I think Gene L forgot Lyndon Baines Johnson and the 'whiz kids' micromanaging the Vietnam war to the point that it was unwinnable and ended in U.S. retreat. And the early M16 fiasco was all on him and his butt clown whiz kid cabinet, among other notable epic screwups.
Erdogan has already said he's going to attack the Kurds along with any ISIS left as soon as the U.S. pulls out and won't wait long for that to happen. Time to carpet bomb his troops as soon as he starts that mess, NATO ally or not, and just remove all U.S. assets in Turkey in the process. That fool is a loose cannon. Time to cut our losses and let him fish or cut bait.
Mattis had already said a good while back that he was going to leave after the midterms, so this isn't really news. Hopefully, Trump will replace him with someone that is of at least the same quality that takes care of the troops, and someone the troops can respect.
Democrats supporting a war. How quaint. They're worried their defense corporation stocks will drop in price if we stop fighting these brush wars. China is a bigger threat. One of their generals is talking about attacking U.S. warships that don't stay out of the China Sea area, and is making loud noises about annexing Taiwan by force. There's your war in the making. And those troops in the ME have been rotated in and out of the region for 17 years; I'd say they're tired of that crap. Let the people that want that mess to continue put on a uniform and live the courage of their convictions with the idiotic rules of engagement that they put in place.
“I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don't know the answer” ― Douglas Adams
So this is what I will say and I hope not leave anything out:
ISIS is far from defeated. In fact, while they have withdrawn from Iraq, they have branched out and begun operations in other areas. ISIS has also entered into the Narco-terrorism realm, which was previously cornered by other radical islamic groups, namely Hezobollah and AQ.
When we waded into the ISIS fight, under the Obama administration, We chose the side of "moderate rebels" that showed a connection to extremist. We didn't chose the side of the legitimate government that was trying to stop the next arab spring from happening in their country. Up until that point, Asaad was actually lauded by the west as a progressive. When we picked the rebels, other countries saw their opportunity to wage a pseudo-proxy war against us. Assad also reached out to find someone that would help him. Russia saw an opportunity to test out new doctrine and weapons. This is not the first time in our history we picked a side contrary to the legitimate government. Staying in Syria allows us to watch and learn the soviet Doctrine. Staying syria also creates an unneeded friction point between us and Russia. This could spread to other areas as Russia realizes where they are in the "overmatch" concept. The good thing is that ISIS is not a threat to the American way of life. Do they threaten interest, yes. But ISIS is not going to bring America to its knees.
We talk about the Kurds being our staunchest allies. That is true to an extent, the Kurds take Charles De Gualle's words heart - "Nations do not have friends, the have interests." The Kurds want to be left alone and have their own nation. As soon as the Kurds interest and our interest are no longer congruent, the Kurds will turn against or away from us. And, we have already seen some of this. Namely the last headline concerning the ISIS prisoners they hold, and in the operation that got Josh killed.
Iraq is talking out of both sides of their mouth. Iraq says they want our support and help, however they do everything they can to walk both sides of the fence between us and their strong shia ties to Iran. The nail in the coffin was perhaps the legitimization of Muqtar al Sadr. You know, the guy that stood up Sadr city. But, to his credit he made himself the cult of personality in Iraq. His movement carried 55 seats in the Iraq parliament elections this year. As long as we maintain good ties with KSA, Kuwait, and Qatar we will have the influence we need in South West Asia.
Because of our placement of forces in the world, we have to have a strong Military Industrial Complex. And, it does several things for us. The chief among those things is that it provides jobs. Lots of jobs. As we project power into Eastern Europe on the behalf of Western Europe, we also have to project overmatch to our near peer competitors (namely Russia). Right now, we are at a disadvantage. Our drawn down and inability to project power has placed our military behind the curve when compared to our near peer competitors in almost every domain, to include Cyber and Space. We possibly could control the air, however the Russian SHORAD capability is pretty damn impressive. Russia and China have the ability to bring America to its knees. Folks can hem and haw all they want at that Idea, but it is the truth. We can no longer roll a B-29 off the assembly line every 63 minutes. The Russians destroyed two Ukrainian Mechanized Battalions within five minutes through their concept of multi-domain battle. That is roughly 1000 men and women gone. Not to mention the associated equipment. The American Military can't handle that level of loss, and the American public can't stomach that level of loss. We will not go toe-toe with China and Russia. No one wants to see the three biggest bullies on the block in a Battle Royale. But, we can expect to see a repeat of the Cold War with numerous proxy wars spread across the globe in areas with industrial promise. I predict the first will be in Africa or South America. Without a large Military Industrial Complex, coupled with a strong Economy, we will lose and fold like the Soviets did in the late 1980's.
