Well, we’ll find out after the ground war whether it was a better idea not to have waged it.
I’m very hopeful we won’t, and continue to be disturbed at the flippancy with which you imagine many of my buddies being put at risk of violent death for potentially little or no gain (and much loss). When you think of ground war, think of hundreds or thousands of young Americans – some of whom I served closely with – being shot or blown to pieces.
It’s not flippancy, it’s a sense of inevitability. You see a war as elective. I see a war already being waged that a President, himself with no military experience thinking he can control what he’s unleashed. You seem to think he can control it too. You’re just wrong.
This is bullshit. He’s the C in C. Only he can order ground forces in. He has total control of US involvement. If we were attacked militarily, or there was some existential threat (or anything approaching that), then it might be different. But there’s nothing even close to those scenarios.
Well of course we can just lose the war and ISIS can take over a large portion of the Arab world and train tens of thousands of operatives and send them to attack targets in the West.
If you see defeat as an option, then sure, we can choose not to send ground troops.
Sending in ground troops would be a much, much worse defeat than the (very unlikely) scenario that you describe. Many more Americans (again – imagine them being ripped to pieces, losing limbs and eyes, being traumatized for life if not killed, etc.) will die in a ground invasion than ISIS could ever kill without one.
But if that scenario were imminent, I would consider altering my view. That scenario is not even close to imminent.
Once it becomes imminent, which is likely, then a ground war becomes a much more costly affair. Right now they control an area the size of Indiana. If they control an area the size of well, a large part of the Arab world, then you’re talking not Iraq redux but more like world war. Plus we’re waging it AFTER they’ve infiltrated a ton of operatives to attack strategic targets. And then you get America doing things we’ll have to apologize for later, like interring all Muslims.
This isn’t an elective war. if it was, the President wouldn’t be waging it. In case you hadn’t noticed, he really, really doesn’t like going to war. What’s elective are the tactics used to fight it. But as we’ve seen in previous wars, things tend to escalate. If Obama thinks he can control that, then he’ll be the first President ever to have done so. What we do know is that we won’t lose this war. If nothing else, the President will not see his legacy tarnished by being the 2nd President to lose a war. And we only lost that one because we couldn’t invade North Vietnam due to that causing WWIII. There are no such limitations on our waging war against ISIS. Any President will do whatever it takes to defeat ISIS.
So this is the big fear that all the chickenhawks harbor? I didn’t realize it went that deep.
Sometimes the winning move is not to play. Or, in the case of the ME, not to be seen playing.
We’re playing. That debate ended when the bombing started. Tell me, why do you think the President started bombing ISIS? Why did he commit special forces? Why are the number of advisors creeping up in Iraq?
What’s more, why has the President continued to move the goalposts on what constitutes “ground troops?”
Time to buy stock in Haliburton?
Adaher, you know that peanuts kill more than 10 times the number of Americans than does Islamic terrorism, right? Obama doesn’t treat ISIS as an existential threat to the US because it isn’t. Even if ISIS completely takes over Iraq and Syria (It won’t. They’ve been losing a lot of ground lately and pressure on them has been increasing) they still wouldn’t come close to topping problems the US has.
Terrorism might be a problem for Dems, but that’s only due to effective fear mongering by the GOP and Fox News, not because it’s an actual problem.
It’s not existential, but he’s not going to see mass terrorist killings on his watch. That threat was important enough for him to go to war against ISIS.
It’s not likely at all. It’s extremely unlikely based on their gains and losses over the last several months.
A ground war would be elective. “Whatever it takes to defeat ISIS” means America gets weaker and extremists get stronger if it includes a ground war of choice. Your strategy weakens America, strengthens extremists, and gets my friends shot to pieces. Your strategy would be disastrous.
It’s awfully easy to expound on the necessity of a ground war when you or those close to you won’t be at risk of being blow to pieces. America would be stronger and safer if more politicians considered this and truly treated war (and especially ground war) as a last resort.
The specific towns and localities ISIS holds has changed in various ways (gaining some and losing some), but ISIS does not control significantly more territory beyond the very short term (as in holding onto territory for months) then they did half a year or a year ago. They held scattered chunks of Iraq and Syria then and hold slightly different scattered chunks now. ISIS is not growing at any consistent pace, and they lose territory as often as they gain it.
There’s no reason to believe that the Middle East is in imminent danger of being controlled (or having more than scattered chunks of unstable countries controlled) by ISIS.
As if the US is the only country standing between ISIS and domination of the Middle East. When the players with the most skin in the game realize we are not going to pour out unlimited blood and treasure to police their neighborhood, they will do what they are perfectly capable of doing themselves. Why are conservatives always encouraging dependency on the US? Stop coddling these countries who have a self-interest in containing the bad actors that (unlike the US) actually threaten their existence.
Like The GOP field is any better.
I do agree that we are playing … and I think that the move of all-in with American ground troops would be the least likely one to have an outcome that would be considered “good” from an American perspective. Again, been there done that, have this to show for it, along with thousands of Americans killed, many more severely maimed disabled and impaired, many more Arab civilians including children killed and maimed, and many billions spent.
Responding in that way to ISIS would not be a “strong” response - it would be an idiotic one most likely to result in the worst possible results from the perspective of our interests
Was the invasion of Afghanistan idiotic?
In principle, no. In execution, certainly.