Import them from where?
Importing is probably not the right word for it but recruits are coming from North Africa, Central Asia, the Middle East, Europe, USA, pretty much anywhere there are Muslims willing to go fight for the caliphate in Syria. The Turkish border is a major passage to the front line. The Turkish government was turning a blind eye to the traffic early in the war, and now that they are trying to control who is going into Syria they are finding it very difficult to stop everyone from crossing 400 or so miles of border. The Turkish government has asked other governments to do a better job of giving them information on potential militants coming to their country.
As you admitted further down your post the Kurds are capable of dealing with their own interests with our help. Note the retaking of the dam and then onward to land lost. What changes the game is the ability to eliminate the heavy armor acquired by ISIS which is what is stated in the article:
“The strikes Sunday destroyed or damaged a military check point, four armored personnel carriers, seven armed vehicles, two Humvees and an armored vehicle, officials said.”
They have no air support and can only shoot at low level aircraft. They can’t defend themselves against stealth drones or high altitude platforms. This is what the United States and other nations can do to remove the threat of heavy armor.
The Kurds are not the only ones that hate ISIS and they won’t be the only ones to fight them. To suggest they or anyone else “ran away” when confronted with overwhelming force as if they were cowards is a poor rationalization for ISIS’s early successes. If your neighborhood was similarly stormed the same thing would happen until people could regroup.
Well, at least the Iraqi government, the Iraqi Kurds, the Syrian government and the Syrian Kurds all have a common enemy in ISIS. They will all fight ISIS. How that plays out after ISIS is defeated is another question.
People didn’t really run away as much as they decided it wasn’t in their interest to fight or directly joined ISIS. The Sunni insurgents/Baathist-remnants are a lot of things, cowards is not one of them.
In any case the majority of ISIS forces appears to have moved into Syria where they’ll be facing the Syrian army. Which so far has been the most effective force against ISIS and have killed a good deal of them already. We should give Assad a helping hand in this good work.
Heard some talking head on CNN. He still thought the key to everything was attacking the Syrian government forces and confronting Iran. That’s such a stupid idea that it boggles the mind.
I’ve been listening in on some Kurd forum conversations. The average Kurd hates Arabs, be they sunni or shia.
And then what? We certainly don’t want him strengthened in power.
So are we following them to the gates of hell or just trying to contain them? Because the administration is confusing me now.
‘The gates of hell’ aren’t really a thing. You know that, right?
I know you’re being sarcastic, but those two statements aren’t really contradictory. Obama was speaking about ISIL as a whole and Biden was speaking specifically about the individuals responsible for killing the two American journalists.
I’m not actually being sarcastic, believe it or not. It’s not just Biden. Kerry says that ISIL is a cancer that needs to be eradicated. Hagel said that they are one of the greatest threats we’ve ever faced. I guess the President is the last word and he says we’re just going to contain them so that they are a manageable problem. Which strikes me as lunacy, but whatever.
So what’s your solution for eradicating this ‘greatest cancer threat we’ve ever faced’?
Kerry and Hagel have a job to do. That job is to bring pressing issues to the front. The president’s job is to be the adult in the room and bring perspective other’s may lack. This president is particularly good at showing restraint. To his credit, he’s learned from past mistakes.
Well Mr “adult in the room” referred to ISIS as the Junior Varsity squad. So I’m guessing it was a really small room.
Restraint is not always the best policy. Containment is what you do with nuclear powers. Eradication is what you do with non-state terrorist groups.
I do think he’s right to want Iraqis to do most of the fighting. But the goal should be to destroy ISIL. He’s going to have to do it anyway after they attack us on our own soil, why not get it out of the way now?
Well, that’s horse of a different color. The problem with the stated goals of the various spokescritters is that it doesn’t match the policy. You don’t operate to remove the cancer from the lungs but leave it in the liver.
I also found a speech where the President said the goal was to destroy ISIL. So maybe they are just hashing out their strategy in public since the President said they hadn’t yet made final decisions yet on how to deal with them.
Hopefully he comes down on the side of eliminating them, alone if necessary.
Just like you destroyed al-qaida after they attacked you? Why are you so sure that an attack on the U.S. is inevitable? They have plenty on their plate and they seem mostly a local group.
They take in 80 million dollars a year just in oil exports. Add in money from kidnapping, bank robbery and and wholesale thievery and this is a well funded operation. They are well acquainted with modern equipment and communications methods.
Currently there is no active attempt to stem the tide of illegal immigration so there is literally nothing stopping them from entering the country.
Bush eliminated 75% of their leadership and Obama cut off the head, as well as continued to pick them off. The war against al Qaeda is going quite well. But now we have ISIL to deal with, and they are stronger than Al Qaeda. And groups that try to impose caliphates generally don’t settle for keeping war within the Muslim world.
Plus we’ve already bombed them so the die is cast.
Yes. Instead of fixing the immigration problems we should just bust open the hornets nest. Entirely brilliant. Never mind that they are intent on building their Caliphate rather than attacking the U.S… Never mind that promising to destroy them just might change that focus. We got to be men of action!
Eta: stole that link up topfrom John Mace in another thread