Mosul battle looms
The Washington Post reports that, for some reason, the State Department claims that the forces arrayed against ISIS in Mosul are ready to bring the hammer down;
The U.S.-led coalition fighting against the Islamic State has prepared “all the pieces” it needs to take back the Iraqi city of Mosul, and expects military operations there are “rapidly approaching,” a senior State Department official said Friday.
Brett McGurk, the State Department’s envoy to the coalition, said the mission to take back the city of more than 1 million people will be “a very unpredictable, very dynamic, very uncertain operation.” It will be the most ambitious and complex operation the Iraqi government has undertaken against the Islamic State since it roared across the country in 2014, and include approximately 30,000 Iraqi forces.
McGurk, speaking at the State Department, said there’s a “humanitarian imperative” to expel the militants from Mosul as soon as possible.
I don’t know what the State Department knows about fighting wars, they did a fairly piss-poor job managing the war in Vietnam despite the troops winning on the battlefield. I hope this isn’t indicative of things to come – more politician involvement in the war against terror isn’t a good idea. The Obama State Department couldn’t convince the Iraqi government to allow US troops to remain in Iraq and caused the rise of this ISIS beast in the first place.
Thanks to Chief Tango for the link.
Category: Terror War
So, if ISIS and I understand this, the mission about to be launched is the retaking of Mosul. Towards that end, the Iraqis will use about 30,000 troops, augmented by at least 600 US advisors (i.e., troops) most of whom are located Qayyarah Airfield West. The reason the advisors (i.e., troops) are at that airfield is that it will be used during the offensive as a key logistics hub and an air supply base. Lastly, the start of the campaign will be signaled by air strikes in advance of Iraqi troop movements toward Mosul.
I’m wondering whether the State Dept and White House wouldn’t like to put the fine touches on that by providing the exact time table, targets, including GPS coordinates, to ensure that Iraqi civilians will be timely moved into the strike zones and that sufficient numbers of IEDs will be placed along the routes to maximize casualties and disruption.
There is MORE attention paid to safekeeping game plans among NFL teams each week than the freakin’ State Dept and White House pays to war plans. Assholes.
You got that right, 2/17.
If I were part of the “bad guy team” there would be more IEDs than you could shake a stick at.
It’s all part of the plan, you know. It sure is.
The problem is that nobody knows what the plan really is, but they have to SAY something and DO something, so that way, people know that there is a plan in place and they’ll use the plan.
If that sounds like gobbledygook, it is, but it’s what comes out of the Oval Office and turns into these idiot announcements.
And why not just give away what you’re going to do before you do it? Why not just completely eliminate the element of surprise? Why not make Caesar, Wellington, Napoleon, and Washington fall down laughing at the Fool on the Hill?
I feel some sympathy for the people who get roped into this mess, because they get to bear the burden of it.
Yes, and some number of our people will be killed and wounded for the show–which, in light of the Syrian fiasco, is probably pushing this and moving it too soon. And by too soon, I mean EVER.
Since bodaprez is leaving a mess behind for someone else to clean up, we can blame him, right?
I simply cannot believe the sheer stupidity going on in WDC, but it’s been so consistent from Day One that I can only sympathize with our people over there in the sandpit.
This month marks 15 years of US involvement in Afghanistan. Lacking a anything resembling a coherent policy or even a glimmer of a path forward, I say enough.
Second.
Well, if I were King… er, Queen, I would do several things.
1 – Leak spurious announcements to the press about what we’re GOING to do.
2 – Find a scapegoat to blame for all of it, perhaps someone named Kerry or Nixon.
3 – Have a behind-the-scenes logistics buildup that is not discussed and just appears to be SOP for the day.
4 – Build a very tall wall (VTW #1) around Mosul, with no gates but definite weak spots.
5 – Build another VTW (#2) outside that, with an extremely deep trench full of IEDs between VTW #1 and VTW #2.
6 – Drop a few arty rounds with a big BOOM inside VTW #1, mostly for effect and shut off the water from the Mosul dam.
7 – Spray the place with swine flu virus.
8 – Occasionally drop a few boxes of K-rats from Vietnam inside the VTW #1 perimeter,plus some 33 Beer.
