nil8r153 said:
Yeah sorry, quote was originally all I was gonna address but it isn't fair to ignore half a person's argument so I shared my overall thoughts.
No I don't believe the US is capable of getting a Jihadi group to work with them outright these days, I am saying that they are convenient to the US agenda and easy to herd.
"In this magic wipe away move, do you think it would be possible without a single civilian death? I mean do you think they could pinpoint every single member of ISIS and have them fall over dead without a single civilian death? "
No, you are right that would definitely cause the loss of some innocent lives, and you are right my bolded statement would still apply - what the heck am I on about then?
What I meant by my last statement is they undoubtedly have the ability to wipe out ISIS and the world would not object. They had this ability when they were a smaller group too. The whole crux of the argument that "they can't be blamed for taking innocent lives when ISIS are using them as shields" depends on the assumption that US involvement is a must to begin with- It isn't the US' duty to get involved, they don't HAVE TO bomb anyone and they are not "saving" anyone.
Western involvement is what has kept the Muslim nations divided since the fall of the khilafah in 1924 and even before that, through proxy leaders, the nationalism they crafted and injected into the society and many other factors - I do not want to deviate the topic too much. |
Yes we could withdraw air support, but then it would become a brutal war of attrition. History has shown that. We don't have much on the ground, btw. It's almost all air support.
As for whiping out ISIL, most of the US population is strenuously opposed to more boots on the ground, a president marching 100,000 troops into ISIL territory would be political suicide. And besides, the ground forces currently there are winning with air support. And even with boots on the ground civilian casualties would be high, history shows this. It's a fact of war. So short of boots on the ground, annihilation of ISIL could be done via our 100+ heavy bomber fleet but the collateral damage would be enormous. And as for the world not objecting, you don't watch the same media I do cause if they flip over 82 accidental deaths, what d you think they would say to 100× that number? Cause that's the reality of that kind of campaign.
As for US agendas there, Obama and Congress have been trying to disentangle us from this mess for years because whatever reasons we had for being there is far outweighed by the growing negativity in the public eye about any boots-on-the-ground involvement. But the US gov also doesn't want to show weakness. It's all politics really, there isn't much in the way of resources over there we need to be brutally honest. Not to give the impression I think most of our gov cares about Iraq, they don't. They just care about appearances. It's still a callous, calculated stance. Just not the one you're thinking of.
My overall point here: this is the cost of war, casualties like this would come either by a US drone or an Iraqi or Syrian rifle or tank. Welcome to back to real war. It's been a while, but this is what it's like.
Edit: And yes, I do agree western intervention in the middle east has mostly been a train wreck. It worked mostly in the far east but its clear we have not accomplished nearly that in the ME. We were unprepared for how things would go, that much is clear and I personally think we played right into the hands of those who formed ISIL.
