When the population feels tat the presiding authority will cut your head off and rape your women it is hard to mount a resistance.
That's exactly the situation that would cause you to put up a resistance. Russians fought man, woman, and child to fight off Nazi's even when they didn't have enough material. The tactics of ISIS being used should scare the **** out of the population and make people fight tooth and nail to stop them from getting a foothold.
But isn't that the argument you just made about the Iraqi population? Do you think the fact that the Jews didn't fight back means they got what they deserved? Do you assume that the average Iraqi supports ISIS?
I mean the parallels are deep. At one point Hitler's Nazis were only a few hundred ruffians... obviously that means they never amounted to much..
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The Nazi party started as ruffians but they did win a popular election to gain power and got votes to institute their dictatorship. The Beer Hall Putsch failed and they gained power through popular support.
ISIS has largely done it through the barrel of the gun and I guess I'm surprised that there's not more fighting back. Iraq was dangerous for American soldiers...they obviously were emboldened enough to fight against the best military in the world but they don't have a will to fight back against ISIS? I don't know the support, I don't know the numbers...what is happening just concerns me when it comes to landing troops there when it seems like resistance from the very people suffering is lukewarm.
We are dealing in realities here. The better equipped and trained Iraqi force was a figment. They aren't sweeping in to destroy ISIS.
What we left behind was better trained and better equipped than ISIS.
We still have forces stationed abroad from WWII. What do you think would have happened to Europe had the US pulled all of its troops out in 1955? Or South Korea in 1965?
Those forces were stationed against foreign threats, mainly the USSR and North Korea. They were also supported by the people in those countries, they wanted us there because they felt threatened.
This is my point! The US could defeat ISIS with even less than 5,000 troops, but we don't do it. Nobody here is arguing that the Iraqi army is broken, that is the reason why we should have stayed there.
A couple of things. We could roll back ISIS with less than 5,000 but....what happens after? That was the whole issue with Iraq in the first part, our military can destroy people on the battlefield but it takes ALOT of soldiers to occupy a place and provide security. Are we back to stationing 100's of thousands of soldiers there? Is the Iraq war the gift that just keeps giving with body bags coming home and billions going into that country?
As for we should of stayed there...they didn't want us, we didn't want to be there, so we left. Yes, this wouldn't have happened if we kept a large amount of US troops in Iraq but that's not really a reason for us to just turn into a long time occupying force. There's a lot of things we could prevent if we are willing to station troops in places and foot the bill.
When have I argued that the Iraqi military is competent? The last person to say the Iraqi forces were able to run autonomously was Obama in his speech before the US troop withdrawal. I certainly never held such a delusion. The fight for Mosul, by the way, was conducted primarily by Kurdish troops. The reason they couldn't hold is because they were poorly armed for a siege, and didn't have the ammunition to hold ground. After regrouping and rearming the Kurds did, indeed, kick ass. But they can't do it alone. Who trained the Kurds, by the way?
We did...and we trained the Iraqi military. I bring up the Kurds because they have a willingness to win. I've read stories where a Kurdish soldier had 10 bullets removed from his body and he's still leading the charge.
That's something that the US can never instill in Iraqi's. That's something that no military can ever win without. That is the reason Iraq lost large amounts of land to ISIS and us going in and re-training them won't change it.