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Re: On ‘Face the Nation,’ Senators Feinstein, McCain Call For More U.S. Troops In M.E
The U.S. should be concerned first with destroying these jihadists, who are a growing threat to the whole civilized world. That is the main thing. We should not be so concerned about damage to cities where these people are sheltering--Raqaa, for example--that we let it limit our ability to destroy them. The U.S. and Britain believed that to defeat Nazi Germany, it was necessary to invade France. They did not let the fact this unavoidably would cause the deaths of many French civilians--about 40,000 of them as it turned out--prevent them from acting.
And the allies were even less concerned about the enemy's civilians. About a year later, the U.S. bombed a part of Tokyo where civilians were using shops attached to their houses to make valuable machine parts for the Japanese military, even though this very heavy raid killed as many as 100,000 people and razed a large area of the city.
This President will never do anything like this, but I hope the next one will be willing to. If heavy bombing raids on jihadist targets in or near a city in Iraq or Syria happened to kill a substantial number of the residents, it is hard to imagine any other city in the area continuing to shelter them. The inhabitants would realize it was safer to drive out the jihadists than risk becoming incidental casualties of bombings aimed at them.
The precision that was on display in the show attacks with which Mr. Obama kicked off his pinprick camapaign late last summer--pinpoint Tomahawk strikes, or that only one corner of a building had been bombed and the rest left intact, or that only the communications gear on the roof had been destroyed, or all the other exquisite selectivity that was made much of--may have been working against us all along.
It has been paraded as a way to make Iraqis, or whatever other Muslims are involved, like us. The idea seems to be that once the vast majority who are good, nice Muslims see how friendly and humane we are, we will win their hearts and minds, and they will help us fight that small minority of mean, icky jihadists--who after all, are plaguing them as well as us.
But the world is not a kindergarten. I have always suspected that was a fable we have let ourselves be comforted by, and probably not for admirable reasons. A lot of people want to believe jihadists are not part of Islam, because the idea that they are--that many ordinary Muslims in a number of countries sympathize with them to some extent--suggests one hell of a lot of killing may be necessary to defend our way of life.
Not nearly so many Americans today, both because of the softer lives we now lead, and because of forty years of indoctrination in public schools that this country and Western culture are hardly worth defending, have the stomach for that as did in the 1940's or '50's. And there are millions of leftists in the West, some of whom always crop up on sites like this, who detest the U.S. just as much as the jihadists do.
I would like to see a move to retake Mosul as one part of a much larger U.S. effort, although there may not be enough reliable and determined local forces. But then, it would have to wait for another President anyway. I think it would take a substantial force of infantry to retake a city as large as Mosul--say 10,000 men, more or less, depending on how good they were. U.S. and allied servicemen would have to be involved in their training, and quite a few would also have to be leading them, come the day. Of course plenty of artillery, armor, various aircraft, or other heavy weapons could be provided to support an division-sized infantry force.
I don't disagree with what you've posted - that doesn't change the fact that a ground force of Americans or Coalition forces would have a very difficult time entering a city, like Mosul as an example, and clearing out the ISIS fanatics, leaving the friendlies alone, and leaving the city in any sense of repair such that it would be inhabitable going forward.
The U.S. should be concerned first with destroying these jihadists, who are a growing threat to the whole civilized world. That is the main thing. We should not be so concerned about damage to cities where these people are sheltering--Raqaa, for example--that we let it limit our ability to destroy them. The U.S. and Britain believed that to defeat Nazi Germany, it was necessary to invade France. They did not let the fact this unavoidably would cause the deaths of many French civilians--about 40,000 of them as it turned out--prevent them from acting.
And the allies were even less concerned about the enemy's civilians. About a year later, the U.S. bombed a part of Tokyo where civilians were using shops attached to their houses to make valuable machine parts for the Japanese military, even though this very heavy raid killed as many as 100,000 people and razed a large area of the city.
This President will never do anything like this, but I hope the next one will be willing to. If heavy bombing raids on jihadist targets in or near a city in Iraq or Syria happened to kill a substantial number of the residents, it is hard to imagine any other city in the area continuing to shelter them. The inhabitants would realize it was safer to drive out the jihadists than risk becoming incidental casualties of bombings aimed at them.
The precision that was on display in the show attacks with which Mr. Obama kicked off his pinprick camapaign late last summer--pinpoint Tomahawk strikes, or that only one corner of a building had been bombed and the rest left intact, or that only the communications gear on the roof had been destroyed, or all the other exquisite selectivity that was made much of--may have been working against us all along.
It has been paraded as a way to make Iraqis, or whatever other Muslims are involved, like us. The idea seems to be that once the vast majority who are good, nice Muslims see how friendly and humane we are, we will win their hearts and minds, and they will help us fight that small minority of mean, icky jihadists--who after all, are plaguing them as well as us.
But the world is not a kindergarten. I have always suspected that was a fable we have let ourselves be comforted by, and probably not for admirable reasons. A lot of people want to believe jihadists are not part of Islam, because the idea that they are--that many ordinary Muslims in a number of countries sympathize with them to some extent--suggests one hell of a lot of killing may be necessary to defend our way of life.
Not nearly so many Americans today, both because of the softer lives we now lead, and because of forty years of indoctrination in public schools that this country and Western culture are hardly worth defending, have the stomach for that as did in the 1940's or '50's. And there are millions of leftists in the West, some of whom always crop up on sites like this, who detest the U.S. just as much as the jihadists do.
This must be done, with our assistance, by Iraq troops, Kurdish troops, in the area who readily know who to trust and who not to trust.
I would like to see a move to retake Mosul as one part of a much larger U.S. effort, although there may not be enough reliable and determined local forces. But then, it would have to wait for another President anyway. I think it would take a substantial force of infantry to retake a city as large as Mosul--say 10,000 men, more or less, depending on how good they were. U.S. and allied servicemen would have to be involved in their training, and quite a few would also have to be leading them, come the day. Of course plenty of artillery, armor, various aircraft, or other heavy weapons could be provided to support an division-sized infantry force.
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