On a tangentially-related note, Israel just shot down a Syrian Air Force Su-24 that wandered into the Golan Heights. The crew ejected.
It’ll be interesting to find out if this was the Syrian air force probing Israel’s defenses, or simply a very risky way to defect.
They probably just wandered off course - by the time the missile hit, they were already back over Syria. But Israel can’t afford to take any chances.
I’ll bet you $50 that the F-22 is not used at all in this conflict.
Why? To avoid revealing EW data to Russia/China/Iran?
http://defensetech.org/2014/09/22/report-f-22-raptors-launched-airstrikes-in-syria/
Unless it’s a whoosh, I’ll take the $50
And everything old is new again. I’m sure the commitment will be short and inexpensive. Happy 2003, everybody!
I think Assad prefers bombing civilians, and anyway he has no reason to do a thing when other countries are willing to do it for him.
It’s possible that some selflessness would win goodwill for the U.S., but this would require occupying two countries, and neither of them wants it. Some Syrians and Iraqis might welcome it, but their governments and important parts of the population won’t want it. And this is another consistent problem: when the U.S. does useful things, it doesn’t always get credit anyway. The local government will take credit, and the U.S. will remain a bogeyman for one reason or another, like Israel or supporting a different faction or ethnic group.
And just for fun, next we’ll probably have to deal with the supposed threat of ISIS striking the U.S.
Dammit! I just read about that, too. Moments after posting. Oh well.
This President has done a superior job of defining the mission compared to Bush, and the mission is eminently achievable. I think that’s part of the reason he’s enjoying more support for the war(70+%).
I do wonder about having Arabs bomb Syria though. An earlier poster mentioned that we’re more precise. Even if we’ve given nations like Saudi Arabia smart bombs, I just don’t know that they are going to limit collateral damage better than we can. I’m guessing we don’t particularly care though. The diplomatic coup is worth excess civilian deaths from a purely selfish perspective.
Unfortunately the long term solution is post WW2 Japan + reconstruction garrisoning. Go in, more or less kill anybody that resists and totally suppress the population without the whole ‘we are here supporting your government while we help you rebuild’ shit. It would literally be a Christian vs Muslim crusade without the forced conversion bit.
The problem we are dealing with is the general population are being taught that we want to move in and force conversion to Christianity because like we see the small percentage of Muslims that want to force us to convert and are extremely vocal about it, they see our biblepounding asshole politicians and televangelists who want us to force convert them. We really don’t [except for those assholes that is.] We managed to deal with the Japanese without forcing them to convert to anything in particular, other than a change to the laws involving democracy and human rights, and not allowing an expansionist military force. We rebuilt Germany and Japan, pouring lots of money and resources in and leaving the countries with a better infrastructure and industrial capacity. We could do much good, if the religious minority would settle the hell down. We really don’t care who or what they worship, if they would simply stop trying to force convert everybody to their specific tiny cult [and yes, I do also consider Christianity as a cult as well.]
If you look at some of the issues, it is as if the First Baptist Church of my youth decided to grab guns and force convert the Catholics … which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. I would consider the flood of refugees leaving the area as an indication that they do not want to be force converted to Islamic State. If it takes us bombing IS camps and troops, and the official government of Syria is OK with that, then I can not see what the issue is.
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That could be it, but I suspect a lot of the support has to do with the minimal U.S. commitment and the fact that the targets are horrible people who have butchered a couple of Westerners. I don’t know how you can say “the mission is eminently achievable” on one hand and then immediately acknowledge ground troops might have to be committed. That would be a huge change in the mission, and that’s exactly what people are concerned about. This is the Middle East. Things that sound worthwhile and look achievable often turn out to be far more complicated, and missions have a way of changing over and over again. The goal here may be worthwhile, but the problem here is how you get from A to B and make sure you don’t create a lot of other problems that will have to be solved later on.
We shot down a Syrian Air Force jet, so we might be getting drawn into fighting Assad as well now that we’re there.
I’m wondering what that was about. I would think Assad would be cool with us hitting ISIS for him. Maybe he needs to be seen to be fighting the Americans so he sends a sacrificial jet for us to shoot down. The headlines will make it seem like he fought a grand battle with the American Air force.
What kind of force to use is just the tactics. The mission is what the mission is, but tactics can change depending on how well we’re doing. Putting in ground troops doesn’t change the mission at all, it just raises the cost of the mission.
The mission is achievable, but two generals have said, only with ground troops. This looks to me a lot like Shinseki saying that you could rebuild and subdue Iraq, if you had 500,000 troops. Obama is less likely to try to substitute his own judgement for the professional military’s. He doesn’t have an ideologue like Rumsfeld in the Pentagon deciding that his way is the only way. Hagel’s a lot more humble and arguably more experienced as well.
ISIS is functioning like a conventional military force right now. Our military knows how to deal with that problem. They are very, very good at it. This isn’t Iraq 2003, although if the President allows mission creep to occur it could become that way. But he seems pretty darned determined to not let that happen. As long as he stays focused on the goals he’s outlined, the job will be done.
Israel shot down a Syrian fighter over the Golan Heights earlier. Is this the same downed plane or did the US shoot down another Syrian fighter jet?
Unfortunately the gradual approach will not help the Kurds, Yezidis, Christians, Assyrians etc who are being gunned down, beheaded or just driven away. And cultural exchanges are not going to help with those that believe that everyone who doesn’t believe in their exact brand of religion. And those are the ones that are killing all the civilians right now.
And it’s not like I have a good answer either. And I really don’t feel like wasting another year of my life in that shithole.
This Rumsfieldian digression did not address the substance of what I said.
Unfortunately “right now” seems like a very important qualifier. They are behaving one way right now and could act another way under different circumstances. We’re about to find out. And you’ve done a nice job of pre-blaming Obama for the mission you are sure will go just fine. I’m sure the U.S. and its allies have the capability to drop lots of bombs. It’s hard to be confident that that’s actually going to get the job done and that the commitment will stay limited (as you’ve now twice acknowledged) since the last 12 years of overseas military activity have not worked out that way at all.
He’s talking about Israel.
If they go guerilla, then they no longer pose a threat to Iraq that Iraq hasn’t already been dealing with since before Saddam’s time. What makes ISIS a particular danger is their conventional aspect, and we can put an end to that pretty easily if we apply enough force.
I’m not pre-blaming Obama for mission creep because he’s very unlikely to let that happen. I was only conceding your concerns as valid, because such things do happen. If this was our first rodeo, I’d be more concerned, but our government actually does learn from mistakes on occasion, especially ones we just got through making in the exact same place.
Well done, those men !
*“I want you to lay down your life, Perkins.”
“Right sir !”
“We need a futile gesture at this stage. It will raise the whole tone of the war.”
“Yessir !”
“Get up in a crate, Perkins.”
“Sah !”
“Pop over to Bremen.”
“Yessir !”
“Take a shufti.”
“Right sir !”
“And don’t come back.”
“Yessir”
“Goodbye, Perkins. God, I wish I was going too.”
“Goodbye Sah ! – Or is it au revoir ?”
“No, Perkins.”*
Cook & Miller
What makes ISIS a particular danger is their conventional aspect, and we can put an end to that pretty easily if we apply enough force.
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Iraq may have been dealing with this problem for a while, but I’m not sure they’re dealing with it particularly well. An increase in terrorist attacks would certainly be a problem for the country.
I’m not so convinced. But hey, the good news is we’re about to find out! Hooray.
It ain’t just ISIS, apparently: US air strikes are also targeting “the Khorasan group.”
About that - Juan Cole writes that…