• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

US military pilots complain hands tied in ‘frustrating’ fight against ISIS

Status
Not open for further replies.
U.S. military pilots carrying out the air war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria are voicing growing discontent over what they say are heavy-handed rules of engagement hindering them from striking targets.

They blame a bureaucracy that does not allow for quick decision-making. One Navy F-18 pilot who has flown missions against ISIS voiced his frustration to Fox News, saying: "There were times I had groups of ISIS fighters in my sights, but couldn't get clearance to engage.”

He added, “They probably killed innocent people and spread evil because of my inability to kill them. It was frustrating."


US military pilots complain hands tied in

Talk about frustrating. The chump in chief puts our forces in harms way and then wont let them kill the enemy. The "JV" team WANTS to die, and I want our military to oblige them.

Nothing substantive is going to happen until Obama is out of the whitehouse-that dog wont hunt.

It was like this in Vietnam too, nothing new here. It's what happens when you engage in these world police type actions instead of formal war. Probably another reason not to get involved in BS like this.
 
True, as witnessed by the sniveling pilots that aren't able to engage every target they see due to the proximity of civilians.

False. You have several retired Air-force officers arguing that air power is useless with an indecisive command and control and you have an unnamed Pentagon official saying that they are taking so long because they have a lot of political decisions to make. That unnamed source outed themselves as an idiot, though, since their argument was that there were "reliable partners on the ground" to engage the forces. This bull*** is demonstrated by the success of the anti-ISIS campaign so far. :roll:

Needless to say, by dithering on the call to engage the enemy they guaranteed the civilians are dead now.
 
Last edited:
It was like this in Vietnam too, nothing new here. It's what happens when you engage in these world police type actions instead of formal war. Probably another reason not to get involved in BS like this.

While I would agree, the problem isn't in getting involved, it is in the commitment to the fight.
 
A
False. You have several retired Air-force officers arguing that air power is useless with an indecisive command and control and you have an unnamed Pentagon official saying that they are taking so long because they have a lot of political decisions to make. That unnamed source outed themselves as an idiot, though, since their argument was that there were "reliable partners on the ground" to engage the forces. This bull*** is demonstrated by the success of the anti-ISIS campaign so far. :roll:

Needless to say, by dithering on the call to engage the enemy they guaranteed the civilians are dead now.

The argument for boots on he ground is a whole other issue. The op is about pilots complaining that they can't engage every time they think they see an Islamic State fighter. That's just how things are going to be.
 
While I would agree, the problem isn't in getting involved, it is in the commitment to the fight.

World has rules for these sorts of police engagements. We know that going into it.
 
It was like this in Vietnam too, nothing new here. It's what happens when you engage in these world police type actions instead of formal war. Probably another reason not to get involved in BS like this.

Yes, in Vietnam pilots flying missions WATCHED ships bringing in missile systems, WATCHED them get set up, and then were shot down by the same missles. We had idiotic rules of engagement, but with liberals in the white house its how wars are fought and lost.

Regardless of how you feel about Vietnam or Iraq, "fighting" the way Obama is unacceptable and a slap in the face of our military.
 
No, my argument is that the Iraqi people are not begging for the US military to roll back into their country.

The country is awash in guns. They may "ban" guns in their territory but there's a lot of territory they don't control. Rooting out weapon cache's is not easy....the idea that ISIS could effectively shut down access to weapons just doesn't strike me as likely.

When the population feels tat the presiding authority will cut your head off and rape your women it is hard to mount a resistance.

The NAZI party had overwhelming support of their country. It wasn't a party that took over against the wishes of their people. From what you write you don't believe that...you believe that the vast majority of the country disagrees with ISIS control...unless I am getting your position wrong.

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...


It doesn't matter...let's say ISIS conducted this masterful attack on Mosul and Iraqi forces just couldn't hold up. The response is that the overall better equipped and better trained Iraqi army sweeps in and massacres ISIS militants.

We are dealing in realities here. The better equipped and trained Iraqi force was a figment. They aren't sweeping in to destroy ISIS.


Because after a 10 year occupation and nearly a trillion spent we couldn't create a self sustaining government/military in Iraq? Are we forever committed to stationing armies in Iraq and policing their state? Why are you more concerned with Iraqi minorities than you are people anywhere in the world? Why is it so important that the one nation has US funded and created security at any expense?

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?

