ISIS - Stronger than Anticipated?

ISIS - Stronger than Anticipated?

Author
Discussion

Grumfutock

5,274 posts

164 months

Friday 22nd May 2015
quotequote all
5ohmustang said:
Grumfutock said:
Who said it would be a "swift sweep across their territory". It would be a quick (ish) victory to occupy the land but followed by a very long and drawn out incursion with many IED's and rocket attacks. We think Iraq/Stan was bad? In the Stan the Talli learnt very quickly they couldn't win a stand up battle without air and arty power so they went for hit and run, IED and sniper attacks. They were/are very effective at it.

Other alternative is to defeat them on the ground then pull out only for them or another to fill the vacuum. Exaxctly what has happen after we pulled out of Iraq in the first place (I await the result of the Stan) or are you suggesting we stay for 50 years?
Reading crap like this pisses me off, total b.s. I was in OEF and we stood up to every battle encountered regardless of air support or batteries.
OK my friend, where do I say the Brits or the Yanks did not stand up (with or without air power or arty) in any battle?

May I suggest you read my post again? I will await your retraction.


Edited by Grumfutock on Friday 22 May 17:59

V8 Fettler

7,019 posts

131 months

Friday 22nd May 2015
quotequote all
scherzkeks said:
V8 Fettler said:
However, the attacks on the World Trade Centre demonstrate that isolationism doesn't work.
You belive Arabs wanted to kill Americans on account of their lack of meddling in the ME? You may want to rethink that.
The US had the opportunity to maintain influence in Afghanistan after the defeat of the Red Army, the US declined this opportunity, hence Afghanistan descended into chaos, allowing the rise of the Taliban and subsequent hosting of Al Qaeda.

V8 Fettler

7,019 posts

131 months

Friday 22nd May 2015
quotequote all
Grumfutock said:
V8 Fettler said:
One week of fighting will quell ISIS, see Western action in Afghanistan 2001 for similar. Regular US troops arrived in numbers in Afghanistan late November, the Taliban had already fled Kabul, the Taliban surrendered Kandahar early December.

There may well be a guerilla war, there will certainly be casualties. The world is a nasty place.

The US are more than capable of bringing long term peace to the warring factions, see US occupation of Western Europe and the Marshall plan 1945 onwards. However, if the US can prosper without Arab oil then - understandably - the US will probably follow a policy of containment. However, the attacks on the World Trade Centre demonstrate that isolationism doesn't work.
Sorry V8 but again that's rollox.

You can not compare the Marshall plan and 1945 Europe to 2015 Syria/Iraq.

Also the US forces may well of defeated the Taliban in a set piece battle in 2001 but they sure as hell NEVER defeated them or contained them as a fighting force in over 10 years of pitched battle.
In 2003 we took Iraq in 6 weeks but again we never defeated the opposition.

Germany/Italy 1945 complete defeat and unconditional surrender. MASSIVE difference, sorry.

Please stop apologising.

The key political objective and intention of the US re: Europe 1941 onwards (and particularly 1945 onwards) was long term involvement (it still continues). I don't know what the current key political objective and intention is re: Afghanistan or Iraq. Perhaps there isn't one, that being the primary difference.


Grumfutock

5,274 posts

164 months

Saturday 23rd May 2015
quotequote all
5ohmustang said:
bks, my apologies.
No problem. FYI I went through Iraq in 2003 with the US Army V Corps as a Brit Liaison Officer.

BlackLabel

13,251 posts

122 months

Saturday 23rd May 2015
quotequote all
QuantumTokoloshi said:
I suspect a good number of ISIS cadre are ex Iraqi military in any case.
yes

The hidden hand behind the Islamic State militants? Saddam Hussein’s.

washingtonpost said:
SANLIURFA, Turkey — When Abu Hamza, a former Syrian rebel, agreed to join the Islamic State, he did so assuming he would become a part of the group’s promised Islamist utopia, which has lured foreign jihadists from around the globe.

Instead, he found himself being supervised by an Iraqi emir and receiving orders from shadowy Iraqis who moved in and out of the battlefield in Syria. When Abu Hamza disagreed with fellow commanders at an Islamic State meeting last year, he said, he was placed under arrest on the orders of a masked Iraqi man who had sat silently through the proceedings, listening and taking notes.

Abu Hamza, who became the group’s ruler in a small community in Syria, never discovered the Iraqis’ real identities, which were cloaked by code names or simply not revealed. All of the men, however, were former Iraqi officers who had served under Saddam Hussein, including the masked man, who had once worked for an Iraqi intelligence agency and now belonged to the Islamic State’s own shadowy security service, he said.

