US Defense Secretary James Mattis announced plans on Sunday to ‘Take Apart’ Islamic State Caliphate. Civilian casualties do not matter one bit.
The fight against Islamic State has shifted to “annihilation tactics” to stop potential terrorists who’ve flocked to places such as Iraq and Syria from returning to their home countries to wreak havoc, Defense Secretary James Mattis said Sunday.
“We have already shifted from attrition tactics where we shove them from one position to another in Iraq and Syria,” Mattis said on “Face the Nation” on CBS. “Our intention is that the foreign fighters do not survive the fight to return home to North Africa, to Europe, to America, to Asia, to Africa.”
“We are going to squash the enemy’s ability to give some indication that they’re — that they have invulnerability, that they can exist, that they can send people off to Istanbul, to Belgium, to Great Britain and kill people with impunity,” Mattis said.
Asked about the potential for greater civilian casualties from the stepped-up attacks, Mattis said such losses “are a fact of life.”
“The bottom line is we are going to accelerate the campaign against ISIS,” he said. “It is a threat to all civilized nations. And the bottom line is we are going to move in an accelerated and reinforced manner, throw them on their back foot.”
He said the U.S. plans to “strip them of any kind of legitimacy” and deny any country from providing Islamic State with any degree of protection as well as dry up the group’s fundraising.
The Intercept reports THE U.S. HAS RAMPED UP AIRSTRIKES AGAINST ISIS IN RAQQA, AND SYRIAN CIVILIANS ARE PAYING THE PRICE.
ON APRIL 24, a group of Syrian women bundled themselves and their children into a car and attempted to flee the small town of Tabqa, outside of Raqqa. In recent months the sleepy principality had become the site of raging battles between Islamic State militants and U.S.-backed proxy forces, waging a campaign to drive ISIS from the country. Packed into the fleeing car were 11 people, including eight members of the al-Aish family: three women between the ages of 23 and 40, and five children, the youngest one just 6 months old.
The al-Aish family’s flight from a warzone was similar to millions of other desperate journeys made by Syrian civilians over the past six years. But they would not make it to safety. As they fled Tabqa, their car was hit by an airstrike, reportedly carried out by the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. All 11 people were killed in the strike, in what local reports described as a “massacre.”
“A U.S.-led coalition warplane targeted heavy machine guns at civilians trying to flee the city of Al-Tabaqa, which is witnessing heavy clashes between gunmen,” reported the local anti-ISIS activist group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently. The air raid led to “the death of a whole family.” Following the attack, photos of the young children from the al-Aish family circulated widely on social media and local news sites, including pictures of 3-year-old Abdul Salam and 6-month-old Ali.
The strike that killed the al-Aish family was just one of an estimated 9,029 strikes carried out by the U.S.-led coalition in Syria since 2014. The independent monitoring group Airwars estimates that coalition strikes in Syria and Iraq over the past several years have killed between 3,681 and 5,849 civilians, compounding the suffering of people who have already endured years of civil war. In recent months, local media have reported a steady stream of airstrikes that have hit civilian targets, including several particularly egregious strikes on packed schools and mosques.
But worse days for civilians in northern Syria could still be ahead, as the United States and its allies prepare for a terminal offensive against Raqqa — the last urban stronghold of ISIS and the capital of its deteriorating proto-state.
Agree or Disagree?
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
It has long been my opinion that if one is going to go to war then one should be prepared to win it decisively. If one is not willing to do that then one should not go to war.
War is a terrible enterprise and always has been.
I suspect that soft footing around actually makes matters worse in the end and one ends up with more war not less. If one knows that if one gets into a hot conflict then it is going to be terminal for one side or the other I am sure it concentrates minds particularly nowadays when politicians can not hide at the back somewhere while at the same time sending their young men and women to the front.
Like
I agree 100% but I don’t think a leader should announce it,
Just do it.
There is no reason to give an excuse to have losers act out even more than they already do.
Some would call that treason, war crimes, especially since we have nothing but economic S&P 500 , Federal Reserve and Deep military playground interest. They only need to get get one through. What if it’s got you or yours name on it. Does that make you think again.?
People who think it is possible to “win” have never met someone who really believed in something. War just raises the cost of participation. People willing to die for a cause don’t care about cost.
We’d still be fighting Japanese suicide bombers today, if we had tried to take their country instead of persuading the emperor to surrender.
The difference here is that Islam is much more complicated, just like the US. If someone invaded the US and had the president tell everyone to stop fighting, some of us would. Others would fight for generations. The more people the new government killed, the more of us that would be willing to die to fight them.
The invasion plans called for:
1. 7 nuclear bombs in the opening phase of the invasion (where Japan had concentrated most of her forces).
2. The use of chemical weapons (very effective in killing people hiding in caves).
3. Firebombing every major population center into ashes. General LeMay only stopped his bombing campaign because he ran out of bombs. The firebombing campaigns killed more Japanese civilians than the two nuclear weapons did.
