If you want to understand ISIS

[stroo]

This article from the Atlantic, not exactly a conservative publication, tells you what you need to know about ISIS. It is a return to 7th Century Islam with apocalyptic theology.

Be sure you go around armed. ISIS is already in our country!

http://www.theatlantic.com/features/arc ... ts/384980/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[C-dub]

I don't need to understand them any more than most of us already do. All we need to know is where they are located. To paraphrase from a wise man's use of force class, "sometimes they just need killing."

[jmra]

I don't need to understand them any more than most of us already do. All we need to know is where they are located. To paraphrase from a wise man's use of force class, "sometimes they just need killing."

They need to be eliminated. End of story.

Here's the problem I see with the U.S. fighting ISIS, we want to fight governments not a people. We didn't go to war with Iraq, we went to war with Saddam. We didn't go to war with Afghanistan, we went to war with Osama bin Laden.
There is no government with ISIS. The leadership structure is not very well defined. ISIS will be very difficult to defeat unless you are willing to fight a people. This means that ISIS controls and gets support from a city, the city becomes a military target. Until we are willing to accept those terms we will not be successful in defeating them. Of course we need a leader who is actually willing to engage them first.

[Diesel42]

I don't need to understand them any more than most of us already do. All we need to know is where they are located. To paraphrase from a wise man's use of force class, "sometimes they just need killing."

They need to be eliminated. End of story.

Here's the problem I see with the U.S. fighting ISIS, we want to fight governments not a people. We didn't go to war with Iraq, we went to war with Saddam. We didn't go to war with Afghanistan, we went to war with Osama bin Laden.
There is no government with ISIS. The leadership structure is not very well defined. ISIS will be very difficult to defeat unless you are willing to fight a people. This means that ISIS controls and gets support from a city, the city becomes a military target. Until we are willing to accept those terms we will not be successful in defeating them. Of course we need a leader who is actually willing to engage them first.

[Beiruty]

I don't need to understand them any more than most of us already do. All we need to know is where they are located. To paraphrase from a wise man's use of force class, "sometimes they just need killing."

They need to be eliminated. End of story.

Here's the problem I see with the U.S. fighting ISIS, we want to fight governments not a people. We didn't go to war with Iraq, we went to war with Saddam. We didn't go to war with Afghanistan, we went to war with Osama bin Laden.
There is no government with ISIS. The leadership structure is not very well defined. ISIS will be very difficult to defeat unless you are willing to fight a people. This means that ISIS controls and gets support from a city, the city becomes a military target. Until we are willing to accept those terms we will not be successful in defeating them. Of course we need a leader who is actually willing to engage them first.

This is the danger for all of us and then the right approach is what need to get on. Doing WW2 approach, let us nuke this city and if X-enemy does not surrender, let us nuke the second city. By definition, this is terrorism. Once you justify attacking civilians you lost and the terrorists won. Now, you are in their camp.

The right approach. support those who despise the terrorists and terrorism, support their education systems. Raise moderate and well-educated new generations and no one would want to be a terrorist.

[mojo84]

The problem with supporting those that have a common enemy today is that those same people turn around and become our enemy when they no longer need us. They then have the weapons we supplied to use against us.

I don't think anyone wants to just wipe out entire cities. There are times the ISIS barbarians congregate to move from area to another. That is the time to hit them. There is not guarantee there won't be some civilian casualties.

For those that think ISIS and Al-Qaeda barbaric fighters are "contained" in Syria and Iraq, I think you have a rude awakening coming. While the main concentration of their forces are there, they are establishing cells around the world and we will continue to deal with them if we do not eliminate them.

[Oldgringo]

I don't need to understand them any more than most of us already do. All we need to know is where they are located. To paraphrase from a wise man's use of force class, "sometimes they just need killing."

They need to be eliminated. End of story.

Here's the problem I see with the U.S. fighting ISIS, we want to fight governments not a people. We didn't go to war with Iraq, we went to war with Saddam. We didn't go to war with Afghanistan, we went to war with Osama bin Laden.
There is no government with ISIS. The leadership structure is not very well defined. ISIS will be very difficult to defeat unless you are willing to fight a people. This means that ISIS controls and gets support from a city, the city becomes a military target. Until we are willing to accept those terms we will not be successful in defeating them. Of course we need a leader who is actually willing to engage them first.

, that is my thought as, perhaps poorly, expressed in another recent and somewhat contentious thread. All of their lives are not worth a single American soldier, do it from the air on their home turf, not ours. If there is collateral damage, there is collateral damage. Once the moderates among them have subdued/converted the radicals, the bombing can cease.

[JP171]

The problem with supporting those that have a common enemy today is that those same people turn around and become our enemy when they no longer need us. They then have the weapons we supplied to use against us.

I don't think anyone wants to just wipe out entire cities. There are times the ISIS barbarians congregate to move from area to another. That is the time to hit them. There is not guarantee there won't be some civilian casualties.

