Pentagon still thinks their strategy is working
Our buddy, Katrina Wong at The Hill reports that the Pentagon is convinced that their strategy to win against ISIS, whatever that is, is still working, you know, despite the fact that the battlefield looks like they’re losing. We mentioned a few days ago that the Iraqi city of Ramadi had fallen to the thugs, but the Pentagon says don’t worry, we can get it back;
“We still believe the strategy is working,” Pentagon spokesman Army Col. Steve Warren told reporters.
“Ramadi is an urban environment that is among the very toughest to fight in,” Warren added in an acknowledgement that U.S. air power alone is no panacea for the city. “It is an environment that limits the ability of airpower, so it creates unique challenges,” he said.
Warren said the Pentagon would accept help from Shia militia fighters — even though many are believed to be backed by Iran — to retake the city.
It seems to me that the “tough urban environment” is more suited to defense than offense, well, that’s been my experience, anyway, unless things have changed in the last one million years. If they had trouble defending Ramadi, they’ll have a harder time trying to retake it. I’m thinking that no one thought this through – well, unless their strategy includes getting a metric-shit-ton of Shia militiamen killed.
But, according to former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, there is no strategy, only micromanagement of the Pentagon from White House functionaries;
I think the first thing is we don’t have a strategy at all. We’re basically sort of playing this day-to-day, and I think our interests remain important in the Middle East.
Yeah, well, f*** you, Gates. Why didn’t you speak up when you had a voice and when you could have been a hero instead of a poo-flinging chimp in the back of the room?
You know, if the Pentagon was serious about the war against ISIS, if they were serious about taking back Ramadi, this victory parade would have been interrupted by some guy zeroing his 30 mm GAU-8 Avenger rotary cannon;
Category: Terror War
You read it wrong. They say their ISIL strategy is working. And it is. Because there is no ISIL. There is ISIS.
I’d like to have the ISIS-GSA contract for flags. That guy is making big time jack.
no contract, all flags are voluntary made from only the finest sodomized black goat hair. meticulously hand plucked and sewn together by only the fairest of afghan “dancing boys”. this takes place every Friday morning after the dancing boys have been “consecrated” by man-love Thursdays.
don’t forget your shovel, Kandahar 2012
“It is an environment that limits the ability of airpower, so it creates unique challenges,” he said.
No, no it doesn’t…think Dresden, Tokyo, Hanoi…urban environments are not at all limiting as they offer an extremely target rich environment that doesn’t move. It’s quite stationary and easy to find.
What they’re really saying is that they are afraid to bomb that city to rubble because the American public can no longer stomach what it takes to reduce enemy environments to rubble and kill the enemy and the nearby civilians in overwhelming and frighteningly large numbers.
Consequently we have a strategy that involves trusting a large quantity of disinterested cowards to maintain unity in a nation where the three major tribal groups hate and distrust each other but we as a nation refuse to accept the idea that stone age tribalists with modern appliances and plumbing can’t actually learn to live together.
We pretend there is some hope of creating a welcoming Iraqi melting pot of diversity where all are welcome to worship as they choose and live in peace. There is of course no historical evidence to suggest that will ever be possible or appropriate. Therefore we will continue to promote the wrong strategy with the smallest number of troops possible insuring we will never get the result we dream of achieving.
The wrong strategy is worse than no strategy, and Obama and company are as wrong here as they were in their proclamations regarding Yemen. Disregarding the evidence on the ground in the belief that their own desire for a positive outcome will happen organically without extreme and sustained intervention is the mark of the amateur, clearly it’s been amateur hour for far too long.
In terms of delivery of PGM’s and CAS urban environments create a ton of challenges. I agree that mass bombing presents less(and can be quite effective if applied judiciously), but we all know that is something of the past, hence why the B52 fleet has been upgraded with PGM delivery systems.
Stop blaming the American public! You could wall paper your house with the letters I’ve written. Everyone I know, everyone I work with and talk to say the same thing: it’s not being done right. The politicians have the bit in their teeth and are doing what they damn well please, and screw the American tax-paying public! It’s not the American public who don’t have the stomach, it’s the goddam limp-wristed mass media that doesn’t have the stomach for what needs to be done, and they have a strangle-hold on what people are being spoon fed on tv. There are two institutions in this country that will have to be cleaned up before this country stands a chance again, and that is the educational structures and the news media. Until then, all we will get is No Hope and Communist Change.
agreed.
The problem with fixing either of those institutions is that the educational system uses the “feel good” strategy to get their way. You’ve heard it before, “it’s for the kids”, so if you say no, you are against the kids. The news media focuses on the low information citizens that have no time to think for themselves, or the younger citizens that are being indoctrinated at school and/or think that the news is boring so refuse to make time for it.
I left out the third category and that is the ones with their hand held out for all the free stuff
Reminds me of late VietNam era. The troops were hamstrung by ROEs dictated by the politicians. The average American was for the troops and winning the war. The only ones against the war were the smelly hippy uber-vocal minority and the media.
I partly disagree about Vietnam. The ROE problem really stopped in 72 when most of the combat troops pulled out. At the end, nobody wanted to be the last guy killed there. The average American was tired of the war. Nixon had Watergate and the Church committee was beating up on the CIA so many people didn’t trust the government. Just about the first thing that Carter did was pardon the draft dodgers and that was popular with a lot of people – I thought it sucked but a lot of people thought it was okay. The press stopped supporting the war around 1967 or 1968. Yes, there was some support in the general public but I don’t think that there was a majority. Strangely enough, there were still Americans in Vietnam in May trying to not lose the war, look up Bob Caron. He wasn’t military and he didn’t have to be there but there he was.
This administration of klownes have screwed everything up in spades.
Typical of liberals in the foreign policy department.
Hell, they can’t figure out how to get a web site working even after spending $2 billion on the damn thing.
it’s like POTUS hired Baghdad Bob.
Things like this highlight the importance of elections. I’ve heard people say “Just vote for whomever for president – it’s not like he can mess it up too bad because Congress has the real power!”
POTUS appoints asshats to positions of GREAT power and responsibility. Those folks CONTROL AND MANAGE OUR WARS. The secondary and tiertiary effects of elections can cause harm to the greater good that causes generational failures. 🙁
This is all about POTUS and his getting larger by the day ego trying to hold on to the one campaign promise that he can say that he has kept. Otherwise his legacy stands as one fact and one fact only.
The “victory parade” was a topic of discussion in the office today. Apparently, all of the cash that we are sending to CENTCOM still isn’t enough for a good ISR platform and some strike aircraft.
Maybe the colonel meant “winning” in the same sense that Charlie Sheen meant it after he was fired.
Lots of folks probably dont know this about COL Warren but he had a brother named Baghdad Bob…..I wonder if its a genetic thing with that family?
Their parades are miles long. JDAM that shit. Predator. A couple A-10s going BRRRRRRRRT. B-52s. Something!
Can’t do that it’s unfair and innocent jihadis my die ! ! ! !
Bhwhahahahaha ! ! ! ! !
Now THERE’s an oxymoron! “Innocent” and “jihadi”. It is to laugh, hahahahaha.
So, the fall of Iraq and allowing ISIS to run training camps within 5 miles of the Texas border is part of their carefully laid plan?
Hope and Change or is it Devide and conquer. Or maybe just a ship of fools either way it’s going to take years to clean up this shit Lol…
Fundamental transformation of America alright. By turning our military into inept bozos.