There wouldn’t be suicide bombers because Japan by late 1947 would simply have ceased to exist as a nation or even a culture because the United States forces would have resorted to genocide.
Those two nukes motivated the pro surrender forces to act (there was a coup attempt by factions that wanted to keep fighting with even a plot to Kamikaze the surrender ceremony), which basically saved Japan.
We didn’t have seven more bombs. We had two and we used them. It would have taken months to produce more.
There was a plan to make 15 A-bombs for the invasion:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall#Nuclear_weapons
America has wasted so much energy on political correctness, safe spaces, and gender normative bull that we no longer remember that war is hell. Its not meant to be fun, and a normal army does not have more lawyers than it does soldiers.
WW2 had more civilian casualties than soldiers. Every city on the European continent was in ruins, causing many civilians to die a slow death from lack of food/water, lack of a band aid much less real medical care, and lack of heat in the winter. Many people froze to death.
Why is a slow torturous death while diplomats and lawyers snack on pastries at one of their perpetual conferences considered a good thing? Why don’t we properly account for civilian deaths caused by lawyers and diplomats literally talking people to death?
It is dishonest to suggest that civilians get killed by bombs, but not to admit they also get killed by arrogant diplomats discussing everything year after year after year.
Considering how the japanese treated POWs and civilians in the lands they conquered, I have little sympathy for them. As my father was scheduled to go in the second wave at Kyushu (as a medic, something the japs targeted), I probably wouldn’t be here had we not dropped the bombs.
think you meant to reply to a conversation above?
To paraphrase General T. Sherman:
“War is all hell. The worse it is the better, because the sooner it will be over with”.
When Sherman was asked by members of the political class what it would take to bring the Confederacy to heal, his answers horrified them (tactics, resources, casualties) and his opinion was rejected.
Sherman did bring the Confederacy down (more so IMHO than any other general) by killing anyone and destroying anything in his path. The support for the Confederacy; farms, rail networks, manufacturing, even basic shelter was utterly destroyed.
What Sherman did was far less worse than the alternative: fight a war of ‘half measures’ with the war never ending.
Two other cases I can think of where the US committed itself to total war:
1. The campaign against Japan.
2. The war against the Moros in the Southern Philippines (early 20th Century).
Both ended in victory for the USA. Both campaigns led to horrific slaughter of combatants as well as civilians. Hopefully, the war on ISIS will be a total one. If it goes back to half measures, it will never end.
the difference between common criminals and the noble profession of arms is protection of civilians be they friend or foe ( paraphrased from Gen. McArthur )
Gen Mattie besmirches the noble profession of arms
G Scott you win the prize. Every war ever fought had civilian casualties. This is a fact of war. I fought in two. I do not talk about this, I will as G Scott makes the one valid point many never understand. If you wage war you must be totally committed and not pussyfoot around.
I can remember when we did a passage of line in Vietnam with the South Korean Tiger division. We were being snipes at from the local village before the Tiger Division moved up to pass us. The sniping ended and I was a young buck and asked my section chief what was going on as no bullets came fro m the village when the Koreans came up. He told me the Koreans would level the village if they were taking fire from the village. They were committed and fought to win. I know many will disagree but the enemy knew this and left the area.
War is nasty business and in the Middle East those in charge strap bomb on children and women and then photograph soldiers shooting at them but you never see the full story. We were defending ourselves from them. Just like any other Western military we never intentionally target innocents. NEVER!
Yes there are war criminals and nutcases in any war and they should be locked away and many times they are. Many seem to judge the military because some nut job went on a killing spree and killed innocents.
No military will ever win a war if they are not committed. Read Ho Chi Mings personal journal and you will find we were winning the war and he was about to call it quits but we lost the press war and support of our people. What scares politicians is casualties reported in the media and again losing the support of the people.
Personally I feel we need to get out of the Middle East and Europe. Merkel and the EU are pissed they need to actually ante up their fair share and Americans are upset with our president. He was doing us all a favor and I do not care if it was a Democrat or Republican sitting in the office. It is time for our allies to pay their fair share.
Sometimes the ends DO justify the means. In past history, when you conquered a territory you killed off all the opposition to help solidify your control. Call this the Genghis Kahn approach. It seemed to work.
Like
We started off fighting the “mercenaries” (Hessians) during our “revolution”, and have now become the largest and most fearsome mercenary force this world has ever known, doing the bidding of our true masters. We are nothing more then tiny fleas on the ass of an enormous elephant. It is truly sickening.
Civilian casualties are part and parcel of modern-day warfare whether from airstrikes or subway bombings. Stop whining and suck it up.
Civilian casualties are part and parcel to EVERY WAR throughout history — its only in the last decade or two that media pundits started putting nightly counters on TV.
Just because journalists of yesteryear focused more on news, and less on hype like modern media weenies — does not mean there weren’t civilian casualties all along.
If anything, civilian casualties are less in modern wars — ***LESS*** does not mean zero, it means less than before. But that is a meaningless distinction. War is still hell, and its not supposed to be fun or civilized.
