Kerry: U.S. not at war with ISIS.....

[MMC]

Counter insurgency, counter terrorism, counter this or counter that. All those counters are just another name for war. Perhaps in this administration, they are a PC term for war. I wonder what the UN Envoy will come back with, I mean as far as suggestions and briefing.

I don't think he will be able to come with anything different. The MB backed Sunni Rebels state Assad must go and they should be given Syria to run. Many of them are for some form of Sharia law. So they wont be brought back from that position. Plus Assad isn't going to Abdicate.

 

[Perotista]

Now we wait for ecofarm to come in and cry and call us "Hitler supporters"

Sometimes one must side with the lesser of two evils to defeat the most evil. This world is not a perfect place and the people whom populate it, a lot of them are not nice, some seem to be made of pure evil. It is not out of love we side with the lesser or the least evil person, sometimes it is out of necessity.

Sometimes one must decide if the world is better off without ISIS with Assad still in power or better off without Assad and ISIS still around. Unless the situation changes drastically, I think we will eventually have to make that choice.

 

[Perotista]

I don't think he will be able to come with anything different. The MB backed Sunni Rebels state Assad must go and they should be given Syria to run. Many of them are for some form of Sharia law. So they wont be brought back from that position. Plus Assad isn't going to Abdicate.

So the war continues and perhaps because of that, ISIS grows even stronger.

 

[Fearandloathing]

Generals hate the light footprint approach. I was part of Project 404 in Laos, 69-71, talk about a light footprint. There were approximately 120 of us in Laos, half were Air Force mostly Ravens with AIRA, I was with ARMA. Our light footprint advising, supplying, logistics, commo, intel etc to the Royal Lao military helped them fight the North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao to a stalemate utilizing Lao troops and our air power from 1966-1973 when congress made us stop the bombing and ceded Laos to the commies.

Let me remind you of something more recent, Afghanistan. With just a few SF and paramilitary on the ground, our air power with the Northern Alliance troops, we were able to drive the Taliban out of Afghanistan in about a months time. Only after the Taliban had been driven out did we introduce a huge number of troops and those were for nation building.

Having said the above, what is needed for a light footprint to work is a sound indigenous force on the ground capable of at least standing their ground and better yet to be able to advance given enough air support and firepower from above. The Kurds have shown they can do this, but they do not want to get too far from their homeland. That means we have to wait on the Iraqi forces to be reconstituted and trained, supplied and organized. A quicker route would be to make nice with Assad, his military along with our air power has the ability to advance and drive ISIS out of Syria, possibly towards the Kurds. But would the Iraqi army be read for that third pincer from Baghdad? That is the question.

There are some major differences.

One, no where in Afghanistan can it be said there is a "light anything." so drop that one.

Two, Laos had the complete backing of the local government AND an organized and well trained and supported Laotian army, that is not the case here. In Laos you were supposedly fighting insurgents, whereas here you have an area the size of Maryland already occupied that you must fist drive out. It is more like North Vietnam or Korea than Laos, Yemen, or Somalia.

Three, you fought them to a "stalemate" which is unacceptable here...as the president has set a definite timeline of when they will be out.

You were also illegal bombing Cambodia and Laos at the time.

 

[MMC]

So the war continues and perhaps because of that, ISIS grows even stronger.

This will end up being long and protracted....but BO did bring back General Allen who happens to advise Kerry and or Hagel.


Former U.S. Afghanistan commander to lead effort against Islamic State.....

President Barack Obama has chosen retired Marine Corps General John Allen, who served as the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, to coordinate international efforts to fight Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, a U.S. official said on Friday. Allen has long experience working with leaders in the region, both as a commander in Iraq and as deputy head of U.S. Central Command, which controls U.S. forces in the region.

The official said he would be named as the Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition against ISIL, the acronym the administration used for the Sunni Islamist movement. Since leaving the military in 2013, Allen has worked as an adviser to Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. He has also been a special U.S. envoy on security issues in talks between Israel and the Palestinians.....snip~

Former U.S. Afghanistan commander to lead effort against Islamic State

 

[Linc]

How is the War on ISIL playing in Georgia?
And what did you think of congressman Kingston's remarks about not voting on a separate resolution so they could just sit back and just criticize BHO?
Think Kingston would have said that if he had beaten Perdue ?

So the war continues and perhaps because of that, ISIS grows even stronger.

