Can IS Ultimately Be Defeated? -- Andre de Nesnera, Voice of America
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Congress has authorized funds to train and equip moderate Syrian rebels fighting the Sunni extremist group known as the Islamic State. President Barack Obama has vowed “to degrade and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State.
It has taken over a vast territory in Iraq and Syria. It has carried out mass killings, said to have sold women and children as slaves and beheaded, among others, two Americans and one Briton.
Since August, the United States has launched air strikes against Islamic State positions in Iraq. Obama has also approved air strikes on IS targets in Syria.
Ultimately, what can be done to defeat the group, also known as ISIL or ISIS?
Read more ....
Update: Be Afraid: Why America Will Never Defeat ISIS -- Micah Zenko, National Interest
My Comment: How do you destroy an idea .... a philosophy .... a concept .... you destroy it with determination, unity, an acceptance that such a conflict may last a lifetime, sacrifice, preparation and planing, leadership, and .... the most important thing of them all .... the will to win. Unfortunately .... all of these ingredients are presently absent in our war against the Islamic State .... especially the "will to win" part.
4 comments:
You destroy it by having a leader with the will to defeat ISIS the way Rome defeated Carthage.
How moral is it to continue gambling the lives of 6 billion human beings against the odds that one of the 30 million in the Middle East won't let loose the devastating plague they seek? Or trigger the final nuclear war they see as a desired destiny?
30 million or 6 billion. The 30 million have said over and over and over again that a super-majority of them support those who seek to cause an apocalyptic war. Take them at their word that such is their intent and remove the cancer before it metastasises further.
That's pretty much the only way ISIS, al Quedea, Hezbollah, Hamas, the PLO and all of the other thousands of their ancestor and child organizations will be defeated.
But the civilized world doesn't work like that and so nothing will be done, and so civilization shall fall. There will likely be some surviving pockets of humanity - we're a tough species and folks like Pashtun tribesmen wouldn't even notice the fall of 'civilization', so the species will continue.
I wonder what the next civilization will be like?
Orion
The capability is there and the will to win is also there but the politics are whats putting the brakes on anything reasonable taking place. The us cannot win a conflict/war and please everyone involved. It will take a pearl harbor type of event to get the ball rolling and that still may not be enough. Think 9-11 and see where that has left us
How about offering a legitimate alternative to savagery and tribal and religous wars? How about giving them hope that some day this cycle of violence will end because they can rely on the rule of law instead of the whim of some asshole sputing to believe in a religon simply to gain power?
Orion is advocating total destruction of the region to stop somethign that MIGHT happen without any evidence that it could happen. That's idiotic.
But he does have one point, if we're going to do soemthing, we need to really do it. The pinprick strikes we are doing now isn't affectign their operational capability. We need to pin down their forces and then destroy them. Unfortunately, that's like hitting a pool of mercury with a hammer.
I'm not advocating anything - I'm stating what it will take to achieve victory over this particular cancer.
And as for offering a legitimate alternative, they had that. Lebanon used to be amazing, with Beirut hailed as the Paris of the Med. Kabul was a cosmopolitan city with females in college and research institutes. Iran was a modern nation.
They have chosen to go BACK to the 9th century. They have chosen savagery and murder and tribal and religious wars. They were given ANOTHER chance in Iraq to choose peace and civilization, and again chose savagery and tribal and religious wars.
The future is not bright.
Orion
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