Do you agree with LT. Gen. MacFarland that carpet bombing is not the answer?

A few thoughts:
- Carpet bombing is only the answer in a sterile combat environment with no non combatants in the kill zone.
- Carpet bombing is a tactic and not a strategy. Tactics win (or lose) battles while strategies win (or lose) wars.
- The defeat of ISIS will require a whole of government approach (more than just DoD) at all three levels of war (strategic, operational, tactical) and within all domains (sea, air, land, cyber, space, human) over a sustained period of time using kinetic and nonkinetic means.
- We have not had much success against ISIS because the current administration is doing little to nothing with the five points in the above bullet. The first problem is that the administration will not admit there is a problem or use the correct term (radical Islam) to define the problem. It is what it is.

How did it work when we were looking for Bin Laden? Bombing will NOT destroy an ideal. Killing won't either (although it helps). Need a way to discredit them. They're MUCH better than we are in Cyber and media relations. And that's where we need to be to fight them.

Carpet bombing hasn't been a viable answer since the Gulf War when the Iraqi Army was deployed out in the middle of the desert. Honestly, I think our ends would be best served with next to no bombs dropping from the air. Our answers lie in more subtle means to break their will and fracture their unity. I'd go after their revenue streams, specifically.

However, what the General was doing was a direct response to a statement by Senator Ted Cruz, where he was talking tough about taking on ISIS. It wasn't the smartest statement by Cruz, but it is unusual for a General Officer to weigh in that directly against a sitting Senator unprovoked.

It's a figure of speech. I realize it means a whole different thing to those who are military inclined but he was obviously trying to say he's going to beat the crap out of ISIS.

Carpet bombing is not the right strategy to defeat ISIS. There are places ISIS is entrenched and bombing certainly helps to defeat them in these areas. However, an extensive bombing campaign in heavily populated civilians areas will not have a positive effect on the long term trajectory of this conflict.

I can't answer yes or no based on your question. Two questions which contradict each other. Do you agree? Should we look into carpet bombing? I think people have laid out that the phrase "carpet bombing" is loaded and misused, especially in political circles. I assume we are talking about the tactical use of "dumb munitions" dropped in mass on a target in order to cause the most casualties and damage possible regardless of collateral damage. In fact, in this sort of action collateral damage is preferred. The idea held sway in WWII when we attacked industrial and commercial centers of gravity in order to reduce the capacity of an enemy nation to wage war. We were unconcerned with civilian casualties because they were seen as a portion of the enemy war machine. That is not the case today. If you want to defeat ISIS, it will take a whole of government approach as COL Jason Smallfield, PMP, CFM, CM states. That is if you want to DEFEAT ISIS. If you want to NEUTRALIZE them (take away their ability to achieve their intended purpose), then it might be a feasible option. Even though it is feasible, it will never be acceptable or suitable. We simply cannot do the sorts of things that we used to do in WWII. There may come a time where the use of mass amounts of high explosives can solve our problems without concern for civilian casualties, but that time is not now against this enemy.

Carpet bombing made limited sense during the bombing of Dresden and Tokyo and other axis cities in WWII when we did not have sophisticated or accurate targeting systems or munitions SGT Ben Keen. We have had "smart" munitions since the late 1980s at least and each decade has brought advancements in delivery systems. Targeted strategic bombing and targeted tactical bombing guided by ground-based assets makes much more sense than carpet bombing. Air campaigns make sense when included as part of joint operations with operational goals.

Carpet Bombing? This is one of those stupid suggestions that politicians love to throw out there to convince people that when they are in charge everything will be so much simpler. You want to know what carpet bombing would do do Isis? If we decided to level Raqqa, all we would do is drive the fighters into their bunkers or out of the city, meanwhile we would kill tens of thousands of civilians and create a huge humanitarian crisis. No doubt this action would turn every ally we have in the region against us and legitimize all of the hate and prejudice that countries in the Middle East have against us. It is a stupid and ludicrous idea designed to make a complex situation look really simple.

bombing? yes. heavy bombing? yes, carpet bombing? for what??? killing all the civilian??? unless the majority of the civilians are supporting the enemy, which we know they are mostly scare the crap out of themselves to stand against ISIS. So No.

Carpet bombing is one of the tactic for conventional all out war, this ISIS war is not a conventional war, and lets hope it will never turn into one ....

How does ISIS still have oil producing capability, just take out the refinery pump houses and cut their flow of cash, without funds ISIS will dry up.