For those that think ISIS and Al-Qaeda barbaric fighters are "contained" in Syria and Iraq, I think you have a rude awakening coming. While the main concentration of their forces are there, they are establishing cells around the world and we will continue to deal with them if we do not eliminate them.

you are incorrect, sorry to say but most of us in the military would use FAE's to completely wipe cities off the face of the earth if it would save just one soldier's life. we as a class dislike what is going on and would love the go ahead to remove the problem, but alas politics always directs the force of the military and makes us less effective, kinda like boar hogs and.... well you can guess.

[cb1000rider]

I don't need to understand them any more than most of us already do. All we need to know is where they are located. To paraphrase from a wise man's use of force class, "sometimes they just need killing."

You can't kill a way of thinking or a belief system by bombing geography... That's part of what keeps us in long drawn out gorilla wars that last indefinitely. You can bomb leadership by geography, but the rest of it you'll need to handle without weapons - by taking away what draws people to this ideology

[gljjt]

This is the danger for all of us and then the right approach is what need to get on. Doing WW2 approach, let us nuke this city and if X-enemy does not surrender, let us nuke the second city. By definition, this is terrorism. Once you justify attacking civilians you lost and the terrorists won. Now, you are in their camp.

The right approach. support those who despise the terrorists and terrorism, support their education systems. Raise moderate and well-educated new generations and no one would want to be a terrorist.

General consensus among historians is the use of nuclear weapons in world war 2 saved the lives of a million Americans, a half a million British and tens of millions of Japanese. They prevented an invasion of Japan which would have been the biggest bloodbath in history.

[BigGuy]

Here is another long, but interesting read. Something of a companion piece to the previous link:
http://www.the-american-interest.com/20 ... phatalism/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I agree that we need to wipe them out. But to do so effectively, we will have to understand them. They are not all the same, and it will require different methods to deal with each iteration.

As for ISIL, I say let them all go to Dabiq. Heck, help pay for their tickets. Of course they know we're going to attack them on that "holy' spot leading to our destruction and the end of days. That's what Baghdadi is preaching. So they want to go there and get ready for the big battle. Sounds like a good way to get most of them in one place.

I'm thinking that once we've got as many of them there as will go, a W-53 riding in on a Titan II will pretty much resolve all issues with that particular sect.



It would make our position and resolve clear to the other sects and likely circumvent further hostilities between us and them.

It's a win-win-win.
1 - We win because we don't have to listen to these jack wads any more.
2 - They win because they're just waiting on the final apocalypse. In fact they're looking forward to it. They'll have just experienced 9 megatons of it, curtesy of Uncle Sam.
3 - The innocent civilians win, because being turned into a cloud of ionized gas is better than living under these brutal troglodytes.

As brutal as this may sound, I believe that from an historical perspective it will save lives.

[mojo84]

The problem with supporting those that have a common enemy today is that those same people turn around and become our enemy when they no longer need us. They then have the weapons we supplied to use against us.

I don't think anyone wants to just wipe out entire cities. There are times the ISIS barbarians congregate to move from area to another. That is the time to hit them. There is not guarantee there won't be some civilian casualties.

For those that think ISIS and Al-Qaeda barbaric fighters are "contained" in Syria and Iraq, I think you have a rude awakening coming. While the main concentration of their forces are there, they are establishing cells around the world and we will continue to deal with them if we do not eliminate them.

you are incorrect, .

It wouldn't be the first or last time. ;)

I think there are opportunities to bomb them and mitigate civilian collateral damage. I also wonder just how loyal and friendly some of those civilians are too the U.S.

[jmra]

This is the danger for all of us and then the right approach is what need to get on. Doing WW2 approach, let us nuke this city and if X-enemy does not surrender, let us nuke the second city. By definition, this is terrorism. Once you justify attacking civilians you lost and the terrorists won. Now, you are in their camp.

The right approach. support those who despise the terrorists and terrorism, support their education systems. Raise moderate and well-educated new generations and no one would want to be a terrorist.

General consensus among historians is the use of nuclear weapons in world war 2 saved the lives of a million Americans, a half a million British and tens of millions of Japanese. They prevented an invasion of Japan which would have been the biggest bloodbath in history.

Some 80,000 people died instantly from the atomic bombs and it is estimated that the death toll rose to about 135,000 when factoring in long term effects. Most populations have doubled since 1945. This would mean a total impact of 270,000 lives.
If the estimates stated in the above post are correct, without the atomic bomb attacks we would have 2,000,000 less Americans, 1,000,000 less Brittons, and 20,000,000 to 50,000,000 less Japanese. This does not count the incalculable impact an extended war would have had on economies and political outcomes in the U.S. and England. One thing we can believe for sure is that the U.S. would have been much less likely to help rebuild Japan in the way we did had we not used atomic weapons. This might well have meant the starvation of millions more Japanese.

[rbwhatever1]

It would be great to wipe these ISIS folks from the planet forever. Problem is you would need to take out more than a few continents to do it and those days of punishing civilians for allowing their governments to be violent are over. Cities are no longer levelled in war because we seem to like "limited collateral damage". So we just sit back and wait for one of our cities to be leveled...we humans are crazy.

[mojo84]

So much for sparing the kids. A ten year old blew herself up today or yesterday. Now this.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/02/23 ... oung-as-5/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;