{"id":15297,"date":"2014-09-11T12:02:35","date_gmt":"2014-09-11T19:02:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=15297"},"modified":"2014-09-15T10:26:45","modified_gmt":"2014-09-15T17:26:45","slug":"strategery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=15297","title":{"rendered":"Strategery"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"w1-s1-iraqwrap-a-20140625-870x579\"Over the span of my life, Islam has been a consistently destructive force.\u00a0Sure,\u00a0religious fanatics in other parts of the world have started wars, but for pure hate-driven\u00a0evil\u00a0nothing tops the Muslims. Islam turns much of its\u00a0destructive force inward against\u00a0fellow\u00a0Muslims; still, it\u00a0has plenty left over to direct\u00a0against\u00a0Israel, and with\u00a0the 9\/11 terror attacks in the USA and subsequent attacks in Spain and the UK, Islam declared war on the West as well.<\/p>\n

The President spoke to the nation last night, outlining a strategy for dealing with the latest outbreak of Muslim fanaticism as embodied by the group called Islamic State. The speech was an obvious (and somewhat craven, it seemed to me) apology\u00a0for earlier saying he didn’t have a strategy.\u00a0But what he said last night was no more than a restatement of the strategy he’s had all along: we go after terrorist leaders and kill them, and that’s what we’re going to do to the leadership of Islamic State. There’s nothing new in Obama saying we won’t respect borders in this effort, witness us going into nominally-friendly Pakistan to kill Osama bin Laden. There’s nothing new in saying we’re going to\u00a0employ drones and piloted aircraft to conduct surveillance and air strikes; it’s what Obama’s done\u00a0all along.<\/p>\n

One of the\u00a0last things Obama wants is to go back into\u00a0Iraq. Probably the very last thing he wants is to invade and occupy yet another Middle Eastern country, namely Syria. But here, I think, his strategy doesn’t match reality. Not going back into Iraq\u00a0depends on Iraqis being willing to fight Islamic State inside their own country. Not\u00a0sending ground forces\u00a0into Syria in pursuit of Islamic State fighters depends on other\u00a0Middle Eastern nations\u00a0being willing to do so.<\/p>\n

Do the Iraqis have the\u00a0will to fight and defeat Islamic State? Are\u00a0other\u00a0Middle Eastern nations willing to go into Syria to root out Islamic State? The answer to both\u00a0questions, as far as I can tell, is “Are you kidding?”<\/p>\n

Obama wants to restrict our own military actions against Islamic State to air strikes.\u00a0He says we’re not putting boots on the ground, but American airmen are flying combat and it’s inevitable some of them are going to have to eject over Iraq or Syria, the countries we’ll have to fly over in order to conduct air strikes against Islamic State. When that happens, our airmen will be captured and paraded before the media before being beheaded. How does Obama’s strategy address that?<\/p>\n

Like many, I’m sick to death of Islamic fanaticism. I don’t see any viable resolution to the current unacceptable situation\u00a0in Iraq and Syria. Talk of arming Syrian “moderates” is simply insane. We armed Osama bin Laden as part of our proxy war against the Soviet Union during the 1980s and 90s. We armed Saddam Hussein before that. We armed the Saudis, who, it is finally beginning to be revealed, were deeply involved in the 9\/11 terror attacks on America. The “moderate” Syrian rebel groups we wanted to arm a year ago are the very rebels\u00a0who sold kidnapped American journalist James Foley to Islamic State, which turned around and beheaded him. Working with Muslim moderates is bullshit.\u00a0We’ve been bitten over and over again; when will we learn?<\/p>\n

As for non-viable strategies, there are plenty of those, and plenty of politicians like John McCain who’d like nothing better than to go for broke\u00a0…\u00a0and break the world in the process.<\/p>\n