The counter to all of this is wicked problem. We could let Europe do Europe, walk away from the Middle East, and let Japan loose on Asia. However, with an interconnected world economy things would get messy quick. We could put our top X amount of interests on the board, commit completely to them, and let the rest of the world fend for itself. But, again whatever happens in Europe and Asia effects our economic standing. Just as what happens with us effects them too.
"To have really lived, you must have almost died. To those who have fought for it, freedom has a flavor the protected will never know."
There are three things in this world that military might and law enforcement cannot fix under the constraints of a civilized society. Terror, drugs and human trafficking. ISIS exists nearly everywhere in small pockets. Being in Syria gives us nothing of value beyond Syria and the problem is spread far and wide.
There are two kinds of Muslims in this world. Islamists who will cut your head off, and Islamists who will let them.
The only people who will solve the Muslim problem are Muslims. There isn't a largely Muslim country in existence today who would lift a finger to combat extremism, if we weren't paying them huge amounts of money to give us lip service...
There's a crap-storm coming.
It's a source of great pride for me, that when my name is googled, one finds book titles and not mug shots. Daniel C. Chamberlain
I agree with your analysis of the current state of Islam, and although there is a very small group of reformist Muslims who also agree, they are not making much headway, because they are considered to be infidels by the overwhelming majority of traditional Muslims. They might as well be Christians or Jews, for all the progress they are making. Catholicism took centuries to reform itself into a more benevolent religion, and Islam is seems to be more unyielding than Catholicism was, even during the Inquisition era.
The GW Bush administration either did not understand this, or was unwilling to understand this, when it took down Saddam Hussein, nor did Obama understand (or care), when he and Hilary ousted Quaddafi. It might have worked, had the US been vicious enough to destroy every radical, without regard for collateral damage, and if we had been able and willing to occupy the region for about three generations. But the American public had no patience for that, and the American soldier had no heart for that kind of oppression.
Accepting that appears to leave nothing much but a more isolationist approach to foreign policy, and that leaves us to the mercy of China and Russia, both of whom are not known for merciful tendencies. It seems that the only choices available are to either make a pact with the devil, or to annihilate him, and nobody has the stomach for either.
The crap-storm you predict seems inevitable, for our children and grand children. We were able to win a war that we were initially unprepared for, in 1945, but our power derived from manufacturing and a strong economy. Modern war is unlikely to provide us with any opportunity to rebuild that capability, as it did 80 years ago, and China has the world's greatest manufacturing capability, now. They spent their time exploiting their superior manpower resources, while we spent our time pretending that we had vanquished all of our foes, and were saving the planet.
There are two kinds of Muslims in this world. Islamists who will cut your head off, and Islamists who will let them.
It's only true if it's on this forum where opinions are facts and facts are opinions
Words of wisdom from Big Chief: Flush twice, it's a long way to the Mess Hall
I'd rather have my sister work in a whorehouse than own another Taurus!
I pretty much agree Dan. We are Infidels to most of them.
Like oil and water Islam and the West don't mix.
It's only true if it's on this forum where opinions are facts and facts are opinions
Words of wisdom from Big Chief: Flush twice, it's a long way to the Mess Hall
I'd rather have my sister work in a whorehouse than own another Taurus!
It's only true if it's on this forum where opinions are facts and facts are opinions
Words of wisdom from Big Chief: Flush twice, it's a long way to the Mess Hall
I'd rather have my sister work in a whorehouse than own another Taurus!
There are three things in this world that military might and law enforcement cannot fix under the constraints of a civilized society. Terror, drugs and human trafficking. ISIS exists nearly everywhere in small pockets. Being in Syria gives us nothing of value beyond Syria and the problem is spread far and wide.
There are two kinds of Muslims in this world. Islamists who will cut your head off, and Islamists who will let them.
The only people who will solve the Muslim problem are Muslims. There isn't a largely Muslim country in existence today who would lift a finger to combat extremism, if we weren't paying them huge amounts of money to give us lip service...
There's a crap-storm coming.
There was one. Syria. This all started because Asaad came down hard on extremist in his country that wanted to start an Arab Spring there. Then, all of a sudden the world made him a bad guy and that flamed the fans for the rest of the Arab spring extremists to push harder.
"To have really lived, you must have almost died. To those who have fought for it, freedom has a flavor the protected will never know."
There was one. Syria. This all started because Asaad came down hard on extremist in his country that wanted to start an Arab Spring there. Then, all of a sudden the world made him a bad guy and that flamed the fans for the rest of the Arab spring extremists to push harder.
I don't think it was what Asaad did that caused the outrage; it was how he went about it. Barrel bombing and gassing civilian populations put him in an untenable position with the civilized world. The videos and photos coming out of Syria of people gassed, wrapped in bandages, especially lots and lots of children, didn't win him any friends.