Because the army they fought was ****! Those soldiers had as much faith and willingness to fight as Iraqi Republican Guard troops had to die for Saddam. It's a paycheck for them. They weren't going to die for the Iraqi parliment or the Iraqi nation. How is it that that the Kurds are kicking ISIS's ass so badly? 5,000 Kurdish fighters just swept across northern Iraq! 5,000!!!! The Iraqi military had 280,000 individuals in their military!

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.

FOUR DIVISIONS collapsed in northern Iraq battling ISIS with few thousand. That is impossible....that are feats that only the US military could do with the help of US air power and our technology. The Iraqi army is just bad man. They had no will to fight or potentially die for their country. They were just in the uniform for a paycheck.

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?
 
I agree with you to a certain extent...It's not like I'm completely disagreeing that ISIS is bad news and they do horrible things. I'm just curious how this same scenario doesn't play out again after we take out ISIS and hand over Iraq back to their own government. We would have to do something radically different...like split the country up with a Kurdish north and split Sunni's and Shiit's because nobody in that country seems to have a strong allegiance to the idea of Iraq.

Splitting the country up on a map does nothing when ISIS is trying to erase the borders anyway. I would suggest that we not pull out of Iraq this time if we went in and smashed ISIS. I would say we set up a base within the Kurdish territory to secure them from both ISIS and Iraq, and a few strategic bases around the border cities and just hold tight. I think the long term goal would be to mimic the US strategy in Egypt which I think is the best possible outcome for most Middle East countries. Raise a generation of Iraqi officers on Western culture and Middle East feudal control and turn the military into a sort of business. Like Egypt, that kind of stability makes use of the realities of ME culture and feeds the aspirations of the military leadership.

As we saw, when it came to radical Islamic uprisings Egypt was inoculated.

I'm just worried that any rollback of ISIS will just create a vaccuum taken advantage of by another militant group. As I've pointed out....ISIS isn't special, they don't have capabilities that can't easily be replicated by any other group with a few small arms and some fantatics willing to die by the cause.

And all I am saying is don't leave a vacuum next time.
 
A

The argument for boots on he ground is a whole other issue. The op is about pilots complaining that they can't engage every time they think they see an Islamic State fighter. That's just how things are going to be.

That isn't what the OP says, that is what you want the OP to say.
 
Yes, in Vietnam pilots flying missions WATCHED ships bringing in missile systems, WATCHED them get set up, and then were shot down by the same missles. We had idiotic rules of engagement, but with liberals in the white house its how wars are fought and lost.

Regardless of how you feel about Vietnam or Iraq, "fighting" the way Obama is unacceptable and a slap in the face of our military.

We were completely shackled in Vietnam, we couldn't hit the targets that did the most damage, and was one of the reasons things bogged down so heavily. This is how your occupation wars are run. You know this, or at least you should know this. Regardless of administration, this is how occupation wars will go.

So when we get ready to expand our occupation wars yet again, keep in mind, that this will be the way it is fought.
 
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..
.
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.
 
Splitting the country up on a map does nothing when ISIS is trying to erase the borders anyway. I would suggest that we not pull out of Iraq this time if we went in and smashed ISIS. I would say we set up a base within the Kurdish territory to secure them from both ISIS and Iraq, and a few strategic bases around the border cities and just hold tight. I think the long term goal would be to mimic the US strategy in Egypt which I think is the best possible outcome for most Middle East countries. Raise a generation of Iraqi officers on Western culture and Middle East feudal control and turn the military into a sort of business. Like Egypt, that kind of stability makes use of the realities of ME culture and feeds the aspirations of the military leadership.

As we saw, when it came to radical Islamic uprisings Egypt was inoculated.
I agree with you regarding Egypt and their military's culture.

ISIS is erasing the borders based on the idea of a Muslim Caliphate. A decent amount of Muslims are willing to die for that idea. The only reason I say split up Iraq is that from recent history....Iraqi's aren't willing to die for the nation of Iraq. They have shown it multiple times. They have no nationalist connection to that country. Maybe the country shouldn't exist...The US has a set of values that binds people from different backgrounds and with different viewpoints. There's nothing like that in Iraq.

And all I am saying is don't leave a vacuum next time.
Maybe...I just doubt Bush or Obama really wanted to leave a vacuum the first time but both did their part to leave behind an ineffective corrupt government.
 
That isn't what the OP says, that is what you want the OP to say.

