# ISIS--you're going down **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 8, 2014, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isis-youre-going-down/695073 "2014-08-08T01:00:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![ralfy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ralfy/32/600_2.png) [@ralfy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralfy)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2014, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isis-youre-going-down/695073/121 "2014-08-09T03:06:31Z")
Ultimately, there is no “we” in this issue, as members of the financial elite and government officials engage in realpolitik. Various armed groups (from military forces to terrorist groups) are used as pawns for destabilization, control of oil and other resources, etc. Citizens end up being saddled with war costs or become collateral damage. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2014, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isis-youre-going-down/695073/122 "2014-08-09T03:09:49Z")
Worst idea ever, over and over, you know what God wants, and He approves of your actions. Like a dragon, the idea is simultaneously powerful and vulnerable. ISIS is totally on a winning streak, which is entirely in line with the ghastly Idea. So, we need for them to lose one. To admit the shining truth of holy doubt, the divinely inspired notion that maybe you don’t know what you think you know. Now, that’s not enough just by itself, their leaders will trot out the same old tommyrot about how they didn’t have enough faith, or somebody was sinning. But its a start, pull back the curtain. Holy War is an idea so blasphemous it offends atheists. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2014, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isis-youre-going-down/695073/123 "2014-08-09T03:17:37Z")
> [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](#): > > These two things are inherently different, the most obvious reason being that the English Channel is considerably easier to defend than a connected land mass. Nazi Germany wasn’t stopped by the British Navy, they were stopped by a natural barrier, and it took the Allies with virtually infinite resources more than 3 years to cross that barrier themselves. > > So we drop a few bombs, we kill a few people, and then we leave again. What have we done? A few more people die, a few more people adopt the idea, and we buy the Kurds some more time. But that’s not a solution, and in fact there really isn’t a solution that will end with anything but a reinvestment of US soldiers or an ISIS victory. > > A comparison with Vietnam is more apt. Ho Chi Minh (attributed): “You can kill ten of our men for every one we kill of yours. But even at those odds, you will lose and we will win.” When we walked away from Vietnam it was all over and everybody knew it. We tried for more than a decade to destroy an ideology and failed. We’re doing it again. That’s where it is at right now. Vietnamese conquering Vietnam is not only possible, but likely. However, a sectarian insurgency cannot conquer and occupy foreign land. You need a conventional army with considerable power to do that. ISIS will have no friends in the Shiite and Kurd areas to hide among. ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2014, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isis-youre-going-down/695073/124 "2014-08-09T04:44:27Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > The could shut down Thanksgiving! golf clap There was a good breakdown of the history of the relationship between the US and the Kurds on The Rachel Maddow Show (with Steve Kornacki!) tonight. The basic points: -The Kurds were our allies in the first Gulf War under Bush I. But Bush I was in a hurry to get that whole thing over and done with, and stopped at liberating Kuwait. He went on to personally urge the Iraqis to rise up and overthrow Saddam themselves. The Kurds, among others, heeded the call, apparently expecting US help. There was none; they failed, and Saddam totally kicked their asses, driving them into the mountains in a way reminiscent of the Yazidis today. It was a bloodbath, but Bush I held firm and didn’t help. -Kind of a side note, but Clinton ignored the genocide in Rawanda, refusing to use the word ‘genocide’ in a (successful) bid to avoid getting involved. The result? 1 million dead in 100 days. Later, Clinton said this decision was the biggest regret of his presidency; personally I think it is easier to say those words after the fact than to get involved in a country that doesn’t have any oil. -Bush II used the the treatment of the Kurds as part of his justification for the overthrow of Saddam. He asked the Kurds for their help in the task, and they agreed, setting aside Bush I’s jilting, acting as our allies all the way. The thread here is that the Kurds have been our steadfast ally in a shitty part of the world. -Now ISIS wants to go in and slaughter the Kurds (who receive something like 1/5 of the oil revenues of the country). The choice for Obama is: act like Bush I and Clinton and just stand there watching them die, or count their allegiance as worth something and come to their aid in their time of need. It is obvious which path Obama is choosing. I think that American air support alone can make the difference between the preservation or fall of the Kurdish region, at least in the short term. If ISIS loses any artillery, mortar, trucks and so on that get too close, what are they going to accomplish? In the longer term, Iraq looks like a candidate for a split-up. The Kurds (potentially) could remain our allies in a crappy region for sincere reasons. And we get to blow up some ISIS shit, prevent a little genocide for a change, and of course keep the oil flowing. It is at least comprehensible. ps. I thought I read somewhere that Turkey might be willing some territory to a Kurdish state if things came to that. Anyone else see that? ETA: If the Yazidis are considered Satan worshipers, who better to come to their aid than The Great Satan Itself? ---