We could, for example, invade Iraq all over again, along with Syria. Yeah. Does anyone think we have the national will to do something like that? Does anyone think such an invasion and occupation would require less than a decades-long commitment and\u00a0a\u00a0WWII level of mobilization, up to and including a military draft? Does anyone think neighboring states in the Middle East would remain stable in the face of a massive American incursion and permanent military presence? Does anyone think Iran or Russia will stand by and twiddle their thumbs while we march into Damascus?<\/p>\n

I must admit, the thought of dropping neutron bombs on Iraq and Syria has occurred to me. Kill the people without destroying\u00a0the infrastructure, wait for the radiation to die down, then move in and start pumping oil\u00a0… that’s\u00a0what neutron bombs\u00a0are for, am I right?<\/p>\n

But now that we’ve indulged our vengeful fantasies, we have to return to reality. What can we do about Islamic State? Obama’s strategy for dealing with terrorist groups has been effective. We haven’t had any repeats of 9\/11; Al Qaeda has been emasculated. But is Islamic State just another terrorist group like Al Qaeda, or is it an actual state, like Iraq or Syria? Will the tactics that work\u00a0against Al Qaeda work against\u00a0Islamic State?<\/p>\n

I wish I\u00a0could tell\u00a0President Obama what he should do. Maybe the time has come to form an alliance with the Iranians … but they’re Muslim fanatics too, and not to be trusted ever. How can you work with Islam, period? Damn it, I keep coming back to kill ’em all.<\/p>\n

Obama’s doing the right thing in exercising restraint, in refusing to be buffaloed into renewed combat\u00a0in Iraq, or, god forbid, a new ground war in Syria. I’m glad he’s our President, and not some warmonger like John McCain. But Obama\u00a0has to know he’s temporizing; he has to know he’ll be forced to do something stronger when Islamic State gets it murderous hands on American aircrews or some of our “non-combatant” advisors in Iraq.<\/p>\n

I’m certain Obama and the military have thought this through and developed\u00a0strategies\u00a0to deal with a worsening situation; I’m equally certain he shouldn’t\u00a0share these strategies beforehand with\u00a0the American people, no matter how loudly craven politicians and the media howl, because if you reveal your strategy to us, you reveal it to the enemy as well. I think we’ll be there soon enough, and Obama knows this.<\/p>\n

Did Obama really need to address the nation\u00a0last night? If it weren’t the anniversary of 9\/11, I’d say no. He has a strategy; he’s had one all along; he doesn’t need to apologize for a verbal gaffe. He’s\u00a0done a good job of sticking to his\u00a0strategy; he’s kept us out of the kind of stupid military disasters his predecessor specialized in getting us into. As for tipping his hand to the enemy, he didn’t give them\u00a0any usable intel:\u00a0he let them know we’re coming for them, not necessarily how or when, and that is all to the good.<\/p>\n

It is, however,\u00a0the anniversary of the\u00a09\/11 attacks. Even if it weren’t for the recent beheadings of American journalists, even if it weren’t for the growing chorus of voices demanding action against Islamic State,\u00a0Americans would still be thinking about\u00a0Muslim terrorism, as we do every year at this time. Because of that, I believe\u00a0it was necessary for President Obama\u00a0to address the nation and reassure us he’s on the job.<\/p>\n

This, then, is my 9\/11 memorial post. Go git ’em, Mr. President.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the span of my life, Islam has been a consistently destructive force.\u00a0Sure,\u00a0religious fanatics in other parts of the world have started wars, but for pure hate-driven\u00a0evil\u00a0nothing tops the Muslims. Islam turns much of its\u00a0destructive force inward against\u00a0fellow\u00a0Muslims; still, it\u00a0has plenty left over to direct\u00a0against\u00a0Israel, and with\u00a0the 9\/11 terror attacks in the USA and subsequent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,189,64,16,14,8,22,9],"tags":[193,1116,1660,88,1661,1333,1963],"class_list":["post-15297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-extremism","category-history","category-media","category-military","category-politics","category-terrorism","category-war","tag-193","tag-iraq","tag-islamic-state","tag-obama","tag-strategy","tag-syria","tag-terrorism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15297"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15338,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15297\/revisions\/15338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}