It certainly isn't to argue for boots on the ground as your represent. Pilots, according to the op are frustrated that they can't drop a bomb every time they spot (what they think to be ) an Islamic State fighter. Sorry, but there's reasons for rules of engagement, and like them, you'll just have to deal with it.
 
Splitting the country up on a map does nothing when ISIS is trying to erase the borders anyway. I would suggest that we not pull out of Iraq this time if we went in and smashed ISIS. I would say we set up a base within the Kurdish territory to secure them from both ISIS and Iraq, and a few strategic bases around the border cities and just hold tight. I think the long term goal would be to mimic the US strategy in Egypt which I think is the best possible outcome for most Middle East countries. Raise a generation of Iraqi officers on Western culture and Middle East feudal control and turn the military into a sort of business. Like Egypt, that kind of stability makes use of the realities of ME culture and feeds the aspirations of the military leadership.

As we saw, when it came to radical Islamic uprisings Egypt was inoculated.



And all I am saying is don't leave a vacuum next time.

and all I'm saying is don't create any vacuums to begin with!
 
We were completely shackled in Vietnam, we couldn't hit the targets that did the most damage, and was one of the reasons things bogged down so heavily. This is how your occupation wars are run. You know this, or at least you should know this. Regardless of administration, this is how occupation wars will go.

So when we get ready to expand our occupation wars yet again, keep in mind, that this will be the way it is fought.

Bingo. Wars always have a political component and actions like this are even more political. The situation in the field is not the only consideration. Hell it may not even be the most important consideration.

People would be well advised to remember that before asking our troops to fight someone else's war.
 
and all I'm saying is don't create any vacuums to begin with!

There wasn't a vacuum as it was filled with coalition peace keepers. There wasn't an vacuum until those troops were withdrawn.
 
You and me? None, I expect.

USAF? Quite a few.

What's the number for the USAF? Do you have it on hand or are you assuming?
 
It certainly isn't to argue for boots on the ground as your represent. Pilots, according to the op are frustrated that they can't drop a bomb every time they spot (what they think to be ) an Islamic State fighter. Sorry, but there's reasons for rules of engagement, and like them, you'll just have to deal with it.

You are lying about the OP now too? You are on a roll, Montecresto!
 
There wasn't a vacuum as it was filled with coalition peace keepers. There wasn't an vacuum until those troops were withdrawn.

Removing Saddam Hussein created a power vacuum that radicalized many, invited AQ in and resulted in a sharp rise in global terrorism, as well as making us less safe according to the 2006 NIE. So what you think, really doesn't matter.
 
Then you can't read.

Nope, You have misstated the article and the testimony provided. The quoted pilot said NOTHING about the shoot being delayed for civilians in the area, you also said that they"wanted to engage whenever they thought they saw an Islmaic fighter" which is a lie, the pilot only said that there was a time when there was a GROUP of ISIS fighters and there was a delay in authorization that lost him the target. No statement for why there was a delay in that case, only that here was a delay. The named sources interviewed in that article started clearly that the delays were unacceptable and not typical any other air campaign.

The closest you get in that article to your point of view is an unnamed source who still doesn't corroborate your version of what the pilot said.
 
Nope, You have misstated the article and the testimony provided. The quoted pilot said NOTHING about the shoot being delayed for civilians in the area, you also said that they"wanted to engage whenever they thought they saw an Islmaic fighter" which is a lie, the pilot only said that there was a time when there was a GROUP of ISIS fighters and there was a delay in authorization that lost him the target. No statement for why there was a delay in that case, only that here was a delay. The named sources interviewed in that article started clearly that the delays were unacceptable and not typical any other air campaign.

The closest you get in that article to your point of view is an unnamed source who still doesn't corroborate your version of what the pilot said.

Oh, I realize the pilot didn't say anything about civilians in proximity to the "target", why would he mention that. As already pointed out by another poster, this has been pilot complaints since Vietnam. And that's the way it's going to be so long as we're fighting wars in such close proximity to civilians.
 
If only there were fewer rules in place to prevent bombing civilians.


Sadly, too many people REALLY think that way

Part of the Hippocratic Oath says: "First, do no harm"

The ability to sleep well after knowing you were trying to impart some small element of civilized behavior in the madness of war far outweighs incurring the blowback from taking out a group of civilians.

I have at least as much respect for the man who holds his fire & swallows his pride as the pilot who "takes out" a legitimate target & gets a prize.

The US needs to revamp its Mid East Policy so that America's G.I.s don't have to be in a position to make either decision.


Thanks
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom