Washington Post; The U.S. must do more to help Iraq fight the Islamic State
I hate to say this out loud and in public, but the Washington Post’s editorial staff and I agree on something finally. In today’s edition, they take the Obama Administration to task on their handling of the war against ISIS.
The Administration merely reacts to ISIS gains in Iraq and Syria, like their latest shipment of arms to Iraq in response to the recent loss of Ramadi, instead of being proactive. The administration knew for a month before the fall of the Iraqi city that it was in danger, but they did little to nothing to prevent it.
The Administration has been unable to influence the al-Abadi government to ship weapons to the Kurds, probably one of the most effective fighting forces on the ground there, if properly armed.
While the Iraqi Army and their inability to actually face an enemy is largely at fault for the losses of Fallujah, Mosul and Ramadi, they aren’t getting the support that they need from US forces there, mostly because the politicians are largely in control of each action there;
The administration boasts of 3,000 strikes carried out by U.S. planes since last summer. But as the New York Times recently reported, the pace of air operations is far below that of the 2001 Afghan campaign, when there were nearly six times as many daily strikes on average, or even the more recent NATO air operation in Libya, which recorded more than three times as many daily attacks. Military analysts say Islamic State military convoys have been able to move unimpeded across the desert from Syria to Iraq, while Iraqi officers say U.S. planes failed to hit key targets in Ramadi.
It seems that the administration’s sole strategy in Iraq is to limit the participation of US force, much like the sole strategy in Afghanistan last year was withdrawal of US troops there. The administration is fond of telling us that the war against ISIS will take time, but at this point, it seems that it’s only taking more time than necessary to run out the clock on this presidency and pass the hard decisions on to the next President and preserve this President’s legacy as a Nobel Peace Prize winner.
The Post concludes;
Rather than blame Iraqi troops, Mr. Obama should bolster them with more U.S. advisers, including forward air controllers, and more air support. He should insist that Mr. Abadi open a weapons pipeline to Sunni and Kurdish units. Perhaps most important, Mr. Obama should make his priority eliminating the Islamic State — as opposed to limiting U.S. engagement in Iraq.
I disagree with the “more US advisers” aspect of their conclusion, but only because that would provide more targets in an unconventional war. I fully support the administration’s decision to allow the Iranians and Iraqis to bleed in the war rather than US troops. But the planning for the war against ISIS should reside completely with the US commanders in Iraq and taken from the White House and State Department acting generals and their lawyers.
Category: Terror War
THROW the ROE out the WINDOW and unleash the DOGS OF WAR.
THAT will make a difference.
Problem is, you do that and they’ll try to eat 50% of the dogs and have sex with the other 50%….
Indeed
And ’round and ’round we go. When we had troops in Iraq, all the mass media could do was wail about “the death of innocents.” And now they want us to go fight a war? FUCK THAT. If they want a war fought, hand those metrosexuals a rifle and give ’em a plane ticket.
Agree. We were over there, spent treasure and blood making big gains….. but the American people spoke so we had to give it all back. The people cannot stomach a long-term conflict over there…they don’t have the courage and tenacity. They voted Obama in for two terms on the platform of extricating from that mess. Either we go in guns blazing and win, then sit for a decade or two to nation build (like we did with Japan and Germany) or we pull everyone out of there and concentrate on defending the turf from the eventual Caliphate. There is no middle ground, we are spending too much to do too little to stop this mess.
I would pick a nit over only one part of your post. The American people don’t really have a problem with war, as long as they know what is being done and why. What we have no stomach for is throwing troops and money at something when it turns into ‘war-on-terror-but-nation-building-and-winning-hearts-and-minds-while-also-not-discriminating-against-religion-but-capturing-terrorists…’ What the hell are we supposed to DO with something like that?! That is why people voted the way they did — there was absolutely no end in sight. Now, I wasn’t about to vote for Obama, because I knew he had absolutely no idea what he was talking about and would simply choose to amputate the whole business — which is what has put us into the current mess we’re in now. But Bush not having a plan when all this started is the seed that bore the evil fruit of the election of Obama and his clueless administration.
I think we more or less agree. Bush was not the best and his administration had it’s lions share of silliness and I agree that the Bush Administration did not communicate the mission well enough to give people the warm and fuzzies but we both know that the “limp wristed stank-ass hippies” (to quote John) would never focus on anything other than the bad stuff enough to make people anxious. At least Bush had the cojones to make a decision, and stick by his call.
I do agree that as time went on we allowed too much PC in what we were doing that affect things on the ground but to the statement that there was no end in sight, well no one said it would be over in a day or even a decade. The fact is that progress was being made over in Iraq slow as it was(and Afghanistan though I was not over there until 2012-2014) when we decided that we would vote in the guy who would surrender the whole kit. To me that stinks of America having enough. Well, this is what we get–so are we going to send over our guys again to fight in the same battle fields only to have the same result? I hope not, at least unless we stick it out.
Absolutely agree. If we go back in, we go back in to win. Period.
Definitely!
Isn’t this the same news paper that said, no to Iraq a few years ago and was all happy about us getting out of there ?????
