Saudi boys need to die before American boys. There, I said it. And while we’re at it, you can throw in Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey. If their kids don’t fight the war against ISIS, your kids will.
This war is unacceptable, as well as unconstitutional. This needs to be shouted from the rooftops of every small town in America before a single American boy returns home in a body bag, or missing body parts.
The countries with the most to lose in the growing ISIS war are, once again, hiding behind America. This collective group of parasitic states talk tough but cut and run at any sign of real conflict, leaving the US holding the bag, taking the blame, and paying the bills.
ISIS does not pose enough of a clear and present danger to the US homeland to warrant the Peace Prize president’s decision to escalate our involvement in, what history will likely view as, a Muslim civil war. Over three thousand boots are already on the ground (no matter how the Administration spins it), and they still want more of our boys.
There should not be a single functioning piece of heavy weaponry in ISIS-controlled areas if the number of sorties being broadcasted are to be believed. You can’t hide tanks and heavy weaponry from thermal imaging and modern airborne surveillance systems. ISIS has no navy, no air force, and no electronic countermeasures, yet the war mongers act as though ISIS will soon be launching an assault right out of the movie Red Dawn on downtown USA. ISIS is a pickup truck army with RPGs and AK-47s that even the most inept Middle Eastern country could destroy if they had the will.
This war train has left the station using semantics and legalese games–giving political cover to its advocates in case something goes wrong. God forbid even one US serviceman ends up being burned alive in a cage. So if an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, the US should step back and push the Middle Eastern players to the front of the line for a change.
America is cut from a different cloth than most countries; we fight. We love to fight. It is in our country’s DNA, but it is a nature we must constantly keep in check, just like a campfire in a drought ridden forest needs vigilant attention. Washington and Jefferson both warned us of this. They understood human nature and the American spirit more than many of the present day academics and leaders. Their guidance was toward a non-interventionist (think Switzerland) foreign policy, lest we find ourselves fighting for all the wrong reasons (see Vietnam and Iraq 2.0). This war is not our fight.
People who choose not to fight are no better than those who can’t fight. Liberty must be earned. Many US soldiers who have served in the Middle East will privately confess that much of that population cannot be counted on when the going gets tough, with the possible exception of the Kurds and Jordanians. Muslim countries must take ownership of their own problems and must fully commit their own boys’ blood and treasure, for a change, in doing so.
The US seems to love pouring money down holes all throughout the region, squandering billions with no consequences for failure. Almost no one ever loses their job for being wrong and are often rewarded with promotions instead of pink slips. Over $25 billion (8 billion of it to just outright fraud) has already been wasted training the Iraqi Army, making the French look like Rambo. Duffel bags of cash with no accountability will soon return, raining like manna from heaven courtesy of a bankrupt American middleclass. Places like Detroit should take note and declare war on Washington, D.C. the next time they need a bailout.
“Training a new force” is part of the script used to placate the US public into falsely believing that we will soon mind our own business. This is just a stalling tactic to the inevitable full-blown deployment. The reason for this is that the American public must first be sold into a “state of fear” mindset.
Destroying ISIS’ strongholds cannot stop sympathetic supporters around the world from martyring themselves. Purchasing more F35s and building another aircraft carrier will not tip the scales in our favor. After a century of boondoggles, we still haven’t learned that bombs don’t change people’s minds. You can’t bomb an ideology into submission. This is more about hearts and minds, not tanks and missiles.
In this first publicly acknowledged cyberwar it looks like Anonymous is striking more effective (and less expensive) blows than the US military. Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube-like portals are the recruiting grounds that need to be choked off more than weapon supply lines.
This ground war has been in the works for a long time now. It is ignorant to believe that the US is being reluctantly forced into this conflict. The moment illegal Benghazi-sourced arms made their way through Turkey to Syrian rebels, the fix was in. The official narrative of them being for freedom fighters has always been in question. Recent revelations show that these questionable groups could never really be trusted, but we armed them anyway. Will we ever learn?
The disaster we made in Libya left a mark but not enough of one. For years now the public has been lied to about what is really going on behind the scenes and who the puppet masters really are (Saudi Arabia and Qatar). We have, in effect, armed and trained the very same ISIS members that we are now bombing, with the public none-the-wiser.
The public has been conditioned like Pavlov’s dog for supporting war. It is now next to impossible to stop or turn this around. The months of bell ringing by shills in the corporate media has worked to sway public opinion.
Herded like sheep and brainwashed by expert after expert (who were all wrong about Iraq the first time), we are propagandized an interventionist solution. Almost every one of these former military and think tank darlings trumpet US involvement no matter what the problem is.