“I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don't know the answer” ― Douglas Adams
Replies
― Douglas Adams
ISIS is far from defeated. In fact, while they have withdrawn from Iraq, they have branched out and begun operations in other areas. ISIS has also entered into the Narco-terrorism realm, which was previously cornered by other radical islamic groups, namely Hezobollah and AQ.
When we waded into the ISIS fight, under the Obama administration, We chose the side of "moderate rebels" that showed a connection to extremist. We didn't chose the side of the legitimate government that was trying to stop the next arab spring from happening in their country. Up until that point, Asaad was actually lauded by the west as a progressive. When we picked the rebels, other countries saw their opportunity to wage a pseudo-proxy war against us. Assad also reached out to find someone that would help him. Russia saw an opportunity to test out new doctrine and weapons. This is not the first time in our history we picked a side contrary to the legitimate government. Staying in Syria allows us to watch and learn the soviet Doctrine. Staying syria also creates an unneeded friction point between us and Russia. This could spread to other areas as Russia realizes where they are in the "overmatch" concept. The good thing is that ISIS is not a threat to the American way of life. Do they threaten interest, yes. But ISIS is not going to bring America to its knees.
We talk about the Kurds being our staunchest allies. That is true to an extent, the Kurds take Charles De Gualle's words heart - "Nations do not have friends, the have interests." The Kurds want to be left alone and have their own nation. As soon as the Kurds interest and our interest are no longer congruent, the Kurds will turn against or away from us. And, we have already seen some of this. Namely the last headline concerning the ISIS prisoners they hold, and in the operation that got Josh killed.
Iraq is talking out of both sides of their mouth. Iraq says they want our support and help, however they do everything they can to walk both sides of the fence between us and their strong shia ties to Iran. The nail in the coffin was perhaps the legitimization of Muqtar al Sadr. You know, the guy that stood up Sadr city. But, to his credit he made himself the cult of personality in Iraq. His movement carried 55 seats in the Iraq parliament elections this year. As long as we maintain good ties with KSA, Kuwait, and Qatar we will have the influence we need in South West Asia.
Because of our placement of forces in the world, we have to have a strong Military Industrial Complex. And, it does several things for us. The chief among those things is that it provides jobs. Lots of jobs. As we project power into Eastern Europe on the behalf of Western Europe, we also have to project overmatch to our near peer competitors (namely Russia). Right now, we are at a disadvantage. Our drawn down and inability to project power has placed our military behind the curve when compared to our near peer competitors in almost every domain, to include Cyber and Space. We possibly could control the air, however the Russian SHORAD capability is pretty damn impressive.
Russia and China have the ability to bring America to its knees. Folks can hem and haw all they want at that Idea, but it is the truth. We can no longer roll a B-29 off the assembly line every 63 minutes. The Russians destroyed two Ukrainian Mechanized Battalions within five minutes through their concept of multi-domain battle. That is roughly 1000 men and women gone. Not to mention the associated equipment. The American Military can't handle that level of loss, and the American public can't stomach that level of loss.
We will not go toe-toe with China and Russia. No one wants to see the three biggest bullies on the block in a Battle Royale. But, we can expect to see a repeat of the Cold War with numerous proxy wars spread across the globe in areas with industrial promise. I predict the first will be in Africa or South America. Without a large Military Industrial Complex, coupled with a strong Economy, we will lose and fold like the Soviets did in the late 1980's.
The counter to all of this is wicked problem. We could let Europe do Europe, walk away from the Middle East, and let Japan loose on Asia. However, with an interconnected world economy things would get messy quick. We could put our top X amount of interests on the board, commit completely to them, and let the rest of the world fend for itself. But, again whatever happens in Europe and Asia effects our economic standing. Just as what happens with us effects them too.
There are two kinds of Muslims in this world. Islamists who will cut your head off, and Islamists who will let them.
The only people who will solve the Muslim problem are Muslims. There isn't a largely Muslim country in existence today who would lift a finger to combat extremism, if we weren't paying them huge amounts of money to give us lip service...
There's a crap-storm coming.
Words of wisdom from Big Chief: Flush twice, it's a long way to the Mess Hall
I'd rather have my sister work in a whorehouse than own another Taurus!
Words of wisdom from Big Chief: Flush twice, it's a long way to the Mess Hall
I'd rather have my sister work in a whorehouse than own another Taurus!
Words of wisdom from Big Chief: Flush twice, it's a long way to the Mess Hall
I'd rather have my sister work in a whorehouse than own another Taurus!
― Douglas Adams
Anything done or not done in the Middle East is a total crap shoot!