Strategy and tactics in the current 'war'

[bradly1101]

I know I can't call our actions in the Middle East a war, after all we haven't officially declared anything and congress fearfully hasn't weighed in.

But I'm very interested in how exactly we are waging our actions over there. We hear about the air strikes and see exciting video of them, but of course all we can see is a building or vehicle going up, and assume there were some bad dudes in there, and hopefully (and hopelessly) no one else.

So I started doing research and found that our basic tactic is to wreak enough havoc so that a city's civilian population flees, supposedly leaving only the bad guys. Then carpet-bomb all the buildings in the city or area of a city to "eliminate the the threat." Mind you the threat is an idea that grows every time we strike.

Does this sound like part of a wise strategy, to make a city uninhabitable? This is how terrorism will be destroyed?

This is a separate question from the crazy fight in Syria against Assad, but not his ally Russia? But with Assad's enemies, but not the too radical ones. Good luck on all that!

IMO our only hope is to change the minds of the well armed and growing population who wants us out of the Middle East, or do what they want us to. I know the parallel isn't exact but I wonder how our population would feel if a far away country tried to access and control an American resource especially if it was owned by a corrupt and abusive entity, and build bases around the U.S. to protect its interests. I'm not excusing terrorists, but trying to see into their extremely dedicated motivations.

Is there a better strategy than creating a refugee crisis, then destroying their homes? What the hell are we doing?

 

[shady28]

I know I can't call our actions in the Middle East a war, after all we haven't officially declared anything and congress fearfully hasn't weighed in.

But I'm very interested in how exactly we are waging our actions over there. We hear about the air strikes and see exciting video of them, but of course all we can see is a building or vehicle going up, and assume there were some bad dudes in there, and hopefully (and hopelessly) no one else.

So I started doing research and found that our basic tactic is to wreak enough havoc so that a city's civilian population flees, supposedly leaving only the bad guys. Then carpet-bomb all the buildings in the city or area of a city to "eliminate the the threat." Mind you the threat is an idea that grows every time we strike.

Does this sound like part of a wise strategy, to make a city uninhabitable? This is how terrorism will be destroyed?

This is a separate question from the crazy fight in Syria against Assad, but not his ally Russia? But with Assad's enemies, but not the too radical ones. Good luck on all that!

IMO our only hope is to change the minds of the well armed and growing population who wants us out of the Middle East, or do what they want us to. I know the parallel isn't exact but I wonder how our population would feel if a far away country tried to access and control an American resource especially if it was owned by a corrupt and abusive entity, and build bases around the U.S. to protect its interests. I'm not excusing terrorists, but trying to see into their extremely dedicated motivations.

Is there a better strategy than creating a refugee crisis, then destroying their homes? What the hell are we doing?

Another option would be to produce enough of something of value to re-balance our trade and enable us to get off the petrodollar, while simultaneously putting in place policies that greatly reduce our dependence on oil as a source of power / transportation.

Then we could just leave the ME to its own devices.

It won't happen because that's too difficult and too many players with money to make. Easier to just make war.

 

[IronWing]

We can't get what we want at the current time so we are playing the chaos game, keeping the shit stirred until it looks better for us (whatever that means). Tragically for the civilians, the Sauds, the Turks, the French, the Russians, the Iranians, Assad, the Kurds, and anyone else with two bananas to clap together is playing the same game so we can expect this to continue until the players run out of money or reasons to keep it up.

 

[bradly1101]

... too many players with money to make. Easier to just make war.

Arms manufacturers are making out like bandits; from the smallest detonator in a suicide vest to its explosives, pistols, rifles, automatic weapons, bullets, hand grenades, ..................................................................., all the way to aircraft carriers. If there's profit in something, it seems unstoppable.

 

[bradly1101]

We can't get what we want at the current time so we are playing the chaos game, keeping the shit stirred until it looks better for us (whatever that means). Tragically for the civilians, the Sauds, the Turks, the French, the Russians, the Iranians, Assad, the Kurds, and anyone else with two bananas to clap together is playing the same game so we can expect this to continue until the players run out of money or reasons to keep it up.

Or because of escalation too much of this blue marble becomes unlivable. The stakes seem to be going radically higher on a daily basis.

 

[MongGrel]

What current war ?

 

[1sikbITCH]

What current war ?

Us vs them dude, pay attention.

 

[MongGrel]

Us vs them dude, pay attention.

The Alzheimer must be kicking in.

Thanks for the reminder.

 

[Indus]

Is there a better strategy than creating a refugee crisis, then destroying their homes? What the hell are we doing?

