The Radical Islamic Elephant in the room

[sirs]

I think we can cut to the chase of how & why Obama's current policy at addressing the war we're in with Radical Islam, has ISIS, AlQeada, Boko Hiram, DASH, and all the other offshoots, actually gaining in strength and numbers, in weapons & territory. 

America is looked at as a leader....mostly because we're such a wealthy country, with a military that's only rivaled by a small # of other super powers.  It's looked at as a leader, because of our history in leading and defeating enemies, while aiding our allies.  No, its not an official position.  No, its going to be found on some chart, it just is

AlQaeda finally had a major successful attack on our soil, on 911, after many other attempts, which included successes in other countries.  Remember the Cole?  Anyways, it woke us up to their threat.  That although they didn't have a standing army like we did, didn't have any air force to speak of, or missiles that could reach us, they still managed to kill thousands in 1 attack.  So, we went after them...HARD....and we decimated them.  Sent them scattering.  Even had dictators, like Qaddafi turning over his WMD program. 

So what changed?  An election.  Americans were made to believe how costly the war was, when compared to other wars, we had lost a mere fraction of soldiers.  We were made to believe how "long" it was going to take, how protracted it was (although our current CnC made precsiely the same arguement recently, as in that this was going to be a long drawn out battle).  But I digress.  Our current President was given the ok, by his being elected to "bring them home", to shut it down.  DespIte the clear warning of what could happen, if we were to give them a timetable as to when we were going to leave. (WHICH HAS NOW COME TO FRUITION)

The warnings were there....leaving before Iraqis (and Afghanis for that matter) were truly ready to handle their border security, and NOT leaving a force to supplement their efforts, in the case of an uprising has enabled precisely what most folks had clearly warned would and now has happened

But the elephant is this......this battle is winnable.  We could decimate the likes of ISIS, and other radical Islamic entities.  We know where many of their strongholds are.  We have the military might to do it.  The elephant is that this President has made it clear that he's not going to go that route.  He can condemn the atrocitices all he wants...it means nothing to those committing the atrocites.  Words aren't going to stop them.  Bullets and bombs are the only things that are going to stop them.  And not pin pick drone strikes, but actually boots on the ground

I realize people are "tired of war".  That's easy to happen with a MSM that goes above and beyond to paint anything we do, that isn't "humanitarian", as somehow imperialistic & one sided.  So, no, they haven't hit us ....... since 911, but you can damn sure bet they're going to find a way, with the highest body count possible.  And the sad thing is, we could have done something to prevent it.   

[Plane]

    What would actually stop hostilities?

     This sort of battle seems so self generating.

        Every time we smack them ,  they have new motivation and a new set of complaints and a brace of martyrs.

        Then they harm us somehow , and we are renewed in rage.

         New iterations seem to grow more vicious.

           When we really run out of patience , are we more liable to surrender , or apply overwhelming force regardless of cost?

       I would like to figure out a cheaper shorter and less painful path to take , but an extremely long low level war seems like the rut we are already trapped in.

       If you string cause and effect together we have been at war with few hiatus since 93 or so.

     I agree with XO in that the Isis, Al Quieda and whatever follows next do not have much real hope of victory, but I don't think that we do either.

      It is pretty certain though that all sides can loose. 

[Xavier_Onassis]

The problem is that our leaders cannot understand the basics of this planet.

Eisenhower said we should refrain from land wars in Asia. That was the lesson of Korea... a war that we did not win. It was a standoff,and is to this day.

But then they ignored that and by 1965 they were in Vietnam. LBJ knew it was unwinnable, so did MacNamara, but they refused to to admit it. Nixon inherited the war and decided to bomb the Hell out of Cambodia. Cambodia was prior to that just a place through which the Vietcong supply lines passed, but in a short time, Sihanouk was gone and replaced by Lon Nol, a military man who was unable to govern, and then we got Pol Pot. Pol Pot destroyed Cambodia. "experts" like Kissinger did not know what hit them.

In the same way, in Iraq, fools decided to decapitate Iraq entirely: they got rid of the police and the army in a war that we never should have started and were not competent to manage, and what we got was Dash: which is a bunch of fierce and demented fanatics, very much like Pol Pot, except Islamic rather than Maoist.

The rebellion in Syria became a multi year event because weapons that could not be obtained by Assad's enemies before the US invasion of Iraq became available, cheap and abundant. The Syrian Sunnis allied with the Iraq Sunnis that had been deposed by the US and  now Syria is having a rerun on a larger scale of the Lebanese Civil War.

