Friday, November 20, 2015

Can U.S. Special Forces Defeat The Islamic State In Syria And Iraq?



Mike Rogers, CNN: Can Special Forces defeat ISIS in Syria and Iraq?

(CNN)President Obama said his current strategy on ISIS is working and that the death of 129 people in Paris is a "setback." He also said ISIS is contained, despite ISIS claiming credit for the downing of a Russian airliner over Egypt, the death of dozens in a bombing in Beirut, and the other 31 successful global attacks by ISIS and its affiliates this year.

The recent announcement by the White House that not more than 50 special operations forces will be dispatched to help coordinate the fight against ISIS was heralded by some as evidence of the administration's seriousness on the issue. As CNN reported, this represented "the most significant escalation of the American military campaign against [ISIS]." Unfortunately, enthusiasm must be tempered by reality. Though it was a very small step in the right direction, it does not represent a grand strategy.

Time after time, military advisers have said special operations forces are not a cure-all. And we have bombed ISIS in Syria for over a year, yet three of their deadliest attacks have happened in the last three weeks.

WNU Editor: It took the U.S. tens of thousands of American soldiers, coalition allies, and Iraqi Sunni Arab allies to defeat the insurgency in western Iraq. The idea that a few dozen/hundred U.S. special forces soldiers can do the same thing .... hmmm .... I doubt it.

5 comments:

Jay Farquharson said...

WNU Editor,

Technically, the Sunni Insurgency was never defeated. They just adapted to the Surge, joined up with the Awakening for the free money, arms and training, and bided their time.

The ones that couldn't "blend in", moved to Syria for the free money, arms and training, and simply changed their targets to Syrian Soldiers instead of American ones and just kept on killing (different) Shia's, Kurds and Christians, (Syrian ones).

Jay Farquharson said...

WNU Editor,

BTW, a tip for you

I have found no video of U.S. hits on Islamic State oil tanker assemblies.

The U.S. PBS NewsHour did not find any either.

In their TV report yesterday about Islamic State financing and the claimed U.S. hits on oil trucks they used the videos Russia provided without revealing the source. You can see the Russian videos played within an interview with a U.S. military spokesperson at 2:22 min.

The U.S. military spokesperson speaks on camera about U.S. airforce hits against the Islamic State. The video cuts to footage taken by Russian airplanes hitting oil tanks and then trucks. The voice-over while showing the Russian video with the Russians blowing up trucks says: "For the first time the U.S. is attacking oil delivery trucks." The video then cuts back to the U.S. military spokesperson.

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2015/11/pbs-uses-russian-airstrike-videos-to-claim-us-airstrike-successes.html#comments

War News Updates Editor said...

Jay. Sometimes late at night I listen to a radio station in Moscow (it is morning there). It has a talk radio format, and while I tune it out when it comes to internal Russian politics, it has great coverage on issues overseas. Wednesday morning a guest with contacts in the Russian government did mention that this U.S. strike was all baloney. Your link is the second time that I have heard that this U.S. air-strike was limited in scope .... if it did happen.

Jay Farquharson said...

WNU Editor,

It's not just the airstrikes,

It's PBS News Hour "seamlessly" using Russian MoD cottage with out attribution to "push" the narrative.

They arn't even trying anymore to hide the propaganda.

Anonymous said...

The Sunnis were like the reed. http://www.aesopfables.com/cgi/aesop1.cgi?3&TheOakandtheReeds