The US Military only has a 7% chance of defeating ISIS!

I'm always skeptical of ivory tower groups like RAND that offer advice but have no responsibility for the outcome and no part in implementing decisions made by that advice. If they had to actually be the boots then I wonder what they would advise.

 

Your slavery thing needs a cite, but more importantly it does not support a claim of terrotism. Being a pirate and being a terrorist are very separate charges.

The first element needs to be a strategy. That has to address the underlying reasons for the catastrophes in Iraq and Syria.

In my view, no candidate has done that yet. So, what we are doing now is as good as we can do.

But, my guess is that you are mostly expressing frustration. Nothing good comes from that emotion.

 

All think tanks are political and have a political agenda be it RAND, Cato, Claremont Institute, Foreign Policy Research Institute, etc.
RAND is known to be liberal but more of middle of the road when it comes to national defense issues but is listed as centrist.
http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/think-tank-spectrum-revisited/

Even the RAND was involved in forcing the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps to adopt the M-16 rifle. I wonder how many who were involved at the RAND Corp. were ever grunts or ever fired a rifle ? -> https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/papers/2008/P6306.pdf

 

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ve-never-bombed-russias-military-160628287.html

this is how you win wars.
Make the enemy bleed, make him cower, strike the fear of god into him. destroy his homes, his markets, his farms, and his water supplies. make him suffer at every turn. That is how you win.

 

I am sure you can confirm that enslavement is a key element of Jihad easily. Bernard Lewis, an Islamic scholar, has written several books that discuss Jihad in detail. I would be surprised if you could not confirm this through WIKI. As I recall the Barbary Pirates captured and enslaved well over a million people. If a quick WIKI does not confirm this let me know and I will hit the books.

The "underlying reasons" for the rise of the IS was foolish ill thought US military intervention.

I doubt that either of us knows what "we" are really doing over there now. Hopefully it is something more useful than an endless campaign of harassment. Trifling with a serious enemy is not very smart. Of course, if they have to do that to resist the temptation to send the troops into another ground war - we will have to try and live with the nonsense.

I am not the least bit frustrated. Those who are frustrated are eager to intervene again under current leadership and rules of engagement.

 

I agree we made gigantic mistakes in Iraq. I hear Iraq is now ready for us to send troops to fight in Iraq. I am opposed to that. At the very least we would need to have the full support of Sunnis as we did during the only period when we had success against terrorists in Iraq - during the "awakening".

By underlying cause, I was thinking of the assault on the Sunni minority by the government we installed - leaving Sunnis disenfranchised and fighting for their lives against government troops and militias. For too long ISIL has offered more than the government has offered - help in defense, participation in government, and the jobs the government took from them.

 

This Jihad thing is too indirect for me. Radical fundamentalists and mainstream Islam disagree on the meaning of this and other terms. Bringing in slavery is even worse, as slavery and terrorism are very different issues, we care about one way more than the other, the methods for opposing them are very different, and we won'the have any influence on slavery, women's rights, etc. while ISIL is making the decisions.



I think we are better off if we focus on ISIL.

 

They hate each other with good reason but they have far more in common than with us. The "American Way" offends them all - deeply.

 

The US is not well suited to influence either the IS or Islamic culture.

 

No war was ever won by bombing alone so that it is a fallacy.

 

I do not see where I said it was.

 

Your exact words;

 

But I did not preceed that with Air war, so i do not know what you are talking about. All I meant is to win wars you fight your enemy with no restrictions as the Russians are, and they do have a ground force under Assad and Hezbollah.

 

Actually you did exactly that when you included the link to the bombing in Syria.

You then made the following statement about that bombing;

 

Oh my god, wow you really love pulling for straws to "win" the Internetz... I just explicitly stated what I meant, either reply to my statement or continue on your merry way.

 

Each poster is responsible for the content of their own posts.

Failure to write clearly and concisely is not on the reader, but the poster who wrote the content.

Your statement was replied to in the context in which it was written.

If you subsequently wish to amend your content you can do so whenever you wish.

 

I made myself pretty clear, if you wish to ignore the argument and play your games you are free to do so.

 

Your argument as presented was responded to in the appropriate context.

Feel free to come up with a different context.

 

I disagree, your response was like you answering "what time is it" with " Its pretty cold".

 

Assumes facts not in evidence.

The OP topic is that the RAND study has determined that the military is only successful 7% of the time against terrorists.

The phony "war on terror" has been a complete and utter failure and all "boots on the ground" wars by the military have done is increase the number of terrorists.

There is no reason to believe that further military intervention will have any different outcome when it comes to eliminating terrorism.

Since no bombing campaign has ever won any wars that is not going to have a different outcome either.

Islamic terrorism is based upon an idea, a fallacious one, but that is irrelevant. It is impossible to defeat an idea by military means. The British couldn't do it to the Americans and we Americans won't be able to do it to the terrorists.

Anyone advocating a "military solution" to ISIS doesn't understand the nature of the problem.

 

What you fail to take into account, as I have been saying through out this debate is this:

Our war on terror had limitations on our soldiers, and what they could do, limitations on our pilots, limitations on our generals. What i am saying is that Russia will utterly destroy ISIS, because they follow no rules aside winning. They will use the Assad boots on the ground, coupled with their Air power and they will make a mockery of the Islamist's. To win this war against Islamic aggression, we must use every trick, tool, weapon at our disposal.

 

The former USSR failed in Afghanistan so there is no reason to believe that it will prevail against ISIS.

Stooping to the same level of barbarism won't defeat them either.

This is not a "war" that can be won by conventional means because the terrorists are fighting for an idea that they are willing to die for. They are teaching and training the next generation of terrorists because they see this as a never ending war. They are happy to die fighting his war and all that is happening is that we are obliging their delusions.

The current strategy is doomed to failure and Sun Tzu would be advising against it.

 

USSR was fighting to protect a k central government, which it did , and controlled most of Afghanistan territory,fighting an enemy funded and supplied by a superpower the USA. Also the Soviet Union withdrew for economic reasons, as it was already starting to fracture. Cannot compare these two wars.

 

Ironic given that you are the one trying to draw the comparisons to conventional wars.

The USSR lost in Afghanistan for the exact same reason that America is currently losing. The Afghan people won't tolerate invaders of any kind. They did the same thing to the British Empire.

As far as funding goes the pockets of the Islamists are very deep and they are running a very cheap war, far cheaper than what Russia and the USA are currently spending.

That is the whole thing about asymmetric warfare, it is cheap for the terrorists and expensive for those using conventional means.

Russia doesn't have unlimited funds and it will ultimately lose interest if the Syrians can't defeat ISIS on the ground.

 

It's true there are some things they don't like about our culture - for example erotica everywhere, consumerism, abortion, and the rest of the stuff that our own religious fundamentalists criticize us for.

But, what is going on over there has nothing to do with that.

And, I'm not so sure you can compare that with the ways in which we make THEIR lives more miserable - bombing/droning them, installing and ensuring the continuation of repressive governments (such as Iraq, SA, Egypt, Israel).