Posted on Nov 17, 2015
What is the President's Actual Strategy To Defeat ISIS?
5.67K
21
22
1
1
0
"...Now Obama is in the unenviable position of championing a strategy that even he admits could take years to work, and could be marked by significant setbacks and more terrorist attacks like those in Paris.
“The strategy that we are putting forward is the strategy that is ultimately going to work,” the president told reporters Monday. “But as I said from the start, it is going to take time.”
The story of how Obama landed on his approach is one of a president who campaigned for reelection on a promise to end America’s wars and came to office with other pressing priorities, such as reaching an agreement that would prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
He was deeply skeptical that U.S. military power could produce lasting political change in the Middle East and heavily influenced by the steep costs and heavy casualties that America suffered in Iraq and Afghanistan to achieve only mixed results.
In the early days of the Syrian civil war, Obama rejected proposals from his top national security advisers at the time, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and CIA Director David H. Petraeus, to arm rebels fighting the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
To Obama, the rebels’ chances looked bleak. They were a collection of “former doctors, farmers, [and] pharmacists,” he said, facing off against a well-equipped Syrian military that also had the support of battle-hardened Hezbollah forces.
Early proposals for a no-fly zone that would have grounded Assad’s jets and attack helicopters were also dismissed as too costly. Martin Dempsey, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, estimated that maintaining a no-fly zone would cost as much as $1 billion a year and put the U.S. military into direct conflict with Assad and his Iranian backers.
Senior White House officials have countered that the president’s critics vastly overestimate the capacity of American military power to stem chaos caused by decades of misrule and the collapse of repressive governments throughout the Middle East.
To illustrate that point, Obama on Monday described the problems of establishing a no-fly zone or a safe area for moderate rebels in northern Syria. Such a measure recently received the support of Clinton, Obama’s former secretary of state and the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination.
“Who would come in and who would come out of that safe zone?” Obama asked. “Would it become a magnet for terrorist attacks, and how many personnel would be required” to safeguard it?
Most pointedly, Obama, who has tried to set hard time limits on U.S. military commitments, wondered if American forces would be required to police it indefinitely.
…
The net result is a strategy that offers little immediate satisfaction. For now, one of its biggest selling points is that it largely keeps American soldiers and Marines out of harm’s way.
“This is not an abstraction,” Obama said in defense of his approach. “When we send troops in, those troops get injured, they get killed, they’re away from their families. . . . And so, given the fact that there are enormous sacrifices involved in any military action, it’s best that we don’t shoot first and aim later.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-defends-his-strategy-against-the-islamic-state-saying-it-will-take-time/2015/11/16/bf938224-8c8d-11e5-ae1f-af46b7df8483_story.html
“The strategy that we are putting forward is the strategy that is ultimately going to work,” the president told reporters Monday. “But as I said from the start, it is going to take time.”
The story of how Obama landed on his approach is one of a president who campaigned for reelection on a promise to end America’s wars and came to office with other pressing priorities, such as reaching an agreement that would prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
He was deeply skeptical that U.S. military power could produce lasting political change in the Middle East and heavily influenced by the steep costs and heavy casualties that America suffered in Iraq and Afghanistan to achieve only mixed results.
In the early days of the Syrian civil war, Obama rejected proposals from his top national security advisers at the time, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and CIA Director David H. Petraeus, to arm rebels fighting the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
To Obama, the rebels’ chances looked bleak. They were a collection of “former doctors, farmers, [and] pharmacists,” he said, facing off against a well-equipped Syrian military that also had the support of battle-hardened Hezbollah forces.
Early proposals for a no-fly zone that would have grounded Assad’s jets and attack helicopters were also dismissed as too costly. Martin Dempsey, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, estimated that maintaining a no-fly zone would cost as much as $1 billion a year and put the U.S. military into direct conflict with Assad and his Iranian backers.
Senior White House officials have countered that the president’s critics vastly overestimate the capacity of American military power to stem chaos caused by decades of misrule and the collapse of repressive governments throughout the Middle East.
To illustrate that point, Obama on Monday described the problems of establishing a no-fly zone or a safe area for moderate rebels in northern Syria. Such a measure recently received the support of Clinton, Obama’s former secretary of state and the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination.
“Who would come in and who would come out of that safe zone?” Obama asked. “Would it become a magnet for terrorist attacks, and how many personnel would be required” to safeguard it?
Most pointedly, Obama, who has tried to set hard time limits on U.S. military commitments, wondered if American forces would be required to police it indefinitely.
…
The net result is a strategy that offers little immediate satisfaction. For now, one of its biggest selling points is that it largely keeps American soldiers and Marines out of harm’s way.
“This is not an abstraction,” Obama said in defense of his approach. “When we send troops in, those troops get injured, they get killed, they’re away from their families. . . . And so, given the fact that there are enormous sacrifices involved in any military action, it’s best that we don’t shoot first and aim later.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-defends-his-strategy-against-the-islamic-state-saying-it-will-take-time/2015/11/16/bf938224-8c8d-11e5-ae1f-af46b7df8483_story.html
GWOT
ISIS
Edited >1 y ago
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 13
0
0
0
0
0
0
After reading the article my understanding is that his strategy is to slowly degrade their capabilities and reduce the amount of territory they control through a slow campaign of precision bombing and limited ground strikes. The fatal flaw in this semi-active strategy is the belief that limited strikes in two countries will somehow degrade Islamic State capabilities around the world. This is a classical example of "Magical Thinking". It ignores the fact that the Islamic State and its subsidiaries are active and recruiting throughout the world. If things become too hot in one location their multinational forces flow into another area and continue working toward the same goal. The other item he is ignoring is the current Islamic States slash and burn (kill the infidels) policy. If we ever do kick them out of Syria and Iraq, there will be no one left to return it to, just the supporters of the Islamic State. Now that's a strategy that will work.
(0)
(0)
0
0
0
Once people realize that we need to go to war with our minds vs. their minds in an all out assault against the idea of radical Islam, we'll get somewhere. 14 years of using every munition known to man, and where are we again? He and his "advisers" need to get over the whole "wack a mole" approach we're doing, and launch a coordinated assault against the "false Prophets" that use the Koran as a weapon instead of a religious book. You cannot "kill" a idea or belief, but you can CHANGE the narrative of it, and then make change through other means. You could send let's say seven heavy divisions (if we had them) over there with the goal of "wiping the slate clean", and they would do one hell of a great job. But all they've done is amass one big body count, and when they leave, it's business as usual. Change the mindset, change the outcome. Has anyone seen ISIS not make their recruitment quota over the last few years? And they are not giving enlistment bonuses either.
(0)
(0)
PV2 Scott Goodpasture
The hardest thing to change is a mind. Take racists for example 40,000 years and still going. The Japanese changed their minds once they realized they were slated for annihilation.
(1)
(0)
SSG Warren Swan
MSG Xavier James - MSG, my personal recommendation is to change the narrative. ISIS and others like them are making the action happen, both in cyber and on the ground. We get "lucky" and play wack a mole and think we're doing something by killing ONE "high ranking" person. I could be very wrong, but last I checked, you kill one, and two are ready to take his place? So how much wack a mole are we going to play? When are we going to use the old brain housing group as more than just a holding place for a kevlar, and come up with creative methods to change our "image" in the ME? Not saying drop allies or anything like that. Use the same propaganda and technology that's easily used against us, and flip it around. We are always answering for our actions yet, I have not seen a video where one of them have been called out and made to explain what their doing to their people. Use social media the SAME WAY they are in recruiting to show what happens when you go. Leave nothing out, make it as "real" as it gets. Stop the dividing here in the states also. It only feeds into the talk that we're "weak" and "easily divided" or "scared". Mass media IS NOT helping the cause one bit when the minute ISIS is mentioned, every "expert" who has been in special operations since the civil war comes on with a boneheaded accusation or claim "according to my sources", that only entices those of the weaker and sheepish mindset. Stop using vets as "props" with pre-ordained comments of kill one kill all, or something to that effect. Whether or not we believe it, doesn't help one bit. We as a country need to get over the Islam as a whole is bad, and we're the great Super Christians charged with saving the world from "oppression". I firmly believe in this new "war" the pen (or keyboard) is mightier than the sword. Give cyber command a mission, make it doable and not so overblown with actions that would take years to make, and let em rip. They are the future "nukes" we need to use. Too many good people in there to let talent go to waste. America isn't scared of anything or anybody, but we need to find something to rally behind and direct all of our attention to it. But using a cyber warrior isn't as sexy or as "cool" sounding on your local news as saying SEAL Team 17, and Green Berets from Michigan Ave, down by the bodega, and deli are conducting a night time raid on OJ Simpsons house in search of OBL's daughter who's reportedly doing porn in support of "jihad".