**Author:** ![Bouncer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9d8465/32.png) [@Bouncer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bouncer)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2014, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isis-youre-going-down/695073/125 "2014-08-09T04:48:59Z")
> [@Locrian](#): > > [Erbil isn’t looking good right now](http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/08/08/world/middleeast/isis-forces-in-iraq.html?_r=0&referrer=) from this just in from NYT… Well, you do need to understand that Mosul was always a cluster waiting to happen. It was a city divided religiously and ethnically and has just been basically the most dangerous city in Iraq for years. I can’t stress enough how dangerous it was, well before ISIS showed up. More to the point, the majority population is Sunni, and are of the same sect as ISIS, so that city “falling” to ISIS wasn’t any kind of a surprise to anyone with time in country. As to the dam, that’s bad news, but has no military effect on Erbil other than possible loss of power generation (though I’m pretty sure Erbil has other generation sources). Side note, the US has been waiting for the Mosul (Saddam) dam to fail for a while now (since at least 2007), and when it happens it’s going to be a disaster for Mosul and other cities along the Tigris. The reason for the failure will be that the Iraqis built a major dam on porous rock (think gypsum) and it requires constant, daily maintenance (six days a week) to keep the ground underneath it from dissolving. Ironically, if the dam should fail catastrophically, it’ll pretty much wipe out all the ISIS controlled areas south of the dam all the way down to Baghdad. Real wrath of Allah type stuff. (To paraphrase the Ghostbusters) Here’s a little light fun reading from the Army Corps of Engineers detailing just how incredibly dumb the decision was to place the dam where it is: [http://el.erdc.usace.army.mil/elpubs/pdf/tr07-10.pdf](http://el.erdc.usace.army.mil/elpubs/pdf/tr07-10.pdf) Anyone with a passing interest in geology or hydrology or dams will find it fascinating reading. And scary as all hell. Regards, -Bouncer- ---
**Author:** ![Bouncer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9d8465/32.png) [@Bouncer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bouncer)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2014, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isis-youre-going-down/695073/126 "2014-08-09T04:59:56Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Admit it, everyone, who here had ever \*heard \*of the Yazidis before a couple of days ago? /shyly raises hand. In 2007 three of their villages got blown up by Al-Queda suicide bombers. And when I say villages, I mean the villages were basically leveled by the force of the blasts. Just blew the mud houses they lived in to rubble. I was in country that day and remember it well. Regards, -Bouncer- ---
**Author:** ![Bouncer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9d8465/32.png) [@Bouncer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bouncer)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2014, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isis-youre-going-down/695073/127 "2014-08-09T05:07:56Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > I don’t think Obama would have acted with military force if ISIS hadn’t been moving toward Erbil, I think he probably would have said some stuff but ultimately done nothing if ISIS was solely concerned with taking Baghdad and toppling Maliki. Disagree on this point. Al-Maliki is out either way, but Obama cannot and will not let the US Embassy in Baghdad fall if it is at all possible to save it. There are a variety of reasons for this. Plus, Baghdad is really Shi’a territory (with the exception of some of the neighborhoods). It’d be a hell of a fight to take it when pretty much the entire population is opposed to ISIS. Regards, -Bouncer- ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2014, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isis-youre-going-down/695073/128 "2014-08-09T05:49:31Z")
The ‘You broke it, you buy it’ excuse/commitment ended the moment Maliki didn’t renew our bargain basement legal requirements for ground troops. He refused our advice regarding the religious faction inclusion in the political process. How can one US bomb being dropped NOT be seen as sticking our nose where it doesn’t belong and supporting a man who, while democratically elected, is clearly not acting in the interest of all his people. What are proponents of this smoking, and can I have some? ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2014, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isis-youre-going-down/695073/129 "2014-08-09T07:37:22Z")