PS — I meant to write “Like” to Gasmire’s comment, but I don’t know how to edit my comment after it posted
I would also add that the civilians there had had many years to eliminate the vermin. They have done nothing or proved incapable. Time is up.
And of course the us military will always have a job there as the viciousness and callousness of the assaults on civilians make many many more hate us. This is not a war, but a continuing insurgency by certain groups. You don’t attack a country with modern arsenals to stop an insurgency. The us did this in Vietnam and I guess was happy they killed so many civilians. The usg has become the monster we always feared. (I will not make the obvious constitutional argument). Disgusting and shameful. It is really a war on muslims.
The real solution is to kill off those who cause wars. Sort of to help evolution along since mankind is regressing badly.
Iran’s population would basically untouched, while the populations of the US and its cronies would be decimated.
Watched a bit of Dr Strangelove this morning … McCain probably has a Gen Jack Ripper tattooed somewhere …
And the alternative to what?
Did someone send McCain the memo?
Hey Mish. I trust that you are familiar with George Friedman’s recent comments on N. Korea. Anything to say?
How do you know who is a civilian? The ones that run are ISIS. The ones that don’t run are well trained ISIS.
The US created ISIS in the first place by its ruthless attack on Iraq and subsequent occupation. Obliterating the population (remaining) of Syria will only create more Islamic militants, create more refugees, and create more suffering and death, although it will create more jobs in the US defense industry, helping to make America great again.
What is the alternative? Let ISIS kill many, vastly more, civilians than what the actions of the U.S. will do? I know who created ISIS. That information is irrelevant. It is a sunk cost.
A sane intelligent person would back the people of Syria in their fight against ISIS.
A neocon (insane) would want to kill Syrian people under the pretense of killing ISIS terrorists.
The former is apparently greatly outnumbered by the latter.
On The Road to Kakotopia in the 21st Century.
“Who” created ISIS, may be not be relevant. But WHAT created ISIS most certainly is. And this childish blowhard (Mattis) now brags about wanting to double down and do more of exactly that……
It’s pretty sad that the once “Land of the Free”, has now become such an undifferentiated dump, that even those with plenty of painful, direct, firsthand experience with a gang as universally unpleasant as ISIS; are still, at best, divided wrt who the so called good guys are.
The US won the war in Europe because it was pretty obvious the Americans were helpful liberators, not blundering aggressors. Ditto the cold war. Even the Japanese weren’t fighting AGAINST the Americans, as much as FOR the Emperor. Hence overwhelmingly ceased aggression, once he was convinced to do so.
But that was a very different America than the largely undifferentiated manurehole that bears that name today. That America could actually lay some sort of realistic claim to Reagan’s “Shining City on the Hill” moniker. While now, with yahoos like Mattis given authority well above the communal dog catcher level more appropriate for his position on the evolutionary ladder; fat chance that vaunted America will return again anytime soon. Instead, the current one will continue to double down on dumb, as dumb is all that’s left of her. Alienating ever greater numbers in the process, while waving a pointless flag, and ever more desperately trying to force people to like her at the point of a gun.
There were millions of civilian casualties in our quest to take out Hitler.
Looking back, does that mean we made a mistake by going after Hitler?
It’s more a philosophical question than one of military strategy.
This is the basic problem, my friends:
If we wipe out the “Islamic State Caliphate” another enemy will come along OR WE WILL CREATE ANOTHER ONE to replace it.
Our society thrives on conflict, war and death. It always has. And it likely always will.
Now you can accept that fact or you can protest the very recipe that is responsible for America becoming the strongest and badest superpower on the face of the earth (militarily and economically).
I know that’s a tough choice. But you have to pick a side and stick with it. Choose (a) We need conflict and war to thrive as a nation (b) We need to stop intervening in foreign conflicts and killing innocent people even if it eventually results in our own downfall.
Choose (a) or (b). Something in-between is a cop-out. It comes down to individual choice.
As an addendum to my last comment —–
It is possible to stop our intervention into foreign conflicts or STARTING THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE.
I watched with my own eyes a groundswell of people put an end to the Vietnam War. I was there. I saw it happen.
It CAN happen again – but it takes willpower.
My guess is that most of the US population would choose selections (a) above – that it they would take the position that we need war and conflict to thrive as a nation.
People will ALWAYS place their own needs above those of others. ALWAYS.
Don’t expect ANYTHING to change – until somebody bigger than us comes along and feeds us some of our own medicine.
That’s just the way it is.
Actually, it was the traitorous lsm that caused us to lose after the biggest defeat the NVA had ever suffered during the Tet offensive. They were considering surrendering until they realized that American traitors could help them win.
b) Happy to accept our downfall from being “the strongest and badest superpower on the face of the earth (militarily and economically).
Though “we” are not economically. Many countries have higher GDP/capita than the USA. Though the country is in the aggregate.
I think you are in the minority.
Many would CLAIM that they agree with you – but if push came to shove – they would opt for (a).