9 – Wait about three to four weeks while drones are flying over Mosul.
10 – Reread Scipio Africanus’s account of the siege of Carthage. Did you know the entire continent of Africa was named for him? Damned Italians spread their stuff everywhere, don’t they?
11 – If they try to surrender, tell them we only take women and children.
“Only take women and children”? Nope. Children under the age of seven. Those women are every bit as dangerous as men in that culture. Actually more so, because we wrongly expect less bloodlust from them because of their gender. They will offer up their young as sacrifices so they can be mother-martyrs wailing for international news crews.
Other than that quibble, I’d like to be a lady in waiting in your court. You’d have my full support.
If you really want to go “Roman” on their asses you don’t take the women and children. Do as Julius Caesar did when he surrounded and starved the army of Verstin Getterex into surrender in Gaul. The gauls sent their wives and kids out of the city and Caesar refused to take them. It was the sight of their dependants starving to death that broke their resolve to resist. Caesar was the hardest hard ass in history.
Not nitpicking, Roger, but tell your spellchecker thingy that Vercingetorix is a single word, and then slap it silly. It has to learn somehow.
Every time I put any foreign term into something I write my spellchecker tries to turn it into English. Very annoying. I will have to have it spayed so that it can’t reproduce.
Well, that’s true. Scipio’s siege of Carthage cut off all supplies, including water, so the inhabitants were forced into urinating into hollowed-out palm tree trunks, and then trying to filter and purify that. Even the livestock refused to drink it.
And per Flavius Josphus, during the Siege of Jerusalem, women were seen roasting their infants to have something to eat.
Okay, no women, no children. But let’s do neuter all the males as a condition of surrender.
Was no K-rats in the Nam.
Well those US troops will be just fine because they’ll only be in a “combat situation” and not really in combat, right?
Hundreds of American soldiers lives are on the line, and CNN and every major news outlet is running a twelve year old tape of Trump being a foul-mouthed but honest pig.
Does anyone think the timing of ‘finding’ this audio clip is not intentional?
And in other news, Wikileaks just release thousands more emails.
But the media is too busy skinning Trump over what he said 12 years ago on a ‘hot mic’ to bother with things like soldiers dying in a war that isn’t happening because Obama brought all our troops home or the proof of all kinds of criminal activity, corruption and graft of Obamas’ anointed successor.
If only someone could hack into CNN’s live stream and put in the real news, the unpleasant reality that is facing all of us, and finish with the usual ‘Back to you!’
I wonder what a conversation between Bill Clinton and Ted Kennedy would sound like. We already know what a conversation between Slick Willie and Paula Jones, Gennifer Flowers, Monica Lewinsky, etc. would sound like.
F__k the liberal media, what they say about anything means NOTHING to me. How many women has Trump been accused of raping? How many women has Trump had in a taxpayer owned facility and eventually lied about NOT having sex with them? How many times has Trump been guilty of anything impeachable were he in office? How many times has Trump lied his ass off and refused to apologize? How many people have mysteriously died while being associated with the Trumps? How many times has Trump responded with “At this point, what difference does it make?” in response to questions about the deaths of American soldiers? How many foundations has Trump founded to enrich himself at the expense of the “little people”?
IMHO, ANY person who votes for the she bitch is one extremely stupid S. O. B. Not going to get into a shouting match. My opinion is mine and you doubters can kiss my ass. Just plain fuck all you shillery voters…..you are too STUPID and weak to face reality.
Good thing America never didn’t sacrifice a lot of good men KIA and wounded in Mosul over the last decade…….
Pardon my grammar. I’m seeing red….
My battalion lost seven there, only to see it all pissed away ten years later 🙁
The same battle plan they had in Vietnam that cost us over 58,000 lives of America’s best and brightest…
What was it LBJ said? “They can’t bomb an outhouse over there without my permission”…
Same shit different war…
I’ve seen JV teams do lots of amazing feats, but I’ve never seen one that took over a city with 2.5 million people in it.
You really expect the same Army that, after years of training and billions of dollars of new equipment, shattered and disintegrated only two years ago to have the discipline and organization to assemble in secret for a major and long awaited offensive? Do you really think that ISIS, whose agents have free access to the entire country, is that stupid?