Also didn’t this propaganda rag touting what a great job dear leader had done ????
JUST SAYING
It’s kind of like the waning days of the Clinton Admin. The Left was all for regime change until Bush did it. Then it was against it.
Now they’re all for it, unless a Republican gets elected, in which case they’ll be back to tales of civilian death and woe.
And they’ll do it without a moment’s thought or reflection.
We need more “Hope” its working for the economy and global warming.
careful about mentioning global warming and Iraq.
CIA will “receive strong intelligence data” indicating ISIS is pro-global warming and Obama will send every DOD green suiter to Iraq because DOD’s main concern is “global warming”.
“Obama Administration to task on their handling of the war against ISIS”.
The first step would be to actually handle the issue rather than ignore.
Totes.
If the US is going to “help” the Iraqis fight ISIS, doesn’t that imply that the Iraqis need to actually FIGHT?
Right on the money, I’ve been saying this for years
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. We are not in the position of nation-building. Look at what happened to the British when they tried.
We should make it clear to all countries:
1) If you attack us, we will respond accordingly.
2) If you fight us, your widow and orphans will weep over whatever is left of you.
3) If your government is not proactive and remove those who attacked us, we will remove them.
4) Whatever government comes to replace them should read the writing on the wall, above the bullet holes, written in blood, “learn from their mistakes.”
End of discussion.
1.) We did that.
2.) Yes but if we leave a void–the void gets filled with young men willing to hijack planes and fly them into our buildings (or much worse things I dare not mention).
3.) We did that –but see answer to #2
4.) But they don’t so see answer #2.
It’s not as simple as “we’ll blow you up and kill you” and expect nothing to happen down the line if we don’t go further.
I agree nation building sucks but the fact is it is a necessary evil to fight the evil. Otherwise you have…ta da…what we have now.
DevilChief. Iraq was a mess from the get-go, many a military planner has said that from the get go. To bad the political types couldn’t see it. Also while we where there we should have split it in to three country’s in the first place, and fixed a mess that the British and the French made in the first place. Then we wouldn’t have this mouth piece news paper of the left, trying to help a few of there new friends (Thanks to some money I bet) in Saudi, push a agenda on the American people because they don’t want to fight.
Yes it was. But less of one than we had now. I won’t get into the whole “should we have invaded thing”. The first place we went after Pearl Harbor and Hitler declared on us was….Africa.
Good point. But the Iraqis need to pick up the pices and get to work instead of running every time it gets a little hot Lol….
So, how many of us can say, “Vietnam All Over Again”? Yea, let’s try AGAIN, to prosecute a war from the White House and “YES SIR!” Pentagon, military advisers. Not to mention the undeniable, just can’t do anything without it, war experience of John Kerry and his State Department advisers. Give history long enough and sure enough, it’ll come back around. At least it’s the Iraqis and Iranians paying the price this time instead of our own troops and until there is a plan to actually stop ISIS that will work, (I do not know what that is or would look like in a war of religious ideology) then please do leave our troops out of this.
I was just thinking the same thing.
“I hate to say this out loud and in public, but the Washington Post’s editorial staff and I agree on something finally.”
Even a blind chipmunk like the WAPO finds the occasional acorn, John.
In my defense, they seem to have become more palatable since Bezos bought the Post.
Honestly, the American public has never been particularly involved in these conflicts. There was a rash of patriotic fervor in 2001, then a burst of memes when we bombed Afghanistan, and ever since then the only ones making any particular noise were the Code Pink etc. crowd screaming incoherently about Bush et al. The average American is not .0001% invested in this, doesn’t know where in the world these countries are, and does a knee-jerk ‘thanks for your service’ once a week because they feel like they ought to. Goddamn, I have gotten cynical and weary in my old age…
You really shouldn’t sugarcoat things David. Let it out or it’ll get all built up inside and you’ll explode….
WAPO knows this is a disastrous presidency, and trying to distance themselves. Yeah, and I don’t care about some recent presidential rankings by ivory tower academics that has Obumbler ranked well ahead of Ronnie Raygun.
Color me unimpressed that the WAPO has finally, reluctantly concluded that the foreign policy of this administration is an unmitigated disaster.
Those creeps (remember CREEP? they are that kind of creep) admitted through their different respective Ombudsmen after each election of Barak Obama that they did not fulfill their duty to report the news to voters.
The only thing the Washington Post will do is support the next Democratic candidate for President, and then wring their hands over the consequences.
As our BCT Cdr said in 2012 in Afghanistan:
“For a while we had to do More with Less. Well, from now on I want to do Less with Less.”
I think for Iraq that needs to be the policy now.
This has finally gotten to where it was going all along, a religious war pitting Sunni Muslim against Shia Muslim. As far as I’m concerned, we have no dog in this fight. It’s like the old Iran-Iraq war; glad they were at it and hoped both sides would lose.
There is no strategy, no end game for the US there, just Barry’s ego looking like he’s “doing something.” Time to quit half-assing, pull everyone out and let the Muzzies figure it out amongst themselves. We can always pick up the pieces later.