I was reading on CNN earlier, and it seems that the UK is seriously considering joining the US’s coalition (presumably of the willing :p) to fight against ISIS/ISIL. There are also some other countries lining up or at least willing to say they MIGHT join in. When I was reading the CNN article about the UK it struck me…how stupid are these ISIS/ISIL clowns anyway? Why are they making the same mistakes that got both the Taliban and AQ smacked down?
To take a step back, the mistake I think they are making is to annoy nation states (and worse, the general populations…the VOTING populations), especially those in the west (US, UK, Europe in general, etc) to the point where they actually contemplate active military operations against them? I mean, after Iraq and Afghanistan (which is still an ongoing sore in both the UK and US), I’d have thought it would be pretty tough to get either the US or UK to even consider expanding military operations in the region again. Most citizens, and certainly the political powers in charge in both countries were pretty gun shy about dipping our military toes in the region again…at least, that was my feel. We both managed to stay out of the Syria situation pretty well, and were winding down in Afghanistan, having already left Iraq.
Yet, here we are again, talking about air strikes and perhaps more. And in a pretty short time frame too…talk about ISIS/ISIL only really started to get on the US radar maybe 6 months ago. In that time, however, ISIS/ISIL has sort of come out of the wood work, doing everything they can to annoy the shit (or scare the shit) out of regional and global powers, openly perpetrating a series of deliberate massacres and atrocities and graphically and with full fanfare executing civilian hostages and generally being in our collective faces.
W…T…F? I mean, why? The West wouldn’t even bat an eye if ISIS/ISIL did their little attempt at unification of a new caliphate thingy from the shadows or behind the scenes, especially if they had some sort of cover story and plausible deniability for atrocities and such, instead of bragging about them. If they had stayed in Syria and fought Assad, hell, we might have given them covert aid to do whatever the hell they wanted. We might not have even balked if they had entered Iraq if they did so in a less spectacular way, though there is oil in them thar hills, so perhaps that would have been a trigger no matter what. But it’s like these guys didn’t learn any lessons from the US lead invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. That lesson being, don’t come out in the open where we can throw big hammers at you, and instead make the US et al feel guilty about every death and wring their hands at every mistake, and be sympathetic. Hell, the British people, according to the poll in the CNN article, are actually on board with at least limited UK involvement in yet another military adventure in Iraq…something I didn’t think I’d ever live to see. And a Democratic president and administration that had done, IMHO, a great job of extracting us from Iraq and lessened our involvement in Afghanistan an kept us out of Syria (and limited our involvement in Libya) is now pushing for an expanding role in fighting these new idiots.
What is it about wanting to confront the US/West head on that these guys haven’t learned is a bad idea yet?? To me, it just seems so stupid, when there are other ways to skin this cat that would have us just watching and maybe making some vague statements of disapproval but not lifting a finger.