Americans love war – mostly because we’ve never had to fight a foreign enemy on our shores.
It’s just a fact.
“Americans love war”
…
Sure, why not? An all volunteer force.
Re-institute the draft and politicians wouldn’t have nearly the hair trigger they have now.
But that only solidifies my point.
That Americans only act in our own self-interest.
As long as the other guy gets killed and I’m safe – its all good!!!
But I agree with your point that we need to start the draft back up. That would straighten out the crooked road this nation has built in a heartbeat.
The question may be: Are we Hitler?
We have been bombing the middle east for 25 years. How many people have we killed?
Is it surprising that would create enemies?
I believed President Bush when he told us there were WMDs. He may have been told there were and believed it too, but it was a lie. The Deep State will do and say anything to get what it wants.
Obama told us he would end the war. He immediately forgot about that when elected. Trump has said the same thing and has already gone back on his promise.
The President is merely a gov’t mouthpiece to tell people what they want to hear. He has very little power. The Deep State has all the power and they always get what they want.
only a question for you and the media pundits.
Everyone else got bored of you idiots labeling every single event “the next Hitler” long ago. You used the phrase so much that your credibility is shot.
Just shut up. Even if Hitler himself showed up, you have so overused the meme that no one will listen to you.
Like
The United States military is completely unable to defeat ISIS, just as it is unable to defeat Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, the Viet Cong or any insurgent group. That is because these people are fighting for God and Country, and blend into the communities they control.
And when you decide that you are going to kill every man, woman and child you will. Except for the insurgents because they will head for the hills when you start bombing. And once you’ve murdered every man, woman and child in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, the insurgents win by default. Because they’re the last ones standing.
It doesn’t mean they can’t be defeated. It’s easy. Just pay them to kill someone else. Or when the local population hates them enough, give them the arms necessary to kill them. You just have to stop being a bunch of ignorant, dumb-a$$ rednecks, and figure out how the real world works.
Perpetual Profits, er, Perpetual War is the goal for MIC … with McCain / Graham lead blockers.
I think its the goal for most Americans.
That’s the reason we don’t see any protests of significance.
Correction: you politically correct wackos in San Francisco can’t defeat ISIS. More to the point, the one and only thing San Fran is good at doing is raising taxes on everything. ISIS hates your lifestyle more than the rest of America.
You Californians are a socialist menace on the entire planet.
Like
When did we stop fighting over civilian casualties, Once the enemy knows that they retreat to population centers. When war approaches civilians need to flee if only to the border. To remain in our home as fighting approaches makes one just crazy. To be stuck with no where to run is being in the wrong place at the wrong time. War is hell. I heard that somewhere. Well it is.
And miscreants escape with civilians.
Danger.
Because they are civilians. Duh! Only 100 years of junta funded progressive indoctrination, could hope to produce a population imbecile enough to, even for one second, believe that the childish classifications that make up politically correct progressive discourse, has any real-world meaning at all.
God gave men fists so that they could fight if the need arose. And women wombs so they could produce more fighters. Giving men and women reasons to fight you, entices them to express those traits, which are latent to their makeup. That a brain-dead gaggle of dumber-than-a-torn-dishrag progressive apes, run around classifying some of them as “civilians,” as opposed to “combatants”, are so irrelevant as to be flat out insulting having to even point out.
Evolution removed the physical fighting instruments that most animals have – claws, large, sharp teeth, etc. Our species wasn’t the strongest, fastest or largest, we were the smartest and that is how our line survived. Our fists are puny as instruments of violence, but a sharp stick in our hands is a formidable weapon.
We also are a social species – we create groups for protection, hunting, and conquering.
Fists and wombs did not bring us here – smarts and the ability to create larger cohesive groups did.
The traditional fighting instruments were only removed in favor of improved ones: Fingers and brains to shape spears, pull triggers and build guns and bombs with; rather than comparatively less effective claws and teeth. None of which had the effect on turning people into permanently neutered “civilians.” Animals tend to prefer “peace” as well, as war is risky and resource intensive. But if you start threatening them and their offspring, they’ll, by necessity, quickly adapt to their new reality. Just as people will. Including those the progressive drones have been told to refer to as “civilians.”
“We also are a social species – we create groups for protection, hunting, and conquering.”
While we were completely in the animal world. Unfortunately most people think they are still in the animal world and they are correct because that is the only world they know how to create.
Man’s evolution is at an impasse simply because he continually recreates the world he came from.
That is not fertile grounds for evolution.
@ Stuki Moi
“But if you start threatening them and their offspring,”
That’s called self-defense, not war. Very few kinds of animals actually perform lethal forays against their own kind.
Animals fight over resources all the time. Bears over fishing holes, predators over kill, males over females.
And conversely, much of human war can be traced back to self defense as well. Offense is the best defense and all. Whatever one may think of the Israeli incursion into the West Bank, from their POV, it was strictly about making their existing settlements more defensible.