His account, and those of others who have lived with or fought against the Islamic State over the past two years, underscore the pervasive role played by members of Iraq’s former Baathist army in an organization more typically associated with flamboyant foreign jihadists and the gruesome videos in which they star.

Even with the influx of thousands of foreign fighters, almost all of the leaders of the Islamic State are former Iraqi officers, including the members of its shadowy military and security committees, and the majority of its emirs and princes, according to Iraqis, Syrians and analysts who study the group.

They have brought to the organization the military expertise and some of the agendas of the former Baathists, as well as the smuggling networks developed to avoid sanctions in the 1990s and which now facilitate the Islamic State’s illicit oil trading.
Mods - with the copy and paste rules in mind I have only posted the first few paragraphs, hope that is okay.

scherzkeks

4,460 posts

133 months

Saturday 23rd May 2015
quotequote all
V8 Fettler said:
The US had the opportunity to maintain influence in Afghanistan after the defeat of the Red Army, the US declined this opportunity, hence Afghanistan descended into chaos, allowing the rise of the Taliban and subsequent hosting of Al Qaeda.
Two wars, drone strikes, and countless proxy wars don't add up to isolationism, I'm afraid.

V8 Fettler

7,019 posts

131 months

Sunday 24th May 2015
quotequote all
scherzkeks said:
V8 Fettler said:
The US had the opportunity to maintain influence in Afghanistan after the defeat of the Red Army, the US declined this opportunity, hence Afghanistan descended into chaos, allowing the rise of the Taliban and subsequent hosting of Al Qaeda.
Two wars, drone strikes, and countless proxy wars don't add up to isolationism, I'm afraid.
Your timeline and geography is flawed re: US failure to maintain influence in Afghanistan 1989 - 2001

Transmitter Man

4,253 posts

223 months

Sunday 24th May 2015
quotequote all
Just watched this again: https://youtu.be/Ra7mHzBodvM

You have to smile.

Phil

superkartracer

8,959 posts

221 months

Sunday 24th May 2015
quotequote all
V8 Fettler said:
The West could subdue and subjugate ISIS/people that don't like us within one week
Like they have over the last 20 years?, yeah thats worked well...

Only thing the West is good at, is creating debt, that really has gone very well smile

BlackLabel

13,251 posts

122 months

Sunday 24th May 2015
quotequote all
Donald Rumsfeld said:
I can't tell you if the use of force in Iraq today would last five days, or five weeks, or five months, but it certainly isn't going to last any longer than that.
http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=3283

scherzkeks

4,460 posts

133 months

Sunday 24th May 2015
quotequote all
V8 Fettler said:
Your timeline and geography is flawed re: US failure to maintain influence in Afghanistan 1989 - 2001
Here is a handy timeline from 1920-2001. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article63...


V8 Fettler

7,019 posts

131 months

Monday 25th May 2015
quotequote all
superkartracer said:
Like they have over the last 20 years?, yeah thats worked well...

Only thing the West is good at, is creating debt, that really has gone very well smile
You've misrepresented my earlier post by editing within your quote.

The US hasn't attempted to subdue or subjugate any populations in the last 20 years.

V8 Fettler

7,019 posts

131 months

Monday 25th May 2015
quotequote all
BlackLabel said:
Donald Rumsfeld said:
I can't tell you if the use of force in Iraq today would last five days, or five weeks, or five months, but it certainly isn't going to last any longer than that.
http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=3283
I doubt if Rumsfeld and his cronies had any concept of what would follow after the removal from power of Saddam Hussain and the Taliban. Lack of long term political objectives.

V8 Fettler

7,019 posts

131 months

Monday 25th May 2015
quotequote all
scherzkeks said:
V8 Fettler said:
Your timeline and geography is flawed re: US failure to maintain influence in Afghanistan 1989 - 2001
Here is a handy timeline from 1920-2001. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article63...
Which shows the lack of US involvement in Afghanistan 1989 - 2001.

trashbat

6,005 posts

152 months

Monday 25th May 2015
quotequote all
What, like this lack of involvement?

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruise_missile_stri...

V8 Fettler

7,019 posts

131 months

Monday 25th May 2015
quotequote all
trashbat said:
What, like this lack of involvement?

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruise_missile_stri...
A one-off feeble slap aimed at Osama Bin Laden, made no difference to Afghanistan's future course.