Actually it seems Turkey is warming to the idea of an independent Kurdistan (which wouldn’t include any part of Turkey): [http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-07-01/why-turkey-now-wants-iraq-to-break-up](http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-07-01/why-turkey-now-wants-iraq-to-break-up) ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2014, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isis-youre-going-down/695073/130 "2014-08-09T07:42:12Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > Nah, this sort of group thrives on adversity. The US attacking them will boost their solidarity and street cred enormously. > > I fully expect that within no longer than, say, a few million years, the US will come to understand this lesson that history should have made obvious by now. I think the idea is - “Airstrikes aren’t ideal, but they’re better than nothing.” ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2014, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isis-youre-going-down/695073/131 "2014-08-09T09:02:04Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > If the people weren’t complicit, they would be stopping Hamas. By this token, _all_ Americans were to blame for the Bush regime’s war of aggression in Iraq… ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2014, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isis-youre-going-down/695073/132 "2014-08-09T09:04:59Z")
Enough so that it doesn’t matter. Over 60% favored it when it happened. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2014, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isis-youre-going-down/695073/133 "2014-08-09T09:26:33Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > The ‘You broke it, you buy it’ excuse/commitment ended the moment Maliki didn’t renew our bargain basement legal requirements for ground troops. Yeah, who would have thought that American demands for legal immunity for people who flat out murder Iraqi civilians would be such a sticking point? :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2014, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isis-youre-going-down/695073/134 "2014-08-09T13:27:54Z")
> [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](#): > > These two things are inherently different, the most obvious reason being that the English Channel is considerably easier to defend than a connected land mass. Nazi Germany wasn’t stopped by the British Navy, they were stopped by a natural barrier, and it took the Allies with virtually infinite resources more than 3 years to cross that barrier themselves. The Germans knew they would be unable to cross the channel as long as the British had naval superiority. The Germans knew they wouldn’t be able to do anything about the naval superiority without aerial superiority over Britain. > [@](#): > > So we drop a few bombs, we kill a few people, and then we leave again. What have we done? A few more people die, a few more people adopt the idea, and we buy the Kurds some more time. But that’s not a solution, and in fact there really isn’t a solution that will end with anything but a reinvestment of US soldiers or an ISIS victory. With today’s weaponry conventional military forces cannot operate with the other side having complete dominance of the skies. > [@](#): > > A comparison with Vietnam is more apt. Ho Chi Minh (attributed): “You can kill ten of our men for every one we kill of yours. But even at those odds, you will lose and we will win.” When we walked away from Vietnam it was all over and everybody knew it. We tried for more than a decade to destroy an ideology and failed. We’re doing it again. That’s where it is at right now. It’s not similar to Vietnam at all, actually. How do you think insurgencies last? By: A) Hiding among a hostile population, all of whom hate and would kill them on sight B) Hiding among a sympathetic population, many of whom will aid their cause and give them supplies and shelter Many South Vietnamese supported the ideal of a unified, communist Vietnam. Many just supported the idea of a unified Vietnam under “non-colonial” rule. Either way, the communist forces had a lot of support in South Vietnam. There’s no analogue in Kurdistan, Mosul, which is right on the border of the “Kurdish” area of Iraq has a majority Arab/Sunni population and thus it is no real surprise it fell into ISIS hands. Kirkuk has a plurality Kurdish population, and is also on the “border”, so it’s a city where there could be a prolonged insurgency. But the rest of Iraq “generally North” of the Mosul-Kirkuk line is essentially a Kurdish homeland where ISIS cannot operate in a manner similar to anything to do with Vietnam. It’s like saying Americans could operate ala the Viet Cong in North Vietnam, actually. Which is obviously farcical on several levels. A conventional army needs heavy equipment and the ability to operate in the open to achieve its goals. If a powerful military, like that of the United States, decides to conduct air strikes against their artillery, APCs, any armor they have