Calling things different arbitrary words, and then pretending those arbitrary classification take on some sort of role as first principles in deductive chains; really, really do not alter reality on the ground to any extent. Unless you want to get very technical and precise about the supposed differences between what aggressive forays, self defense, war, terrorism etc., etc. means; in the process invalidating 90+% of all colloquial uses of either term; all you end up doing is validating progressive charlatans and other Newspeak practitioners.
@ Stuki Moi
Because animals don’t have a concept/behavior of another’s property. Just mine and ours.
Like most human animals.
Animal behavior most certainly indicate they have some notion of another’s property. They tend to be pretty good about respecting each others territorial claims. And predators tend to stay away from others’ kills. And in both of those venues, give every indication of being aware that they have initiated conflict, when they do cross the line.
The average American has no idea what war is.
Ask an 85 year old German or Russian or Eastern European what war is.
Now there you’d be asking an expert.
Exactly – or a 10 year old Syrian.
When you blow a dandelion you have to be careful where the seeds escape to.
Without sealing escape routes it’s asking for trouble and more future mayhem not to mention innocents that suffer.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.co.uk/
This is smoke & mirrors. The CIA created ISIS, armed & trained them with US military tax dollars. Now they want to spend more US military tax dollars to kill them all. The only consistent fact through all of this is more & more tax dollars being spent meddling. Bigger budgets, moar weapons!
If there was a politician with a spine they would say ‘no more’. The Muslims hate each other worse than they hate us, but we are foreigners meddling in their affairs so the meddlers catch it from both sides.
When will we learn to mind our own business, and to prosecute any politician for war crimes when we senselessly attack other countries because we don’t like their leader? The warfare state does not have to be perpetual.
The terroists have declared war on civil society and have been waging it for many decades (centuries really). It does not matter what the USA does, the Islamic terror its will ALWAYS inflict civilian casualties . So the notion that if we do nothing, civilian consulted will not happpen is pure willful ignorance.
The best course of action is violent and very brutal force! This is what the Islamic terrorrists understand. Keep them in a position of submission, because once they have any power, they are abusive.
Devastate their ability to wage war and to enact terrorist tactics.
What is needed is intel on where and who the terrorist are. Mish whines about the civilian population, well, if they were to point the fingers at the “bad muslims”, we could eliminate them and that would make everyone’s lives better. However, the “good muslims” insists on protecting the bad ones. How are we to differentiate if they are unwilling to?
Here is the reality: I have no doubt we know who the leaders are, where they are and what they are up to. I have no doubt that we could destroy them all in very short order. But, like a doctor curing a patient, this means that revenue stream dries up.
The reason Islamic terrorists are allowed to flourish is because they are used to push the leftist agenda and they are used to justify the cost of the military industrial complex. These two forces are what keeps us from dealing decisive blows to these enemies.
Same as it was in Vietnam. Destroying the communist Vietnam government was easy, but why end a good profit center?
So I’m ALL FOR a very violent and decisive action against those who desire our death and demise…just don’t think it will happen. The Leftists in congress will not allow it to happen.
Thank God, we will finally have an end to ISIS. The whole region can return to a peaceful prosperous state where all the different sects will get along and never have any further disputes that could lead to the creation of another problem for us. Gone are the days of Saddam or ISIS or Sunni and Shia mistrust and conflict. Once this war is done all our problems will finally be solved and we can finally pull our troops out 100%. Thank God it’s almost over.
“Gone are the days of Saddam or ISIS or Sunni and Shia mistrust and conflict. ”
You have had the wool pulled over your eyes.
It has obviously escaped your attention that the Sunni/Shia issue pretty much never existed prior to US aggression.
Yes – this is the war to end wars!
It’s important to remember who is responsible for civilian casualties that result from a war against ISIS. ISIS and its leaders are responsible, just as the Nazis and Hitler were responsible for German civilian casualties in WW2. They started the fight, and they put their citizens in harm’s way.
When you are fighting a vicious ideological enemy like ISIS, lasting peace can only be achieved if the enemy becomes convinced he has no chance to win. That’s why it was important to extract an unconditional surrender from Hirohito and the Japanese general staff. Yes, we had to drop an atomic weapon to convince them they could not win, but this action completely broke their will to fight, and look at the outcome: 70 years of peace and prosperity.
ISIS is an outgrowth of radicalized Sunni Muslims who entered Iraq to fight the US and the subsequent Shia dominated government. So, in this case, we actually started the fight. They wouldn’t exist had we not invaded Iraq. And yes, like Germany, any US civilian casualties are a result of our choices on whom we’ve elected to high office.
Bullsh*t. Unconditional surrender was not necessary. Dropping an A-bomb on civilians was an act of barbarism – especially as the Roosevelt admin did everything it could to provoke Japan in the first place, including sailing a warship into Bungo strait in March ’41.