Atmospheric

5,305 posts

207 months

Wednesday 27th May 2015
quotequote all
scherzkeks said:
Timmy40 said:
Either that or the tactics of most Middle Eastern armies are based on the battle scenes in 'Monty Python in Search of the Holy Grail'......
It is quite interesting. Some prominent Iraqi politicans and military brass (Brigadier General Mohammed Reza Naqdi) have stated that the US appears to be airdropping supplies to ISIS. Naqdi's statements are particularly interesting. Videos exist, but don't really confirm anything.

Also, when one considers how easy ISIS targets should be to pick out and destroy in that terrain with current tech., it seems rather hard to believe that they are able to simply plow through territory at the rate they do. Their ability to operate high-tech US military hardware with no training is also quite impressive...
Very odd to me as well.

QuantumTokoloshi

4,161 posts

216 months

Tuesday 9th June 2015
quotequote all
Well, this may partly answer this question. USA complicity in creation of ISIS.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-06-08/ex-us-int...

This, if true, makes a lot of sense, particularly this part.

“The idea of breaking up the large Arab states into ethnic or sectarian enclaves is an old Ben Gurion ‘canard,’ and splitting Iraq along sectarian lines has been Vice President Biden’s recipe since the Iraq war,” wrote Crooke, who had coordinated British assistance to the Afghan mujahideen in the 1980s. After his long MI6 stint, he became Middle East advisor to the European Union’s foreign policy chief (1997–2003).

“But the idea of driving a Sunni ‘wedge’ into the landline linking Iran to Syria and to Hezbollah in Lebanon became established Western group think in the wake of the 2006 war, in which Israel failed to de-fang Hezbollah,” continued Crooke. “The response to 2006, it seemed to Western powers, was to cut off Hezbollah from its sources of weapons supply from Iran…

“… In short, the DIA assessment indicates that the ‘wedge’ concept was being given new life by the desire to pressure Assad in the wake of the 2011 insurgency launched against the Syrian state. ‘Supporting powers’ effectively wanted to inject hydraulic fracturing fluid into eastern Syria (radical Salafists) in order to fracture the bridge between Iran and its Arab allies, even at the cost of this ‘fracking’ opening fissures right down inside Iraq to Ramadi. (Intelligence assessments purpose is to provide ‘a view’?—?not to describe or prescribe policy. But it is clear that the DIA reports’ ‘warnings’ were widely circulated and would have been meshed into the policy consideration.)

“But this ‘view’ has exactly come about. It is fact. One might conclude then that in the policy debate, the notion of isolating Hezbollah from Iran, and of weakening and pressurizing President Assad, simply trumped the common sense judgment that when you pump highly toxic and dangerous fracturing substances into geological formations, you can never entirely know or control the consequences… So, when the GCC demanded a ‘price’ for any Iran deal (i.e. massing ‘fracking’ forces close to Aleppo), the pass had been already partially been sold by the US by 2012, when it did not object to what the ‘supporting powers’ wanted.”

LastLight

1,339 posts

183 months

Tuesday 9th June 2015
quotequote all
Oh dear. Does this mean it will contribute to global warming?


Far worse than ISIS after all, the Pope thinks so and he must know!

Oh, and God love America...and her lapdogs. I wonder if Blair has a contract supplying fracking cream?

thetapeworm

11,191 posts

238 months

Monday 29th June 2015
quotequote all

While war rages on many corporations around the world make huge profits from them, for this very reason alone ISIS will continue until they evolve into the next major threat to scare people via the media.

Politicians want war and as long as this continues war profiteering will see billions of pounds diverted from actively fighting a threat to simply lining the pockets of individuals in one way or another.

What shocks me more than anything is that the highly polished professional videos ISIS constantly produce of people being submerged while locked in cages (with GoPro camera attached), people being set on fire in cages, people in rows having their heads blown off by carefully wrapped detonation cord, crucifixions, people being thrown off buildings, random executions of police officers on the streets and 100's of IED attacks don't get any media coverage to further brainwash the world into accepting that we should divert resources to these places to try and make a difference. Perhaps people would ask more questions if they knew this stuff was happening rather than just deciding that the whole are is packed with corrupt "arabs" who all need to die.

Dirty Wars - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN4Sn5u_pK0 - highlights just one element of this, the state-sanctioned assassinations of targets around the world, even including US citizens.

Ultimately questions need to be asked and answered much closer to home before we have any hope of seeing an end to any of this.