 

[Perotista]

There are some major differences.

One, no where in Afghanistan can it be said there is a "light anything." so drop that one.

Two, Laos had the complete backing of the local government AND an organized and well trained and supported Laotian army, that is not the case here. In Laos you were supposedly fighting insurgents, whereas here you have an area the size of Maryland already occupied that you must fist drive out. It is more like North Vietnam or Korea than Laos, Yemen, or Somalia.

Three, you fought them to a "stalemate" which is unacceptable here...as the president has set a definite timeline of when they will be out.

You were also illegal bombing Cambodia and Laos at the time.

I will admit Laos was unique, but the Royal Lao forces were some of the worst fighters in the world. The heavy fighting on our side was done by the Hmong, Kha, Karen etc. The NVA and PL controlled at least half of all of Laos when I arrived and was slowly advancing. As for the legality of the situation, everyone involved was playing the game of adhering to the 1962 Geneva Convention while breaking every word of it. 80,000 North Vietnamese in Laos, 10,000 Red Chinese, all sorts of Russian, East German, Czech and other Eastern European Adviser and Technicians. All involved knew the other was there and what they was doing. It is a surprise the war in Laos was kept secret for so long. But I digress.

I do not like timelines. In war whether you have boots on the ground or not, stuff happens and Murphy's law is a constant. I think that was a mistake. But I am not a politician. I can see how the strategy could work. But so much depends on the indigenous ground forces. In Afghanistan the Northern Alliance had good enough troops on the ground to drive the Taliban out with our air power. In Laos the Indigenous forces were not good enough to do the same to the North Vietnamese. I am not sure that even a reconstituted Iraqi Army would be good enough.

I was referring to the initial war effort in Afghanistan. All we had was a few SF and some paramilitary on the ground when the Northern Alliance drove out the Taliban. It was when the nation building started that huge numbers of troops started to arrive. I would have preferred to leave the SF and paramilitary in Afghanistan ready and able to call back our air support than to introduce a 100,000 troops. I sure wouldn't have nation built. But again I am no politician and I could care less if Afghanistan went back to tribal rule instead of Democracy. I see our so called nation building as forcing democracy upon the Afghan people.

 

[Perotista]

This will end up being long and protracted....but BO did bring back General Allen who happens to advise Kerry and or Hagel.


Former U.S. Afghanistan commander to lead effort against Islamic State.....

President Barack Obama has chosen retired Marine Corps General John Allen, who served as the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, to coordinate international efforts to fight Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, a U.S. official said on Friday. Allen has long experience working with leaders in the region, both as a commander in Iraq and as deputy head of U.S. Central Command, which controls U.S. forces in the region.

The official said he would be named as the Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition against ISIL, the acronym the administration used for the Sunni Islamist movement. Since leaving the military in 2013, Allen has worked as an adviser to Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. He has also been a special U.S. envoy on security issues in talks between Israel and the Palestinians.....snip~

Former U.S. Afghanistan commander to lead effort against Islamic State

That all sounds good. We will wait and see what happens.

 

[MMC]

That all sounds good. We will wait and see what happens.

Looks like we didn't have to wait long.....to see trouble looming on the horizon. :shock:

http://www.debatepolitics.com/middl...fight-against-jihadists-5.html#post1063750279

 

[Perotista]

How is the War on ISIL playing in Georgia?
And what did you think of congressman Kingston's remarks about not voting on a separate resolution so they could just sit back and just criticize BHO?
Think Kingston would have said that if he had beaten Perdue ?

Kingston is Gingrey/Broun light. I think he would have said the same thing. He is pretty straight forward. I would say the president has the support of most Georgians, I say most as their are always those partisans who will not back him on anything. The weird thing is most Republicans have kept quiet about here. I do not know what they are saying in Washington, but down here there is very little coming from them. Perhaps that is a good thing. I think Carter and Nunn are giving Deal and Perdue so much of a challenge that was very unexpected by them that they are having fits about it and not paying much attention to the middle east.

I could speculate on why they are so quiet, but that would be just speculation.

 

[PoS]

Now I can understand taking it easy for awhile while the Iraqi army reconstitutes itself. But when the time comes, hit hard, hit fast and then hit harder and faster.

The Iraqi military has been reconstituting itself for the last ten years and as soon as it went up again ISIS most of them ran away...