I’m sure the Chinese citizens of Nanking would disagree with your portrayal of the innocent Japanese, at least the few of them who survived the massacre would.
so you believe it’s perfectly reasonable to kill american civilians en mass ?
really
“Our intention is that the foreign fighters do not survive the fight to return home…” – Mattis
Mattis is lying – and Trump probably doesn’t realize it. If you are killing civilians, you are not killing ISIS fighters. You’re creating more of them.
As this was the US foreign policy establishment’s intention – creating terrorists to oust Assad – right from the beginning, nothing has changed.
What if the civilians killed are supporters and family of ISIS? If they aren’t destroyed as well, can the war ever be won?
what if the civilians killed are supporters and family of US military.
did you really mean to say that ?
ISIS is already killing innocent civilians, in case you haven’t noticed.
This BS is starting to make me ill. Cut their budget and ISIS will be gone in no time.
Russia knocked the wind out if them by blowing up their miles long oil convoys. The ones the greatest surveillance state in history curiously overlooked. The ones that were providing billion$ in monthly cashflow to ISIS that again the greatest surveillance state in history curiously overlooked.
And for all you supporters of the war against ISIS, what will you say 20 years from now when we are still there, still fighting incarnation version 4.0 of the problem? What is the final solution to us being involved in the region? When will it end? Is there anything we can or are willing to do to end it? Or are you ok with endless war?
20 years from now, the useless dredges of humanity we call lawyers and diplomats will still be telling the useless media pundits that civilians killed by war is awful, but civilians killed by procrastination as diplomats dine on 5-star meals and talk endlessly is somehow a good thing.
Only a lawyer would try to argue a death isn’t a death — and death by diplomatic dithering is still a death.
Like
Does the secretary include the Manchester civilians in his sentiment?
Off topic but important.
Chicago police are celebrating progress as there were only 44 shooting injuries and 5 murders in the city over the Memorial Day weekend, as opposed to 61 shooting injuries and 7 murders last year.
YTD only 235 murders compared with 244 last year. Almost makes me want to move there.
Let’s do the victory dance and celebrate.
It would be nice to pay a little less attention to the Islamic State Caliphate and a little more attention to what’s happening in our own backyard.
Haven’t you heard by now? The media pundits all voted for the crime family, and they don’t want to talk about how the city with the toughest gun control laws and decades of democrat rule is the murder capital of the country.
If a republican leaning city had fewer, but still too many shootings, you can be sure the propaganda outlets would harp on it endlessly.
We now return to the left’s desperate attempt to find a Trump Russia link, despite 11 straight months of endless harping and zero evidence. Here’s what the media outlets don’t want to find:
Obama tells Medvedev he will have “more flexibility” after election
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mgQaFlo_p8
Wonder why the FBI couldn’t google the same video?
I know. It’s a %&%*& joke.
I feel that I lost my beloved country for good about 10 years ago.
I’ve never seen it this bad.
“a fact of life”? That’s not what they were saying when the Syrian army and Russian air force liberated Aleppo. Then, they were all war criminals!
Through years and years of dithering, indecision and half-@ssed initiatives — diplomats have killed more civilians than Russian and US militaries combined
“Through years and years of dithering, indecision and half-@ssed initiatives — diplomats have killed more civilians than Russian and US militaries combined”
Each war affects the next war. The slaughter of WW1 affected WW2. Declaring war, was followed by the sitzkreig. Half the French men of military age were killed or wounded in WW1. Britain had large casualties as well. Those who call Chamberlain an appeaser, ignore that inconvenient detail.
WW2 affected Korea’s ‘forgotten war’. That China sent a horde into North Korea, resulted in no U.S. troops entering North Vietnam, as it also bordered China.
Bush didn’t have the needed 300,000 or more troops to occupy a nation of 24 million, but went into Iraq anyway. His blundering resulted in the democrats taking over congress in 2006 and Obama, the White House in 2008. That has lead us to where we are now, 350,000 or more dead in Syria, some 5 million refugees and a Muslim migrant invasion of Europe.
The Russians were a little more intelligent about this. The fall of Aleppo was accomplished by a lot of secret negotiations with various brigades holed up in Eastern Aleppo (human intel, as the CIA calls it). Despite all the accusations about genocide of 250k people (it turned out to be a lot less), Syria and Russia were ultimately successful in busing the brigades out and most of the civilian hostage population that they were keeping managed to flee. And that was despite the continuing efforts of uncle Sam to sabotage agreements and truces.
Glad to hear that both the KGB and CIA were running their plans by you for approval… at least in your mind.
Back in the real world, Russia released video of their armored helicopters firing machine guns into ISIS brigades without any western lawyers second guessing their every move.
The US military has as many lawyers as we do soldiers, and they spend endless hours second guessing the actions of soldiers — always from a safe warm court room thousands of miles away from actual fighting.
War for most individuals conjurers up visions of morality that few would ever bother to struggle with in their personal lives. As long a one can remain detached from way, any war, one can assume that high throne of judge and jury over others engages in conflict. so I will say this once and hope that a few individuals take note and ponder the idea. War is amoral. It always has been and always will be. It may be fought for the most stupid of reasons but once engages the struggle tends to become one of life and death. When it is a struggle for life and death, morals no longer apply.