Yes.. there is.. leave them alone and let them kill each other. Whether we help them or not they're eating themselves alive.

We also need to stop giving visas and visa waivers. All 9/11 hijackers and the shoe bomber and underwear bomber all came on visas granted by embassies overseas.

We also need to raise the minimum wage and import taxes to 10,000% so every made in china hammer costs $30000 and every Ferrari costs a billion. That should both create jobs in the US, as well as the money needed to replace foreign tourists with domestic tourists.

And finally we need to get off our oil addiction and start using battery powered cars and stuff. Less money going to terrorist countries is another way to combat terrorism.

Unfortunately this does not fly with the right wing agenda and they call us _____________ as their solution to everything is BOMB BOMB BOMB BOMB BOMB BOMB! And then you wonder why we have problems.

BTW in response to your changing hearts and minds, we've helped Japan for what 71 years and the first time this year, Miss Japan chose a biracial American Japanese she encounters racial epithets. Needless to say do we really need to spend more time doing the same thing expecting different results?

They don't like us. They'll never like us.

Why are we spending so many millions overseas when our own population is homeless, unable to put food on the table or pay for heat?

 

[unokitty]

Duffle Blog Satire

“This was all supposed to be a campaign to topple Bashar al-Asad in Syria, starting with the Arab Spring in 2011. Which, in turn, allowed us to get back at Iran and Russia, both of whom support Syria,” said Warren. “So the CIA considered arming the rebels in Syria, which kind of backfired, and now we have ISIS, a group we thought we had already defeated back when they were al-Qaeda in Iraq.”

Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter further explained, “Sure, we were a little worried when ISIS started running around the Middle East, chopping everyone’s heads off. But fortunately, Iran came to our rescue. Well, in Iraq, that is. We’re still fighting Iran in Yemen.”

... “So, you see, ISIS is supported by Arabs, who are opposed by Iranians, who are both opposed and allied with the US, who is sort of allied with Turkey and the Kurds, who are opposed to each other.

Events grew even more complicated in the wake of the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris last Friday. The attacks were reportedly the work of ISIS, who also claimed credit for the bombing of a Russian airliner earlier this month.

“France and Russia have formed an alliance, though in doing so, they automatically caused Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire to declare war in return,” said Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook. “And, let’s face it, this whole thing really is the fault of the Ottomans when you think about it.”

The briefing then shifted to issues surrounding Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“There, the situation is much more simple,” Cook continued. “The US is fighting the Taliban by providing billions of dollars in military aid to Pakistan, which is supporting the Taliban. Basically, it’s like that scene in The Empire Strikes Back where Luke Skywalker thinks he’s fighting Darth Vader, only to find his own face in Darth Vader’s helmet. That’s pretty much what we’ve gotten ourselves into.”

The above is satire.

The alternative is to understand that US weapons manufacturers make enormous profits from war.

And that US politicians need to raise enormous sums of money for their campaigns. (Over a billion dollars for the last presidential campaign...)

Consequently, the more war in the Middle East, the more money that US weapons manufacturers make, the more money that they have to 'donate' to US politicians...

Look around. See anyone other than politicians and weapons manufacturers that profit from the middle east war?

Uno

 

[boomerang]

Or because of escalation too much of this blue marble becomes unlivable. The stakes seem to be going radically higher on a daily basis.

Hmm, radically higher on a daily basis. Maybe it's time to resurrect duck and cover.

 

[blastingcap]

I know I can't call our actions in the Middle East a war, after all we haven't officially declared anything and congress fearfully hasn't weighed in.

But I'm very interested in how exactly we are waging our actions over there. We hear about the air strikes and see exciting video of them, but of course all we can see is a building or vehicle going up, and assume there were some bad dudes in there, and hopefully (and hopelessly) no one else.

So I started doing research and found that our basic tactic is to wreak enough havoc so that a city's civilian population flees, supposedly leaving only the bad guys. Then carpet-bomb all the buildings in the city or area of a city to "eliminate the the threat." Mind you the threat is an idea that grows every time we strike.

Does this sound like part of a wise strategy, to make a city uninhabitable? This is how terrorism will be destroyed?

This is a separate question from the crazy fight in Syria against Assad, but not his ally Russia? But with Assad's enemies, but not the too radical ones. Good luck on all that!

IMO our only hope is to change the minds of the well armed and growing population who wants us out of the Middle East, or do what they want us to. I know the parallel isn't exact but I wonder how our population would feel if a far away country tried to access and control an American resource especially if it was owned by a corrupt and abusive entity, and build bases around the U.S. to protect its interests. I'm not excusing terrorists, but trying to see into their extremely dedicated motivations.

