Brant Gaede Posted May 20, 2015 Share Posted May 20, 2015 Half-assed air campaign. And while air is not enough to fight these guys, after 8-9 months something ain't workin'.--BrantBrant:Did our military "see" this caravan taking shape?If it did, would you as the commander, with authority to act, not take them out?A...I don't have enough context and intel. What is the real value of the target? If you hit this one a much more valuable one may not present itself later having seen the result of such a conglomeration. In any case, my background is ground combat with air support, not war from the air. I think little of just killing people as a military objective although I'd have little qualms about killing ISIL soldiers.What I'd consider doing is an air strike followed by insertion of ground forces to secure the area and bury all their bodies--with eviserated pigs. That's much better than just sending in drones and leaving bodies behind. I can't think of any obtainable objective from killing them without those pigs. They can replace their dead soldiers indefinitely, but not well recruit to that likely fate.--Brant Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
william.scherk Posted May 20, 2015 Share Posted May 20, 2015 There is some official to-and-fro on the importance of a sandstorm in hobbling air efforts at this link: http://nation.com.pk/international/20-May-2015/is-struck-during-sandstorm-to-gain-ramadi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Selene Posted May 20, 2015 Author Share Posted May 20, 2015 There is some official to-and-fro on the importance of a sandstorm in hobbling air efforts at this link:http://nation.com.pk/international/20-May-2015/is-struck-during-sandstorm-to-gain-ramadiI think the Joint Chiefs would be edified by reading the Dune trilogy...Let's see, Paul Atriedes leads his Fremen Mujahideen [(Arabic: المجاهدين) is the plural form of mujahid (Arabic: مجاهد), the term for one engaged in Jihad] from out of the Mother of All Sandstorms.]A... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Backlighting Posted May 20, 2015 Share Posted May 20, 2015 This is not going well at all...http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2015/05/islamic-state-seizes-government-center-in-ramadi.phpTime to nuke them....Bob:We don't need a nuke for these "ants," they just lined up for us in Anbar.Hell, you and I could have piloted the drones from New Jersey!!How many innocent lives would be saved if all of these "ants" had been fried?So, WTF is going on that this road is not a burning strip of burnt out wreckage.They are playing out the prophetic Koranic interpretation of their Caliph.A...Nothing that a little napalm or cluster bombs won't fix.-J Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BaalChatzaf Posted May 20, 2015 Share Posted May 20, 2015 Nothing that a little napalm or cluster bombs won't fix.-JVery elegant.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Backlighting Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 2015 Nothing that a little napalm or cluster bombs won't fix.-JVery elegant....Nothing that a little napalm or cluster bombs won't fix.-JVery elegant....Very effective...screw elegance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Selene Posted May 21, 2015 Author Share Posted May 21, 2015 Nice interactive map to visualize the Ramadi-Fallujah-Baghdad corridor...“[T]he lions of Al Anbar continue their march to completely cleanse Wilayah Al Anbar [Anbar province] of the filth of the Safawiyyin and their puppets,” Al Bayan said. “They assaulted and took control of East Al Husaybah and Al Juwaybah, the stronghold of the Albu-Fahd Sahwah [Awakening, the Sunni tribal militias], and reached the points overlooking the city of Al Khalidiyah.” The Albu Fahd tribe has been opposed to the Islamic State.http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2015/05/islamic-state-shiite-militias-square-off-east-of-ramadi.php Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
william.scherk Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 2015 (edited) Nukes, napalm and clusterbombs ... are not 'surgical.' Their use would likely maim and kill significant, terrible numbers of the 200,000 people trapped or fleeing the Islamic State in Ramadi. What you are calling for sounds ominously like an atrocity, a war crime. There is a reason America has not nuked, napalmed and cluster-bombed Iraqi civilians so far. American values. American interests. No burning rain from the sky will dislodge or destroy 'the enemy,' not without a commitment of troops on the ground. In any case, look next door. Syria's air forces have been bombing the fuck out of their various enemies (and killing close to 200,000 civilians), and this has not stopped the loss of territory to their enemies. Assad's airpower, secret police plus conventional armed forces are supplemented by Hezbollah and Iranian trainer-leaders, along with community and sectarian militias. He is still losing bit by bit. I don't understand the logic of a harsh strike, that will in a