could fit the bill and it seems the Peshmerga are actually having some success in retaking lost territory. The Iraqi security forces also seem to be getting back on the horse and making some gains or at least holding what they have. The elephant in the room is how is the government in Iraq going to give the Sunni's a stake in the country's future that lasts? Without a resolution to that question I don't see any military success on the ground against ISIS lasting. The Sunni tribes in Iraq hold tremendous local power and could really make life miserable for ISIS in the areas they have gained control over...yet, if they see that they'll be marginalized in the future, it'll just more of the same.

I agree. Any successful government must include Sunni's, Shiites and Kurds. This is one of the reason that Maliki was unsuccessful. He appointed inexperienced Shite to government and military post. This alienated the Sunnis, many of which were much better qualified for the job. Any lasting government must be inclusive.
 
Obama and Kerry are trying as best they can to get something going against ISIS-ISIL , Mr. Obama recently announced that a number of allies will come together to deal with the growing threat of ISIS , the names of the coalition Countries read like , what and who , the coalition has one member who might actually do something , Australia other than that not much .:tank:

Strange, before the dust settled after 9/11, Britain had SAS and SBS boots on the ground in Afghanistan.
 
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