Now let us talk about Syria. Are we at war with Syria? Not since the last meeting of Congress. We talk about being at war with ISIS but we haven’t exactly declared war with them according to the Geneva Convention, a document that makes a mockery of war and tried to make the conduct of war “moral”, a most laughable idea. Okay, so we haven’t exactly declared war or that a state of war exists between us and ISIS. Well, there is the problem that this war, as we like to call it is really an asymmetrical battle against the ideals, for lack of a better word, of a radical religious dictatorship in progress, and ourselves who like to believe that we represent truth, justice, and the American Way. And the radical religion that our “enemies” represent happens to be the religion of Islam, one that is violent, warlike, and without “western morals”. It has it’s own moral standard but that moral code is a bit haphazard and contradictory. One can find plenty of references, read plenty of Koran verses, and essentially come to the conclusion the religion of Islam is perverted and very deadly to human beings. If you thought the Spanish Inquisition was bad, just wait.
So now we are to publicly agonize over whether we should bomb ISIS back into the stone age and tack a few innocent civilians with them. Some call it collateral damage, some call it wanton murder. some could call it being in the wrong place at the wrong time or chance occurrence. Yes, not every civilian supports ISIS directly, but they do support their religion of Islam. And Islam says to kill the crusaders, meaning us whether we are Christians or not. No one asked if the children in Manchester were Christians.
What lesson are we to draw from history? Well, how many citizens of Germany did we bomb out of existence and how much damage did we to their infrastructure? Oh, that’s right, that was a moral war and moral wars allow as much killing and destruction because our cause is moral and just. Somehow I feel the sharp point of a petard, mine or someone else’s. for all you progressives out there. The world is unfair, it is unjust, and it doesn’t give a shit if you live or die. Get over yourselves. If you want to go to heaven then you must die.
Now for the other question. Just how effective will this consummate effort at mass destruction be? Unfortunately our military and the neocons think in terms of technology. We have the worlds best technology for fighting wars. Really? then how come we have not put all those arab moslems to flight and into a peaceful state of tranquility? Why is it that with cheap IEDs, ones that only cost a thousand dollars or less can they kill many of our troops and yet we spend billions killing a few hundred of theirs? These people are going to bankrupt us if we kill any more of them. Oh, sorry, we already are bankrupt. Never mind.
“In war there is no substitute for victory.”
General Douglas MacArthur
“You are not here to die for your country. Your job is to make some other dumb son of a bitch die for his country.”
“Kill them all. Kill them all, the long the short and the tall. When they get tired of it they’ll give up.”
General George S. Patton, Jr.
Mattis claims that ISIS, a bunch of dudes with jeeps and swords, are a threat to civilization. The claim is totally whacked. The reasonable conclusion is that our military training system for officers, of which he is a product, is producing military incompetents, and is a total waste of money.
This strategy of Mattis’s worked so well in Viet Nam. It is doing better here only because the American antiwar movement http://antiwar.com is ineffective.
Presidents violated the principles of war in Viet Nam. One must invade enemy territory and exterminate his will to resist. General Mattis is following the rule in Raqqa. Exterminate in place.
Your 1960s anti-war movement was too stoned to be effective or even to recognize that you achieved nothing.
The war ended because Nixon talked to the Chinese and realized the US wasn’t even fighting commies (the commies hated Vietnam too).
Vietnamese were fighting western european colonialism — they didn’t want France running things, and they didn’t want JFK / LBJ running things either.
Nixon covered up Watergate and was paranoid about a lot of things — but Nixon ended the Vietnam war. Not your stoned hippie protests.
Today’s stoned hippie protests ALSO don’t work — you are just sober enough to see it now.
Isn’t this exactly what ISIS wants? They want a conventional war. They expect to be destroyed, then they rise from the ashes to destroy the west. Why are we buying into their mythology?
“… compounding the suffering of people who have already endured years of civil war.”
It is not a civil war. The war is over a gas pipeline.
The massacres need to start in Washington. Kill the head of the snake.
I don’t think anyone here understands. You cannot win. That is not a wish or propaganda. These people are not even worth fighting, they are better left to their own. There is no banner of decency beyond the naivety born of good Americans that is perverted by their own. All achievement is as fleeting as an arrogance , but each failure mourns forever. You are becoming what you eat, there is no delight to be had beyond the temptation of the insatiable, the methodic anhilation is no more than a curse that will outlast all attempts at success.
Why the USA would destroy itself I don’t know, and there were you, thinking the destruction was taking place on the other side of the world.
It is taking place where it originates from, the rest just have to endure it, they know you will tire of the pastime, they know you will be destroyed for it, the moment you lift your foot back, or from continuing further.
I knew this in 2003, as did others. It makes no difference to say so, as even now still there are those who are pursuaded they can win.