blink resolve the horror show in Syria and Iraq. The oneliners about nukes and napalm reminds me of that utter bomb of an interview with Peikoff. So refreshing. Like a slap in the face of reason. Edited May 21, 2015 by william.scherk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brant Gaede Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 2015 War is a crime. In war that's the base you work off of or deal with. It doesn't matter if your side is the right side for your side will generate collateral damage too. What I did like about Special Forces in the Vietnam War was the comparatively small amount of such damage from its operations. But the war itself killed over a million communist soldiers (plus allied soldiers) and several million civilians if you include the Cambodian genocide which was the dead-end momentum extension of the Gulf of Tonkin incident in turn based on the attempted French Indo-China re-colonization post WWII and the seemingly inexorable march of communism.--Brantas for what is going on now in Iraq and Syria, my suggestion was don't invade back in 2003 = truth to power might as well be bullshit too for power is a liar and only wants to know you in case it needs to neutalize you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Selene Posted May 21, 2015 Author Share Posted May 21, 2015 OK, Brant.However, what do we do now, if anything, to enhance our sovereign state's security?As you know, I posted about this Caliph seeking to fulfill their prophetic vision by establishing this Caliphate.It is of vital importance to prevent the Islamic State from establishing an actual, recognizable state to give substance to its declared religious-political caliphate. A state is a government, but a government is not necessarily a state. The Islamic State has established several city, town, and village governments, but these in combination do not constitute a state.It is imperative to prevent Islamic State from establishing any kind of state. Even a state built initially on war and savagery would become in due course a regime - one that has, as a matter of realistic international diplomacy, a de facto legitimacy because it controls and governs significant territory and looks to be permanent. Gradually, the origin of the ISIS state would become a moot point, as is the case with any revolutionary government that becomes permanent.http://www.realclearworld.com/blog/2015/05/is_the_islamic_state_becoming_indeed_a_state_111206.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brant Gaede Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 2015 Adam, the linked article is a word salad of rationalization and advocacy. If these idiots establish a real state they will also establish many targetable points of vulnerability. Such a state would be so smashable it's hard to consider it as an existential threat. The only danger is Turkey doing the smashing and becoming in fact the Caliphate. However, the first order of that state's business would be internal order. So, the United States should go to war to protect ancient ruins and archeology sites? Could work as a minor, ancillary justification. The United States (and Britain?) made a tar baby out of Middle Eastern oil and jumped all over it. Now the whole region is in a fulminating frenzy and the US can't let go. I don't care who's the next President. It's going to get much worse. The only question is whether WWIII will be fought with nukes and whether the US will literally survive in any recognizable form. The bureacratic neo-cons are running this country and straight into an unprecended diasaster with full compliance of major corporation controlled mass media hiding the approaching Godzilla.--Brant Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Selene Posted May 21, 2015 Author Share Posted May 21, 2015 Adam, the linked article is a word salad of rationalization and advocacy. If these idiots establish a real state they will also establish many targetable points of vulnerability. Such a state would be so smashable it's hard to consider it as an existential threat. The only danger is Turkey doing the smashing and becoming in fact the Caliphate. However, the first order of that state's business would be internal order. So, the United States should go to war to protect ancient ruins and archeology sites? Could work as a minor, ancillary justification. The United States (and Britain?) made a tar baby out of Middle Eastern oil and jumped all over it. Now the whole region is in a fulminating frenzy and the US can't let go. I don't care who's the next President. It's going to get much worse. The only question is whether WWIII will be fought with nukes and whether the US will literally survive in any recognizable form. The bureacratic neo-cons are running this country and straight into an unprecended diasaster with full compliance of major corporation controlled mass media hiding the approaching Godzilla.