Iraq and ISIS Discussion

We're two years into a campaign against ISIS.

You might not be interested, but any insurgent group in the world looking to control territory and resist western intervention is paying a great deal of attention. Interest and respect are tools to better understand - not admiration.
 
This two year campaign has been an advise, partially-train and babysit mission.

You are right - our enemies and our future enemies are paying attention. One thing I would like for us to learn about our enemies for once is their simplicity. By rounding down our problem to its lowest possible value (for you math geeks) we are able to propose an effective solution in the most simple form available.

To be clear: I feel like we (society and government) have been rounding up...
 
Il Duce said:
Yes, I thought it was really fascinating as well. To me, the Bakr manifesto is like the Islamist version of Mao's Guerilla handbook. Very interesting to see the confluence of global, tech-savvy, Jihadism meet the practical internal security/repression skills of the Saddam dictatorship. Match that with the hard-won experience of fighting a technically advanced enemy in the US, along with an inept partner in the Iraq security forces, and you've got the mix for a very powerful insurgent force with more significant staying power than we normally see out of revolutionary regimes.
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Bakr has is taken a page out of Muslim history and recreated it, the flight from Mecca by the followers of the Prophet. They settled in Medina, overthrew the existing political order and established dawat al Islam, the Islamic state. This is intensely appealing to fundamentalist Muslim sects because it has historical and religious precedence. Arab nations traditionally--as we've seen--have been unable to unify for any length of time, a weakness that Israel has always taken full advantage of. But Bakr has managed to attract adherents from many different sects and nationalities and keep them together because he knows his history. When the Sunni and Shiia split up in the 7th century and various other factions evolved the mission of Jihad was so powerful that it was able to overcome many of the differences and squabbles between the minorities.

I agree with your assessment. He's shown remarkable success reigniting and adapting ancient passions to the modern world.
 
Ocoka One said:
Bakr has is taken a page out of Muslim history and recreated it, the flight from Mecca by the followers of the Prophet. They settled in Medina, overthrew the existing political order and established dawat al Islam, the Islamic state. This is intensely appealing to fundamentalist Muslim sects because it has historical and religious precedence. Arab nations traditionally--as we've seen--have been unable to unify for any length of time, a weakness that Israel has always taken full advantage of. But Bakr has managed to attract adherents from many different sects and nationalities and keep them together because he knows his history. When the Sunni and Shiia split up in the 7th century and various other factions evolved the mission of Jihad was so powerful that it was able to overcome many of the differences and squabbles between the minorities.

I agree with your assessment. He's shown remarkable success reigniting and adapting ancient passions to the modern world.
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The journey is called hijrah, and it's what extremists call their journey from whatever homeland they start from to where they do their terror stuff.

Dabiq One has an article called "Hijrah to Khilafah," which outlines their global campaign plan.
 
Ocoka One said:
Bakr has is taken a page out of Muslim history and recreated it, the flight from Mecca by the followers of the Prophet. They settled in Medina, overthrew the existing political order and established dawat al Islam, the Islamic state. This is intensely appealing to fundamentalist Muslim sects because it has historical and religious precedence. Arab nations traditionally--as we've seen--have been unable to unify for any length of time, a weakness that Israel has always taken full advantage of. But Bakr has managed to attract adherents from many different sects and nationalities and keep them together because he knows his history. When the Sunni and Shiia split up in the 7th century and various other factions evolved the mission of Jihad was so powerful that it was able to overcome many of the differences and squabbles between the minorities.

I agree with your assessment. He's shown remarkable success reigniting and adapting ancient passions to the modern world.
Click to expand...

It's not Bakr, but Abu Bakr, which is his adopted name, showing more proof to your point that he is adopting as much as possible from the early history of Islam, specifically Sunni Islam. Abu Bakr was the first Muslim Caliph after Mohammed's death. His daughter Aisha was Mohammed's wife, and he was respected by most of Muslim, just not by the follower's of Mohammed's son-in-law Ali.
 
ThunderHorse said:
Wonder where he got that TOW...
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That's not a TOW. I think it's a Kornet.

It may be tube launched, optically tracked, wire guided, but not a US TOW.

ETA-
ThunderHorse said:
Our material support of rebel groups and to some extent ISIS, since many of the dudes we've trained have either surrendered or died extremely fast is one of the major reasons this is still going on.
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What is your speculation based on?
 
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ThunderHorse said:
It's not speculation, it's even in this thread. But here's just a sample for you:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/10/world/middleeast/pentagon-program-islamic-state-syria.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/26/w...it-trained-surrendered-materiel-in-syria.html
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From the first article-
In a letter to the State Department, the Pentagon and the C.I.A. last week, four senators — three Democrats and a Republican — criticized the program. “The Syria Train and Equip Program goes beyond simply being an inefficient use of taxpayer dollars,” the senators wrote. “As many of us initially warned, it is now aiding the very forces we aim to defeat.”

The letter referred to a recent incident in which some of the American-trained Syrian fighters gave at least a quarter of their United States-provided equipment, including six pickup trucks and a portion of their ammunition, to the Qaeda affiliate in Syria, the Nusra Front.
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"The letter referred to a recent incident," seems like conjecture, as these things usually are. The one Republican was John McCain, who I would deem about as credible in military matters as President Obama, but a polar opposite.

I wouldn't speculate as to the effectiveness of something that exists solely in a compartmentalized realm.

I do, however, agree with your assessment, but not necessarily based on what a senator or the NY Times might say.

ETA-
I think the point I meant to convey was this- if spending money over there results in dead extremists or so called "moderates," then we should spend it. But yes, billions is too much.
 
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F-22's made the news and the Syrians came pretty close to bombing some of our SOF. I know it would result in a shit storm, but a part of me wanted to watch those -22's smoke someone.

Aerial close encounter between US, Syrian jets - CNNPolitics.com

(CNN)Two American F-22s on patrol over Hasakah, Syria, flew within a mile of two Syrian Su-24 fighter jets and "encouraged" them to leave Friday, a US defense official told CNN.
The close encounter comes only a day after two Syrian warplanes attacked the Kurds, a key US ally, forcing US special operations forces to be withdrawn from their position in northern Syria.
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