etc, they can no longer operate as a conventional military. That’s fine if they don’t want to operate conventional military campaigns, but the looming invasion of Erbil wasn’t an insurgency campaign, this was a legit invasion with heavy equipment, large troop formations etc. Ripe for the picking for a modern air force that would face no resistance whatsoever from these forces. Reduced back to fighting an insurgency, ISIS cannot conduct an “invasion” of a city in which they have essentially no local support. That’s not how insurgencies work. I don’t know why I have the bad habit of going to pains to explain the obvious, but there we are. Note the insurgencies that went on in Iraq, Afghanistan, and really anywhere else you care to name were all operating based on the fact that the insurgent forces had significant local support. For this reason, protecting the Kurds is not at all like South Vietnam/Vietnam, since we’re protecting them from a foreign invasion force which has no local support. Now, “protecting” Shiite dominated Iraq in the South, or trying to keep the Sunni regions of Iraq loyal to Baghdad’s government, is definitely not something we can do with airstrikes. But protect Kurds? Yes, we can protect them with airstrikes. In fact we were able to protect them for much of the last decade of Saddam’s regime by disallowing Saddam’s military to operate in the air over this region. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2014, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isis-youre-going-down/695073/135 "2014-08-09T13:37:45Z")
What I’m actually shocked about is the level of disarmament prevalent in the Peshmerga. I honestly like many Americans haven’t given a critical eye toward Iraq in a few years, but I assumed the Kurds had decent access to weaponry. But several Peshmerga leaders have said they’ve had to withdraw from battles because they run out of bullets entirely, and they have no serious heavy weaponry at all. I guess I can see how we got here though, the U.S. has always had to walk a tight rope with the Kurds. We’d probably like to see the Peshmerga well armed, but while we were playing up the central government and its importance, it probably was politically impossible for us to be supplying a Kurdish sectarian force with weapons since that undermines our support for the central government. Not to mention getting any kind of heavy arms in Kurdish hands, where there is any remote chance of the Kurds later using them against Turkey or Iran in the Kurdish areas of those countries would be diplomatically troublesome. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2014, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isis-youre-going-down/695073/136 "2014-08-09T15:21:16Z")
It was interesting listening to Obama’s spokesperson on the PBS News Hour last night. He talked about Iraqi Security Forces and Kurdish Peshmerga. Two separate entities. Seems like we’re taking for granted that Humpty Dumpty isn’t going to be put back together again. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2014, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isis-youre-going-down/695073/137 "2014-08-09T15:31:16Z")
I wouldn’t go that far. It’s more a recognition that the Iraqi government is completely cut off from the Kurds now. You can’t help the Kurds through Baghdad anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2014, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isis-youre-going-down/695073/138 "2014-08-09T15:44:15Z")
I’ve always felt the Kurds should have their own country. Maybe it’ll finally happen. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2014, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isis-youre-going-down/695073/139 "2014-08-09T16:04:39Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > I wouldn’t go that far. It’s more a recognition that the Iraqi government is completely cut off from the Kurds now. You can’t help the Kurds through Baghdad anymore. Which is exactly the same thing. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2014, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isis-youre-going-down/695073/140 "2014-08-09T16:55:23Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > Just my opinion, but figured I’d start it here so I can cuss. > > Youse guys are fucking losers. You have had success because you went into a soft target(Syria), had success, and now onto Iraq. You’ve had obscene success because you’re attacking a target that has no long-term cohesion. Don’t think you could do this in a country who has had a stable government for years. > > You just pissed off the world by attacking minorities who have not done anything to you(except under your outdated view of the world). You are no better than Hitler(There–I’ve Godwinized the thread]. > > Know what happened the last time Hitler tried to impose his will upon the world? You don’t care. You’re only doing what your god told you to do. > > You’ll get the first results in the next few days. The US won’t let genocide occur. > > Kiss your asses goodbye. **Sam** , you never seemed like an “America! Fuck, yeah!” sort of booster like this. I just find it odd. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isis-youre-going-down/695073.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isis-youre-going-down/695073.md?page=8)