--BrantWhoa...don't understand me so fast.The whole point of their prophetic vision is to get wiped out. Supposedly they are supposed to get pushed back by the infidels until there are 5,000 of these "humans" in a specific town.Then the final battle will come and the 12th Immam will come out of that well and unite the world forever under Allah.I am not advocating going to "war" whatever the hell that even means anymore.A... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brant Gaede Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 2015 I don't think their leaders are interested in personal martyrdom. I think they're interested in fascistic power for its own sake.--Brant Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Selene Posted May 21, 2015 Author Share Posted May 21, 2015 I don't think their leaders are interested in personal martyrdom. I think they're interested in fascistic power for its own sake.--BrantWhat if this Caliph/Mahdi does?A drive to martyrdom has a passionate pace that prevents rational thought.A... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brant Gaede Posted May 21, 2015 Share Posted May 21, 2015 I don't think their leaders are interested in personal martyrdom. I think they're interested in fascistic power for its own sake.--BrantWhat if this Caliph/Mahdi does?A drive to martyrdom has a passionate pace that prevents rational thought.A...Ah! Send in the drones!--Brantdon't forget what rational thought is for--don't fuck with the yousa Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Selene Posted May 24, 2015 Author Share Posted May 24, 2015 President Obama is right!Clearly, a sandstorm is climate changeA sandstorm prevented US air support covering RamadiRamadi was captured by ISIS the subhuman throwbacks, ooops peaceful soldiers of Allah,Q.E.D.Climate change caused Ramadi to fall into ISIS' Caliphate...Final Days AssaultA sandstorm forces the American-led airstrike campaign to pause, giving the group time to carry out 10 car bombings followed by a wave of ground attacks that overwhelms the Iraqi forces. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
william.scherk Posted May 25, 2015 Share Posted May 25, 2015 Adam, in your attempt to copy illustrative maps from yesterday's New York Times article "With Victories, ISIS Dispels Hope of a Swift Decline," the paste failed to include the key and text. Here's a better version:These are the paragraphs from the NYT that stood out for me (emphasis added):When the main Islamic State assault on Ramadi began late on the night of May 14, it employed resources that had been prepared long before and were unleashed in an intense burst of violence that broke the remaining defenders.As usual, the Islamic State opened the attack with suicide bombers, but in this case on an even bigger scale: The militants sent in 10 bomb-laden vehicles, each believed to have explosive power similar to the truck bomb used in Oklahoma City two decades ago, the senior State Department official said. Entire city blocks were destroyed.Sleeper cells of Islamic State loyalists then rose up, according to witness accounts, helping the group quickly take control as its fighters advanced into new parts of Ramadi.Out of fear and exhaustion, local Sunni fighters who had defended the city for nearly a year and a half left in droves last Sunday, taunted by soldiers for abandoning their land.Staying true to its doctrine of always pushing on multiple fronts, the Islamic State has not stopped with Ramadi: It has also swept into new territory in Syria. In taking Palmyra — a relatively small and remote but strategically located desert city near the country’s geographical center — the group has for the first time seized a Syrian city from government forces, rather than from other insurgents.It attacked at a time and in a place in which government forces have been increasingly strained, exhausted and unwilling to fight for remote areas. In contrast to the barrage of suicide bombs it used in Ramadi, the Islamic State appears to have won Palmyra with a more ordinary arsenal of foot soldiers, tanks and antiaircraft guns mounted on trucks, relying on its adversary’s weakness and the extreme fear it has managed to instill with its well-publicized atrocities.It is probably not a coincidence that several days before its main offensive on Palmyra, the Islamic State beheaded dozens of soldiers, government supporters and their families in an outlying village and widely disseminated the images. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Selene Posted July 23, 2015 Author Share Posted July 23, 2015 Would someone tell the bi-racial [keeping with the trend to view every human interaction in racist America through the racial gestalt] Ostrich President O'bama in the White House, that seven to ten sorties per day is not going to eliminate this threat..."Isis is obsessed with re-creating the horror of 9/11 and believes this may be possible by launching a multi-drone attack on large numbers of people in a synchronised attack."Now, if this is true, it gives us a little more time to wipe them out because they would be trying to be too clever.However, their other scenario mentioned in this article is much more serious.Terrorists want to use the unmanned machines - available for as little as £100 on the high street - to drop explosives on large crowds at popular sporting and cultural gatherings.Time to send a brutally strong message, unannounced, that levels entire nests.Defence chiefs fear they could launch a multi-drone attack carrying several bombs, even using airborne cameras to film the bloody carnage below for twisted propaganda videos.Senior MI5 figures believed that Isis has already tested how much plastic explosive the flying machines can carry, getting as far as experimenting with detonation devices.http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/593187/Islamic-State-Isis-drones-bomb-crowds-football-festivals-Britain Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Selene Posted January 2, 2016 Author Share Posted January 2, 2016 Some long historical perspective regarding Damascus and Baghdad is another significant reason that the United States' lack of policy direction from President Carter through the Bushes to O'bama has defeated our ability to influence this area.Once the bi-partisan decision to engage in a preventive war in Iraq and Afghanistan was made, I had hoped that the global strategic reason that we were going into Iraq and Afghanistan was to surround Iran and eliminate that threat.I am still astounded that the decision to de-Bathesize the Hussein governmental structure was considered as post war planning.Since we are apparently incapable of acting in this area to advance our safety as a nation, we should disengage as quickly as possible.The battle between Baghdad and Damascus are as old as recorded history.Both these centers are in the race for the longest occupied cities known to man.Saddam Husein and Assad hated each other and that hatred goes back to the beginnings of this sick dyad of power, money, trade routes, religion and control within their respective histories and families.We do not have the perspective and maturity to engage in this global cesspool.Reagan, post Beruit got the concept.A... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Selene Posted January 4, 2016 Author Share Posted January 4, 2016 Well, that was prophetic...BAGHDAD — Saudi Arabia cut diplomatic ties with Iran on Sunday and gave Iranian diplomats 48 hours to leave the kingdom, intensifying a strategic and sectarian rivalry that underpins conflicts across the Middle East.The surprise move, announced in a news conference by Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, followed harsh criticism by Iranian leaders of the execution of an outspoken Shiite cleric, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, in Saudi Arabia and the storming of the Saudi Embassy in Tehran by protesters in response.http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/04/world/middleeast/iran-saudi-arabia-execution-sheikh-nimr.html?emc=edit_na_20160103&nlid=53564225&ref=ctaSomeone want to tell President O'bama to turn on a television so that he can get up to speed on this one?Apparently, this is not the fun Disney Kingdoms...Most of the reaction in the region to the execution broke cleanly along sectarian lines, with Shiite leaders in Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon and elsewhere criticizing the Saudis for killing a man they called a peaceful dissident while Saudi Arabia’s Sunni allies applauded what they called the country’s efforts to fight terrorism.Most of the 47 executed had been convicted of being involved with Al Qaeda in a wave of deadly attacks in the kingdom a decade ago and included prominent leaders and ideologues. Four, including Sheikh Nimr, were Shiites accused of participating in violent demonstrations in which demonstrators and police were killed.The BBC reported on Saturday that one of those executed, Adel al-Dubayti, had been convicted of fatally shooting Simon Cumbers, a freelance journalist on assignment for the BBC in Riyadh in 2004. The attack also left a reporter, Frank Gardner, critically wounded.Sounds like a real fun place to live...The United States immediately condemned, oops...never mind...In the United States, Benjamin Rhodes, President Obama’s deputy national security adviser, refused to comment specifically on the execution of Sheikh Nimr but said the United States had been complaining to the Saudis for years about human rights issues.“We also would like to see steps taken by Saudi Arabia and other countries to reduce sectarian tensions in the region,” Mr. Rhodes said.The European Union, which opposes the death penalty, said that Shiekh Nimr’s execution in particular “raises serious concerns regarding freedom of expression and the respect of basic civil and political rights.”youBoy you can't fool those EU folks!!I brought the marsh mellows... http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/04/world/middleeast/iran-saudi-arabia-execution-sheikh-nimr.html?emc=edit_na_20160103&nlid=53564225&ref=cta Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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