The US and their fuel truck targets

Bobo sends us a link to an article about those strikes this last weekend that we talked about yesterday where the US airstrikes, mainly A-10 Warthogs and AC-130 gunships, targeted ISIS fuel trucks. According to this article, this is a brand new strategy;

Targeting fuel trucks used to be off limits because of the civilians operating them, but shortly after the Paris terrorist attacks the rules of engagement changed. Before destroying the tankers the USAF, using F-15s, dropped information leaflets telling the drivers to scatter as an attack was imminent. To show the drivers that USAF was serious they had A-10’s conduct strafing runs close to the trucks an hour before the strikes.

Yeah, well, that’s very civilized of us. Unfortunately, being civilized and announcing our targets to the bad guys and firing warning shots isn’t going to turn out well for our pilots. I can’t imagine that ISIS will be announcing to the public where their suicide bombers will strike anytime soon. Taking out fuel trucks aren’t that important, compared to killing people so they can’t support ISIS. Those truck drivers are as much our enemies as the fellows with MANPADS anti-aircraft weapons who will be firing at those A-10s and C-130s the next time they make one of their “warning shots” runs. If those air strikes are going to be successful, they have to make working for ISIS unattractive to those truck drivers. Not just the ones on the job, but also any who might be contemplating the work.

We’re doing this war against terrorists while trying to be good guys about war. There is no such thing as “good guys” in war, well, good guys finish last in war. The strategy against ISIS is failing and this Nobel peace prize president is just trying to pass off the hard decisions to the next guy. In the meantime, ISIS is growing stronger and more devious. Those fuel trucks should have been destroyed in the opening days of the war against ISIS if they were ever legitimate targets and the fact that the media thinks it was some sort of coup just proves that they’re in the bag for this administration, if there was ever any doubt.

Lars Taylor sends us a link from Reuters which reports that the Russians and French hit targets near Raqqa;

A French government source said Russia, which until this week has mostly been striking Western-backed groups fighting against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, had also hit IS targets in Raqqa on Tuesday.

The action, which was not immediately confirmed by Moscow, came hours after the Russian Federal Security Service confirmed that a bomb had exploded a Russian tourist airliner over Egypt’s Sinai peninsula last month and President Vladimir Putin vowed retribution. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the Sinai bombing as well as the Paris attacks.

Again, why weren’t these targets hit before the attacks on Paris and on a Russian airliner? Why has this war become a “thrust and parry” series of events? Whatever happened to “audacity”? But, at least the fuel truck drivers are all safe.

Category: Terror War