# Some ideas on defeating ISIS **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 16, 2015, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-ideas-on-defeating-isis/737699 "2015-11-16T15:26:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2015, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-ideas-on-defeating-isis/737699/61 "2015-11-20T14:46:18Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > Sounds like some cells are using PS3 chat groups for private communication. So perhaps FPS trolls have a role to play here. HA! [Anonymous are now ‘rickrolling’ Isis](http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/28512/1/anonymous-are-apparently-rickrolling-isis) ---
**Author:** ![MrQwertyasd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2015, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-ideas-on-defeating-isis/737699/62 "2015-11-20T20:29:43Z")
[John Kerry](http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/ISIS-Threat/Kerry-The-US-will-defeat-ISIS-quicker-than-it-did-al-Qaeda-434747) > [@](#): > > “We began our fight against al-Qaida in 2001 and it took us quite a few years before we were able to eliminate Osama bin Laden and the top leadership and neutralize them as an effective force. We hope to do Daesh much faster than that and we think we have an ability to do that,” he told reporters. But… > [@](#): > > Al-Qaida has grown exponentially in recent years, retired four-star Army Gen. Jack Keane said. > > Keane said, “We do not. Al-Qaida has grown fourfold in five years. ISIS, which began when we pulled out politically and military from Iraq, grew from an organization less than 3,000 to an organization over 30,000 in three years. Radical Islamists spread from Western Africa through the Middle East, all the way to South Asia to sub-Indian continent.” ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2015, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-ideas-on-defeating-isis/737699/63 "2015-11-21T08:21:18Z")
Richard Clarke has some thoughts on the problem: > **[Mr. President, escalate this war: Obama needs an attitude adjustment](https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/richard-clarke-mr-president-escalate-war-article-1.2436924)** > > In a testy press conference in Turkey, President Obama dismissed critics of his administration’s response to ISIS by saying that the U.S. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2015, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-ideas-on-defeating-isis/737699/64 "2015-11-21T08:32:20Z")
And Ryan Lizza writes about the importance of denying terrorist groups sanctuaries: > **[ISIS, Terrorist Sanctuaries, and the Lessons of 9/11](https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/isis-terrorist-sanctuaries-and-the-lessons-of-911)** > > Past Presidents didn’t make the “no sanctuary” policy a centerpiece of their national-security strategy. Now it may not be a viable option at all. > [@](#): > > “No sanctuaries” became one of the central recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, which repeatedly warned that Al Qaeda, and groups like it, should never again be allowed to operate in a safe haven where they have “the operational space to gather and sift recruits,” especially in failed states. “If, for example, Iraq becomes a failed state, it will go to the top of the list of places that are breeding grounds for attacks against Americans at home,” the report noted. This was the year after the Bush Administration invaded Iraq, and three years into the war in Afghanistan, about which the report’s authors added, “Similarly, if we are paying insufficient attention to Afghanistan, the rule of the Taliban or warlords and narcotraffickers may reemerge and its countryside could once again offer refuge to al Qaeda, or its successor.” > > Eleven years after the Commission’s report, ISIS is safely operating in a sanctuary the size of Indiana and, with the notable exception of Lindsey Graham, neither President Obama nor any Presidential candidate, whether Republican or Democrat, has put forward a detailed plan that would uproot ISIS from the territory it controls across Iraq and Syria. Even Jeb Bush, who on Wednesday said more American ground troops were needed to fight ISIS, did not propose a massive ground invasion, or not forthrightly. Like all of the candidates, he was disappointingly vague about how the military could solve the problem. ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2015, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-ideas-on-defeating-isis/737699/65 "2015-11-21T10:32:40Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Think occupying a desert the size of Indiana is hard? Wait till you have to clear the enemy out of all of North African and Messopotamia. This is absurd and shows zero sense of the geography… The DAESH control the backland areas of just a part of the Mesopotamia, and that only barely. They seized in a moment of inattention to the threat some routes and ouases. They have no control over the non-desertic main lands of either even the Syria or the Iraq, but only marginal peripheries of low population. They are not going to capture “all of North African” - this is a paranoid fantasy. they are not even expanding in their marginal territories, but losing ground. if the Iraqi central government would provide any long term confidence to the Sunni it would not snap back to the sectarian discrimination the moment it is not under threat, the DAESH I am sure would see their influence collapse. The comments reminds me of the strange cartoon simplification things the americans principally used to write about the communist movements, completing not understanding any of the local circumstances. ---
**Author:** ![Ryan\_Liam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ryan_liam/32/3965_2.png) [@Ryan\_Liam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ryan_Liam)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2015, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-ideas-on-defeating-isis/737699/66 "2015-11-21T11:38:29Z")
> [@](#): > > **Ramira** > The comments reminds me of the strange cartoon simplification things the Americans principally used to write about the communist movements, completing not understanding any of the local circumstances. Maybe if the people who knew about such things in depth took a less _acerbic_ attitude, those types of people who were not so knowledgeable would be less inclined to look at it in such a black and white issue. ---
**Author:** ![Donald\_Rump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9fc29f/32.png) [@Donald\_Rump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donald_Rump)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2015, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-ideas-on-defeating-isis/737699/67 "2015-11-21T11:57:31Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Richard Clarke has some thoughts on the problem: > [@](#): > > And Ryan Lizza writes about the importance of denying terrorist groups sanctuaries: Both of them fail to provide an argument that destroying Daesh/denying them a sanctuary can be done at a cost commensurate with the threat they pose. That’s the critical piece, for me. And Richard Clarke engages in a peculiar bit of fantasy in his prescription for how to “take back the cities:” > [@](#): > > On the road to the destruction of ISIS, we should much sooner evict them from cities and keep them on the run. While the bulk of the forces needed to do that should not be American and should consist of local elements and units from supportive Sunni nations, the U.S. can do more than it is doing. Which “supportive Sunni nations” are going to send troops to die in close-quarters urban combat against Daesh? The Saudi government, even if it wanted to help us in this way, has nowhere near enough legitimacy to be able to survive dozens or hundreds of bullet-riddled and beheaded troops coming back in body-bags from a battle fought against other Muslims at the behest of the United States. Clarke’s proposal sounds great on paper but is frankly about as delusional as Trump’s proposal to get Mexico to pay for a border wall. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2015, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-ideas-on-defeating-isis/737699/68 "2015-11-21T12:00:10Z")
Yeah, I’ve never understood why people keep on saying we should get more Arab nations involved, as if the President hasn’t thought of that already. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/some-ideas-on-defeating-isis/737699.md?page=3)