Opposing voices are seldom seen on mainstream media outlets to counter these military hammers that are forever looking for nails. The majority of the anti-war crowd that once could be counted on in the past to take to the streets now seem to be in hibernation until the next Republican president is elected.
With over 50% of the US now in favor of using US ground troops against ISIS, the once-secret war plans suddenly come to light. What are the odds?!
This is a war of attrition, not containment. Drones and standoff airstrikes will not work with an adversary that can disappear into a city as easily as the Vietcong could into a jungle. And there isn’t any Agent Orange for Mosul.
Engagement of the enemy will be bloody and unlike anything the US population will be able to stomach if it is to be carried through until the end. This will take a level of commitment for which the public is not really ready. A week or two of fighting is one thing; years of occupation and body bags is quite another.
To defeat ISIS will involve killing them–possibly all of them. This will not be like WW2 where you could take prisoners and return them once you sign an armistice. After the major fighting ceases, the costly and most dangerous part begins: occupation.
It’s not the battles, but the occupation, that becomes the real problem. Historically, the military does a poor job of occupation. The longer we occupy, the higher the body count. This misguided idea that we can get in and get out is flat out wrong.
The Second Battle of Fallujah should be used as a template for estimates in retaking of ISIS controlled areas. Urban fighting is magnitudes harder than open battlefields.
Modern weapons are of little use when going block by block and house to house. The kill ratio will likely be, at best, 15 to 1. This is not including those wounded and maimed for life. With ISIS troop strength above 40,000, simple math indicates that the death toll will break down like this:
- 20,000 ISIS killed
- 20,000 ISIS captured (what do we do with them?)
- 2,500+ US or coalition troops killed
- 8,100+ US or coalition troops wounded
- 10,000+ civilian deaths
The US is about to put itself into a Vietnamese Sandwich. We could find ourselves fighting ISIS in the front, while being stabbed in the back by the very population we are “saving.”
IED’s and suicide bombings will likely be the source of the majority of casualties if we are stupid enough to stick around. Every nation knows that direct confrontation with the US is suicide, and ISIS has proven itself as not stupid. It will employ insurgency tactics to wear the military down, like bleeding a person to death by a thousand cuts. Is the US really ready for weekly caskets arriving in Dover? Again?
The majority of Middle Eastern Muslim countries are never willing to endanger their citizens when it can be American boys dropped into the meat grinder, employed to do their bidding. The irony of the actual need for an army in many of these Middle Eastern countries is that they are not needed to stop foreign invaders, but to maintain the subjugation of their own population. They fear social change and democratically elected power more than ISIS. They fear equality for women and equal treatment of minorities, Saudi Arabia being the worst of the bunch.
The Saudi/US relationship is perverted in nature. The most powerful country in the world behaves like a lap dog in the Middle East, spilling blood and treasure to keep, of all things, a monarchy in power. The Saudi defense forces have been armed to the teeth with high-tech American weaponry that will probably rust out before wearing out. Decades of purchases have left Saudi Arabia with over 1,000 tanks and over 250 attack aircraft that are nothing more than showpieces for national parades. Right now the brave Saudi government is going to combat ISIS with a wall!
Let’s not kid ourselves; the Saudis are to blame for much of this radicalization. Their fundamentalist ideology has poured billions into funding religious crazies around the globe, in part to prop up their own corrupt government. They are an intolerant country supporting an intolerant and deadly mindset. Let’s not forget, the majority of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi. ISIS is loaded with Saudi citizens. Many of the radicalized madrasas have Saudi ties. This, my fellow countrymen, is no coincidence.
Where were the Saudi troops during Gulf War 2.0? The answer is, living it up off manipulated oil wealth and employing 8 million foreign guest workers to do their laundry, clean their toilets, and run essentially 80% of their economy. The US is nothing more than hired help to them.
So what’s the solution to this increasingly painful problem?
- Accepting that US troop involvement is a huge mistake when waging a heavily religious ideological war with Kamikaze-like soldiers;
- Realizing that sending Christian and Jewish soldiers from halfway across the globe feeds into their recruiting propaganda, that is ultimately self-defeating;
- Understanding that military engagement and occupation should only be carried out by Muslim forces; and
- Providing intelligence help and small arms to anyone resisting ISIS, but not engaging in heavy arm sales.
Until the Muslim world takes on and polices its own homegrown crazies, we will forever be painted into a corner of this being a Holy War against the West. Getting in is the easy part, getting out is another thing entirely.
Oh yeah, and oil prices have crashed below $50, so that old argument won’t apply.
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