The Romans fought three massive wars against the Carcigena (spelling?). The first two were fought the way lawyers want — the Romans had to fight fair, and respect human rights and safe spaces and not do anything to offend anyone’s gender norms or white priviledge or other Berkley bullsh!t (there is nothing innovative about Berkley, they just failed history class).
After two wars that Rome won handily, Rome’s patience for the safe space crowd was depleted.
In the third Roman-Carcigenian war, Rome burned the city to the ground. Male prisoners were forced to sow salt into the fields around the city, making the farmland infertile. Female prisoners were sold into slavery — and anyone who even looked at a Roman soldier funny was executed on the spot.
That 3rd war “officially” lasted over 2000 years, because Carcigena had no one left to sign surrender papers. Two milenia later, the location is still infertile land… if there were any stragglers that survived, they didn’t admit it — they moved to Tripoli and kept very very quiet for two thousand years.
Rome, as our censored school curriculum will tell you, was the cradle of western civilization. Law and order, massive civil engineering projects (some of which are still in use today), etc, etc.
And while you left wing extremists deceive yourselves about civilization, remember this: the first act of the US Navy, under direct orders of the US Congress — was to sail a fleet to what is now Tripoli and bombard the pirate city without mercy.
The Romans weren’t sissies. The US’s founding fathers weren’t sissies. Enough is enough — stop pretending this is a police action.
My summer adult beverages are starting to wear off.. I think the no-longer existent city I was trying to remember was named “Carthage”, not whatever drunk me wrote 🙂
Only matters for conveying the story to you. Carthage was completely wiped off the face of the Earth, permanently, by the Roman city-state that became the cradle of western civilization.
You can misspell history when you are drunk, but that is no excuse for being a sissy about what really happened
“War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.”
William Tecumseh Sherma
Also, ask yourself: if the shoe were on the other foot would Muslims be debating how to best shield “crusader” civilians from inadvertent harm?
Sheesh.
As Art Buchwald said at the time of Iran Contra “A moderate Iranian is one that is out of ammunition”. Ain’t no civilians in an ISIS caliphate
I am digusted with the aggression of some people towards others they don’t even know. I hope the USA goes bankrupt soon – it just might save the world.
I would say to the General what I once said to a young Lieutenant Commander who thought he knew best for the team … “Are you taking the point?”
consequences of all this wars is more bureaucracy less freedom.
and then one nice day you are going to find that you are not free people any more.
biggest enemy of American people is your own government.
you can not defeat guys in pajamas or turbans
The criminal supremacist cult running US foreign policy, controlling much of congress and pouring billions of US tax dollars and military hardware into their colonial abomination and generational expansion plan, seem to be preparing the next phase of the ongoing acquire and annex program. The balkanisation of Syria and Iraq has always been a priority and a key phase of the multi-generational expansion plan which seems to be on schedule.
As always getting others to fight, die and pay for their wars of expansion and acquisition has taken a little time to prepare but the export of a little international terrorism soon gets the goy onside..
As the fighting draws nearer to a close we are now seeing Mosul back in the news. Clearly, before it is over the once great and ancient city of Mosul will be reduced to nothing more than a pile of rubble. The fact is Mosul should never have never fallen.
The blood and treasure wasted and spent in Iraq are in many ways a reflection and the legacy of intervening where you don’t belong. When this campaign is over victory will be declared but what exactly will we be celebrating? More on this subject in the article below.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2017/05/mosuls-transformation-into-pile-of.html
Annihilate ISIS, eh? What’s he gonna do? Bomb Langley?!?
Crysangle
said:
“I don’t think anyone here understands. You cannot win.”
correct
enemy is everywhere:
Fourth generation warfare (4GW) is a concept defined by William S. Lind and expanded by Thomas X. Hammes, used to describe the decentralized nature of modern warfare. The simplest definition includes any war in which one of the major participants is not a state but rather a violent ideological network. Fourth Generation wars are characterized by a blurring of the lines between war and politics, combatants and civilians, conflicts and peace, battlefields and safety.
While this term is similar to terrorism and asymmetric warfare, it is much narrower. Classical insurgencies and the Indian Wars are examples of pre-modern wars, not 4GW. Fourth generation warfare usually has the insurgency group or non-state side trying to implement their own government or reestablish an old government over the one currently running the territory. The blurring of lines between state and non-state is further complicated in a democracy by the power of the media.
If you’re gonna take a quotation out of context, then don’t link back to the source that makes you look foolish. Amateur hour here.
What else does Mattis say?
“We do everything humanly possible consistent with military necessity, taking many chances to avoid civilian casualties at all costs.”
So civilian casualties do, in fact, matter at least one bit.
Which is why the US media seeks to dehumanise and demonise those civilians in advance, so that when it slaughters them as it has for decades in the ME, on behalf of and at the abomination’s bidding, the public cheer, at least the simplistic binary nut jobs who number far too many do.
Huh? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LSIwvE0Nvo&t=2907s If they wanted to do that, they would have to bomb Quatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuweit and Turkey…