Needs to be asked....would you as a senior Staff sign off on this? Objective: To diminish ISIS as a non threat with a Multinational air campaign and pro ground forces. Limited coalition. National political influence with local regional and state input will play a role with concern to ROE and objective. Return Iraq to a sovereign state with emphasis securing and sustaining boundaries and borders. US Force: 1000 Special Ops with indeterminable organic ground forces in support. Enemy Force: 20000 to 50000 Enemy Location: Intel on Enemy Forces: 2/3 ISIS occupy SE Syria 1/3 occupy NW. Iraq. Air Superiority nonexistent. Ground forces motivated, hardened vehicles, Artillary, SAMS, RPG's, Small arms and possible US commo interception equipment. Fluid Forces that can act without central command. Can sustain long term combat 18-41 months without outside resources to include fuel, arsenal and equipment. Multinational sympathy with neighboring states and local villages. Corruption exist with all factions and States in support. Note: Caliphate is goal.
Any interest? Tactics? Politics to throw into the mix.... It is on our front door. I have no shame....
Granny thought she seen a terrorist once - but it turned out to be a cab driver... Immigration Caseworkers Union: 'We Are Letting Terrorists into U.S. Right Through Front Door' September 18, 2014 - The U.S. is letting terrorists in "right through our front door," Kenneth Palinkas, president of the 12,000-member union of government immigration caseworkers and adjudicators warned today. See also: FBI Director Warns of ‘Terrorist Diaspora’ September 17, 2014 – FBI Director James Comey said on Wednesday that the foreign fighters who have joined the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or Levant (ISIL) in Syria would eventually return to their country of origin, including the United States, to launch attacks.
With POTUS speech yesterday in regards to using strictly organic forces embedded with SOF the exposure is a poor strategy. I imagine many in the pentagon are sitting on hands and biting tongues.
Well what bothers me is infrastructure and supply lines. ISIL is in control of a good number of major towns and unless the United States is willing to reduce all of that Iraqi infrastructure to smoldering rubble, an air campaign only type of response is all Sound and Fury signifying nothing. As for the Iraqi government forces, do they actually have enough of a spine in regards to fighting to be effective in a long term manner? They were trained since Bush invaded and Obama continued their training for another 18 months after becoming president. How much training does a professional army need? Then we look at the supply lines. Now that's interesting considering how scattered the ISIL forces are. How are their forces getting resupplied? Is that supply system vulnerable? Can we use our bombs to disrupt it? . . . and . . . so forth and so on.
For me trust in training the forces and corruption plays a larger role than infrastructure, so far many Iraqis have not shown the will to keep a nation.
Yes, I agree, but the infrastructure issue is also important, because it contains putatively innocent Iraqi citizens in huge numbers as well as vital businesses, medical facilities, food storage and processing facilities, and so forth and so on. Reduce them to rubble in an effort to eliminate ISIL forces and you severely damage the entire nation . . . as well as commit a humanitarian atrocity that Obama simply cannot get away with blaming on either the G.O.P. or G.W. Bush.
Oh I agree and was not brushing it aside, infrastructure is the soul of it all but this also goes to my point of trust. Iraq had the chance and did start building the infrastructure with our help and fortune for the last 10 years but would not stand and fight when ISIS invaded to protect such infrastructure. The policy of both Bush and Obama having Iraq in its rear view mirror was a mistake. No SOFA should have been signed (We owned it) until developing industry, commerce and trade with a long term economic plan for Iraq was in place and solidly producing, such as Japan and Germany's recovery. And I will add that some nations can not get the concept of infrastructure, if this is the case we need to walk away from it and cut our loses. Having very little will and corruption is at the heart of the issue when it comes to current US policy in regards to mission success. POTUS approving sites to bomb reeks of Vietnam. Let the Generals be fluid enough to win this or do not get involved at all. I sure typed a few words to politely say what chance do you think it will work and would you put your signature of approval on this mission?
Get operatives on the ground in order to find and identify enemy strongholds near Baghdad. Identify air vulnerable enemy outposts and bomb them. Send in trained troops (preferably Iraqi) to hold the area and gather prisoners for Iraqi 'questioning.' Once a friendly perimeter is set up around Baghdad, then start working on the perimeter of the enemy. This will take troops and many years. Seal the borders, we need to plan for a decades-long occupation. We could then put missiles on the borders and aim them toward Iran and Syria and slowly surround, identify and kill the remaining enemy.
I'd be leery, but the POTUS is the POTUS, and so unless you early retire, what are you gonna do? But yes, this smacks of LBJ's second guessing and flat out overruling of the trained military professionals; which turned out disastrous.
It is looking poorly for the people in Iraq and Syria and our POTUS. This pre-election approach and hap hazard strategy POTUS put together is insane. All politics aside POTUS has been shown to be out of his league and incompetent.
The problem is that we had to build an Army from scratch, since anyone who actually had military experience was fired when we took over the government. Big mistake IMHO but that's water under the bridge. To grow a private into a competent senior NCO or a lieutenant platoon leader into a competent brigade commander is a process of years. So it's no surprise that the Iraqi Army isn't up to the job. The basic combat skills are probably OK but the leadership is not there yet and wouldn't be for quite a long time. I have an alternate plan to Field Marshall Obama's plan here. It's not perfect, but it's better than what we're working with now.
John Kerry comes out and states that Turkey is an ally and will support the coalition. Turkey launches planes in the fight against IS and bombs the Kurds. POTUS needs to be shut down. This amateur is lost.
What needs to be shut down is the need for America to interfere incessantly in the middle east. We are in great debt. We have gutted out the economic model that put us on the top. We borrow money to wage war. We make a mess of any war that we engage in, for the purpose of these wars is to feed the corporations that make war goods. We are waging these wars for nothing but the profit of a few. And it is weakening this nation, which should be treason. America has become in my own lifetime a war mongering nation, that can no longer afford it. Yet far too many, mostly on the republican side don't care, even as they holler for fiscal responsibility. Obama in part ran on getting us out of these wars, and not starting new ones. For the people were weary. But MSM, owned by the oligarchs are beating the drums, people are calling Obama weak, when all that he has done was to try to live up to a least one of his promises. How quickly we forget. The trouble with America is the outright arrogance, the ludicrous hypocrisy, and the ckikun' hawks along with the insane hawks. If Iraq is worth saving, then the people there will rise to the challenge to save it. If they do not, it isn't worth saving. First you guys wanted to save Iraq from saddam, and now from ISIS. How about allowing those people solve their own problems? And stop the meddling from the hypocrites.
