Strikes in Iraq don’t go far enough
Defense officials are saying that the limited airstrikes against the Islamic State are having the desired effect in that their advances against Kurds have been slowed and the Kurds are taking back some of the places they lost recently. I like that, because the peshmerga will fight the war the way it should be fought – not hamstrung by some stupid ROE. Operation Viking Hammer redux.
Reports are also that the CIA is working with resupplying the Kurds instead of passing equipment and weapons through the State and Defense Departments which means that the Kurds will actually get the stuff like they should have all along. From Fox News;
Lt. Gen. William Mayville Jr., director for operations with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described a stay-the-course approach during a briefing with reporters Monday afternoon. He spoke four days into a renewed U.S. airstrike campaign in northern Iraq meant to drive back militants with the Islamic State (IS), the group formerly known as ISIS.
Mayville said Air Force and Navy aircraft have conducted 15 “targeted strikes” to date and “helped check” IS advances around the cities of Sinjar and Irbil.
He said the strikes have “slowed” the group’s “operational tempo and temporarily disrupted their advances towards the province of Irbil.”
However, he said, “the strikes are unlikely to affect [IS’] overall capabilities or its operations in other areas of Iraq and Syria.”
That makes total sense. We’re beginning a combat operation with no intention of affecting the outcome. As if Clauswitz never existed or wrote a word. This is a similar situation as the early days of the Afghanistan War when US aircraft supported Northern Alliance operations against the Taliban, but at least the US had the intention of having an impact on the battlefield. I don’t get this crap…is it just so we can be participants from a position where we can still blame someone else if they lose?
Category: Terror War
Jonn, your last line says it all…”I don’t get this crap…is it just so we can be participants from a position where we can still blame someone else if they lose?”
The answer to that you are exactly correct. “We” needed to do something, so we will do the barest minimum that will remove the appearance that “We” are doing nothing, and maintain the ability to say “We” did all we could, but it was really up to “insert name of person/group to be tossed under bus here” fault.
All of this noise just to say “See, I did something”, while accomplishing absolutely nothing.
Kinda like someone else did when he threw a few cruise missiles at a Khartoum pharmaceutical factory in 1998, maybe?
Perhaps this strategy is the military equivalent of voting “present” in the legislature? As in “I am here, but I am not going to affect the outcome.”
Jonn, well said, especially your last line. Essentially, leave no clues and leave lots of others to blame. That is why you won’t hear Hillary and her ilk speak about this because if it goes south or is a bid win and they lay their money down wrong, loss of credibility in ’16.
I don’t get this crap…is it just so we can be participants from a position where we can still blame someone else if they lose?
Exactly correct sir, this administration is run by the “All Show No Go” president. The guy who didn’t serve out a single full term in the Senate or have any managerial or executive experience but was elected for his “brilliance” and ability to change our cachet in world opinion.
World opinion has indeed changed regarding the US. Our enemies no longer fear us, and our allies no longer trust us.
Nicely done Mr. President. A few more years of your gilded glove and you will have done the perfect job of altering the landscape of the US for all eternity.
‘I don’t get this crap…is it just so we can be participants from a position where we can still blame someone else if they lose?’
Uh, is that a rhetorical question? If not, the answer is a resounding ‘yes’. And the ‘we’ is used as the royal ‘We’. If it goes well, ‘We’ take credit. If not, blame it on a predecessor or someone.
The ONLY thing Democrats will go all out to win is a domestic political campaign. Then it’s no holds barred voter fraud, opposition character assassination and whatever other form of lying and deception it takes.
Military campaigns? Meh…not so much.
On the mid-day news sKerry Lurch said ‘no reintroduction of American combat troops in Iraq’.
Now, there you have it. Bodaprez said it last week and Lurch confirmed it today.
How long before that ‘word’ gets taken back? Any bets on that?
In my estimation, what we’re doing there is solely for show. If we were serious, we’d
1. Get the Iraqi govt to let us use Sather AB again.
2. More a squadron of A-10s in there, plus log support, security, and perhaps a RPV detachment or two; and
3. Start conducting serious air operations against ISIS.
I’d have to check the A-10’s combat radius, but we might also be able to do the same from Ali al Salem AB in Kuwait.
We’re doing neither. You do the math.
Isn’t there an airbase in Jordan? Or maybe Israel? Oh, that’s right – bodaprez screwed that up and let Egypt broker a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, so we lost points that way.
Well, there’s Turkey, too.
Libtard logic says if you fight terrorists you just create more of them. If you go out and conduct strategically irrelevant targeting of some of them you’re basically a recruitment tool.
Libtard logic 101 means Obama is actively helping ISIL recruitment.
Thanks, Obama!
The ISIS creeps have probably adjusted their tactics now. Our first attack should have been shock and awe . The president blew it. Big surprise there
So if Giduck pretends he’s there, will this be considered part of his 8th war he’s been involved in or a totally new 9th conflict?
Let me get this straight…
Obama ordered the military to conduct humanitarian attacks in a country he already said we didn’t need to be in, against an enemy he already said he defeated, in a war he said he already won.
Yeah… He is either the most incompetent President in the history of America or the most incompetent liar in the history of America.
He’s an asshole. Leave it at that.
Hondo, you wrote about the Tonkin Gulf Resolution. How odd is it that, 50 years after LBJ’s bit of aggressiveness, it looks as though someone is forgetting about Vietnam and what that turned into.
http://news.msn.com/us/us-could-announce-more-troops-to-iraq-officials
Right now, I’m so pissed off about this I could spit fire. I can smell it coming. Damn.
I finally got the number of ‘advisors’ being sent there: it is 130 people.
http://news.msn.com/us/united-states-sends-another-130-military-personnel-to-iraq
The irony is excruciating.
What authority does the president invoke for these sorties? War Powers Act? Or is it lingering authority from the GWOT and the Iraq theatre?
Does anyone know? My rep here in Texas is John Carter and I will work to throw his ass out if he supported us getting back into the middle east shit-throwing fight.
You got me. I have no idea.