(0)
(0)
Capt (Join to see)
Personally, I feel that the idea that you can't attack an ideology is inherently wrong. It's repeated over and over to the point that people have accepted this liberal idea as fact.
However, Nazism and the bushido culture of Imperial Japan were very much ideologies. In 1938, only 7% of Germany was Nazi and today, the Gallop Center for Muslim Studies survey reported that 36.6% of Muslims believe that 9/11 was at least partially justified and 21% believed that the killing of apostates and opposing women's rights was morally justified as well as supported the imposition of sharia law. In the case of Germany, the peaceful majority was irrelevant. We're unable to change the culture of the conflict areas in which we fight because we're chosen the PR-based "hearts and minds" approach and have abandoned the "total war" doctrine.
Total war still works. Waging war against a country, to include its industries and population, works. War is inherently inhumane and in our modern efforts to make it humane, we have spared the mechanisms of radicalization. Mosques go untouched, even when utilized by the enemy, and cities go without bombing for fear of causing civilian casualties. Yet families teach their children it is right and proper to kill infidels and treat suicide bombers as noble martyrs. Even if the men are killed, the women still raise their children to espouse these beliefs. The population goes untouched. The industries and support mechanisms stay in place. The madrassas where Muslim children are radicalized still stand.
The question really is, in this globalized age where we can see the suffering of our enemies up close and personal, in ways which we never could with the Germans and Japanese; are we willing to go to war, real war, total war. War is the ultimate evil and it's been said that it is good that is so terrible, or else we should grow too fond of it. On the other hand, our enemies, who live in many cases devoid of technology, do not see the suffering on our side, and those who can, do not appear to care. However when their society is laid to waste in ways which they have never seen, and they abandon the culture which has caused them to suffer, and abandon their ideology, that is when it ends, but the road is long, hellish, and terrible. If we are let off the leash to fight war like this, we can beat an ideology. However, it is then our responsibility to ensure the education of future generations is such that this ideology is stigmatized and destroyed as was done with Nazism and every other evil.
However, Nazism and the bushido culture of Imperial Japan were very much ideologies. In 1938, only 7% of Germany was Nazi and today, the Gallop Center for Muslim Studies survey reported that 36.6% of Muslims believe that 9/11 was at least partially justified and 21% believed that the killing of apostates and opposing women's rights was morally justified as well as supported the imposition of sharia law. In the case of Germany, the peaceful majority was irrelevant. We're unable to change the culture of the conflict areas in which we fight because we're chosen the PR-based "hearts and minds" approach and have abandoned the "total war" doctrine.
Total war still works. Waging war against a country, to include its industries and population, works. War is inherently inhumane and in our modern efforts to make it humane, we have spared the mechanisms of radicalization. Mosques go untouched, even when utilized by the enemy, and cities go without bombing for fear of causing civilian casualties. Yet families teach their children it is right and proper to kill infidels and treat suicide bombers as noble martyrs. Even if the men are killed, the women still raise their children to espouse these beliefs. The population goes untouched. The industries and support mechanisms stay in place. The madrassas where Muslim children are radicalized still stand.
The question really is, in this globalized age where we can see the suffering of our enemies up close and personal, in ways which we never could with the Germans and Japanese; are we willing to go to war, real war, total war. War is the ultimate evil and it's been said that it is good that is so terrible, or else we should grow too fond of it. On the other hand, our enemies, who live in many cases devoid of technology, do not see the suffering on our side, and those who can, do not appear to care. However when their society is laid to waste in ways which they have never seen, and they abandon the culture which has caused them to suffer, and abandon their ideology, that is when it ends, but the road is long, hellish, and terrible. If we are let off the leash to fight war like this, we can beat an ideology. However, it is then our responsibility to ensure the education of future generations is such that this ideology is stigmatized and destroyed as was done with Nazism and every other evil.
(0)
(0)
Read This Next
Continue with Facebook 
Continue with Google