It is probable that no country can stop all this madness, but it is clear that the US cannot do it. This entire mess began when the CIA deposed an elected, nonsectarian civilian government in Iran way back in the 1950's.  What goes around comes around, and what went around has come back to bite us in the butt.  The Dulles Brothers dug the hole and we kept right on digging and digging.

When will this country learn to just leave well enough the fuck alone?

[Christians4LessGvt]

What would actually stop hostilities?

The destruction of the enemy.
No amount of talk with Hitler would have worked.
Total destruction works.

[sirs]

BINGO

[Xavier_Onassis]

Hitler should have been stopped when he invaded the Saarland.
The League of Nations was defeated by REPUBLICANTS, and the end of WWI was unduly harsh to Germany. 

But Saddam, Ho Chi Minh, Noriega, were not Hitler, in any case, and as world conquerers, ISIS is a joke.     

[sirs]

But Saddam, Ho Chi Minh, Noriega, were not Hitler, in any case, and as world conquerers,

Because we didn't let them get that far, nor were their aspirations on such a global scale as Radical Islam's is

ISIS is a joke.    

I'm sure they said that of Hitler & Fascism, in the 1930's as well.  Bullets & bombs are the only means to which to thwart their growing war successes

[Xavier_Onassis]

Germany was a productive nation with all the resources needed to fight a prolonged war. ISIS lacks the resources, the any generations-long military tradition such as Germany had.  A majority of the German people supported Hitle, because he had brought Germany out of a very several depression which caused people to actually starve.Most of what ISIS controls is barren desert.  Most of the people in the area do not support ISIS.

To compare Germany in 1933 with ISIS in 2015 is idiotic.

I have heard that Spongebob villain Plankton wants to conquer the world as well.

You know NOTHING about history, geography or the culture of the people of this planet.

[sirs]

By all means, show us the credible effort Plankton has been performing on a global scale.      Professor Hyperbole strikes again.  Your opinions on what I know and don't know aside, when you're ready to rejoin the adults in conversation, we'll always keep an open chair at the table for you

[Xavier_Onassis]

Isis is not doing anything on any global scale. That is crap. They are not Hitler.

[sirs]

Radical Islam is doing what they can on a global scale.  That's a fact.  THAT's what we are at war against.  They are not Fascist Germany........yet

[Xavier_Onassis]

The idea that somehow a bunch of fundamentalist Sunni thugs like Dash will turn into Nazi Germany is ignorant foolishness. There is not one Muslim nation that even manufactures weapons more complicated than knives and bullets.

In the case of Hitler, everyone knew from the very beginning that the Nazi movement was a movement with Hitler, a very charismatic speaker, at its core. WHO, pray tell, is the charismatic leader of Dash? Is there one leader or two or seventeen? 

This is not a political movement, it is just an assortment of thugs. There is no Hitler, no Mussolini, no Mohammad.

You know that someone is totally clueless when they start yammering about Munich and Hitler.

[sirs]

The idea that somehow a bunch of fundamentalist Sunni thugs like Dash will turn into Nazi Germany is ignorant foolishness.   This is not a political movement, it is just an assortment of thugs. There is no Hitler, no Mussolini, no Mohammad.

No one claimed it's a political movement.  It's worse....its a religious one.  And in a religious one, the side using religion as their justification have no problem using themselves as a bomb, with the notion of all them virgins waiting for them on the other side.  Or highjacking planes, and using them as combination missle/bomb.  Foolishiness is to stick your head in the sand and pretend its not a clear and growing threat, just like Chamberlain did.  And we all have historical witness to what happened when we ignored that threat.

There is no "negotiating" with them.  There is no appeasing them.  There is no "compromise" that can be made.  It's their way, or no way.  They aren't looking for a plot of land to call home, and be left alone.  They want to expand, however they can, and kill whoever they can, that doesn't convert.  Jews apparently are at the top of their list.  There's only killing them, where ever they are.  That's precisely the mindset that Kyle accurately held

[Xavier_Onassis]

Hitler conquered most of continental Europe. It took something like 1000 years for Europe to be officially Christian. So a religion is NOT worse than politics. The Italians, French and Germans are not going to turn into fanatical Muslims. One thing that Arabs are good at is braggadocio.  Libya was once an Italian colony, and not a willing one. This is mostly propaganda. Libya has no navy, after all, and Italy has one.

[sirs]

Radical Islamic terrorists weren't given the lands they currently occupy.  Nor was Fascist Germany, when they started rolling, in the late '30's.  What radical Islamic terrorists lack in "a navy & air force", they make up for in sheer volume of numbers they can recruit from, and the extent to which they'll go to achieve their ends