Is there a better strategy than creating a refugee crisis, then destroying their homes? What the hell are we doing?

1. Read this: http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=37859619&postcount=65

2. Realize that there is no simple solution. If it were simple it would have been done already, ok? But there are things we can do in the long term and in the short term.

The long term road to victory is to diminish Wahhabism (the fundamentalist strain of Islam that the Gulf Arabs have infected the world with). Wahhabis are the whackjobs of the Islamic world and have contaminated Sunni Islam to the point where it will be hard or maybe even impossible to undo the damage within a reasonable timeframe. Bring it under control and hope that enough Muslims will go atheist in the meantime.

How might one do this?

1. Get off oil dependency and strangle the Gulf economies over time so there is less money. Less money = less money to spread Wahhabi propaganda worldwide = fewer fundies. How do you do this? By diminishing the importance of oil. More renewables. Hell, even replacing oil with natural gas to the maximum extent possible would be an upgrade, since the known reserves of natural gas aren't so concentrated in the Middle East.

2. Gang up on Wahhabism by allying with the least-obnoxious Muslims. This means befriending secularist Sunnis and other Muslim minorities: Shia, Sufi, Ibadi, Alevi, Alawites, etc. For too long we've been in a cold war with Iran's government (not Iran's people, who are lovely). It won't happen overnight, but hopefully Iran's old guard will die off and we can ally with Iran/Lebanon/Syria and regional minorities like the Druze. If it means we need to apologize, so be it. Apologize to Iran. They deserve an apology from UK too, which was the actual instigator of the coup in the first place.

3. Advocate for women's rights as much as possible. Even if it means spending money to educate women.

In the short term:

1. Cut our losses in Syria and accept a loss.

Obama and many in the West bitched at Assad for killing his own people during the Syrian Civil War, apparently not learning our lessons in Libya, Egypt, and Iraq: sudden Middle-Eastern regime change creates a power vacuum that is often taken over by Islamists. So many states, including the US, Turkey and the Gulf states, funded the rebels against Assad and said Assad needs to go before we can come to a political settlement.

THAT WILL NOT HAPPEN. Assad is an asshole but he has powerful friends in Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia who will not let the important west coast of Syria fall (which contains about 2/3 of Syria's population).

We need to stop being the guy who stays with a sinking stock all the way to zero. We stayed with our position too long, the company is going bankrupt, and the only thing to do is to sell while we can still salvage something.

2. In order to save face (and influence in the Middle East if we still want it), we should arm the SDF to the teeth. Fuck Turkey if they have a problem with it (and they do; they hate anything remotely affiliated with the Kurdish PKK). As it stands YPG/YPJ is obviously calling the shots, but there are enough Arabs in the SDF to give the Kurds political cover to storm eastern Syria. The Southern Front is also a big buffer territory and as the only major not-completely-jihadi Arab army left outside of the SDF, they can be another bargaining chip in the post-war partition of Syria (either into independent states or into semi-autonomous areas like KRG in Iraq).

3. Stop being so worried that we're doing "exactly what they want us to do." That assumes that Daesh wants us to do something that will benefit them. In reality, doing what they want us to do might be the worst thing that could happen to them:

Daesh (aka IS/ISIS/ISIL) has a significant number of idiots who believe an old Muslim fairy tale about an apocalyptic battle between the Muslims and the "Romans" (which they interpret to mean non-Muslims) in Dabiq. Indeed, Dabiq is the name of Daesh's English-language propaganda: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/ The story is that the Muslims will be defeated at Dabiq until the last second when Jesus (yes, that Jesus... Mohammed stole so many things from other religions when he made up the Islam story) shows up to save the day.

Obama and co. have been afraid to fulfill the prophecy, on the grounds that it would legitimize the Dabiq fairy tale and attract more recruits to Daesh. But our half-assed Coalition of the Unwilling (except France which has now Seen the Light) is just delaying the inevitable.

So I say, take a risk. Use the myth against Daesh. Throw down the gauntlet and tell them we're meeting them in Dabiq on X date. Then either meet them there with heavy ordnance, or don't show up at all. Either way, attack everywhere EXCEPT for Dabiq at the same time. What's the worst that could happen? That they manage to defend anyway despite thousands of soldiers at Dabiq? Even if Daesh declines the invitation to show up at Dabiq, that will demoralize the religious fanatics within Daesh, and morale is a critical element of warfare.