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Originally Posted by TexaninVA
There’s no doubt that all of us are sick of the Middle East, Radical Islam and the whole rotten bunch. No one wants their kids or grandkids to go to war, nor does anyone relish the thought of body counts. No one wants American boots on the ground. I think this is a normal reaction and actually classically American … big oceans, no one can invade us, let’s just live in our isolationist bubble and call it a day.
The problem is what’s it’s always been … there is evil in the world. Whether one is religious or not, it’s just the way the world is and has always been. Evil uncontested will continue to expand, especially if and when it senses weakness … which is the case today by the way. Evil is analogous to a cancerous growth. What usually happens is we avoid the inevitable until it becomes too big (Lusitania, Pearl Harbor, invasion of Kuwait, etc) to ignore anymore and we’re forced to take action. Those who perpetrate evil (Hitler, al-Baghdadi, etc) keep at it until crushed. Not negotiated or managed … crushed as in killed. Just because we think we are not at war, or because we don’t want to be at war, does not mean we can avoid war. ISIS is at war with America whether we like it or want it .. .it doesn’t matter.
As far as clandestine efforts in the war, I certainly support that, and know for a fact it is going on with good effect. But, when all is said and done, it takes Presidential leadership and congressional support to state the objective – plainly and openly --, create a strategy and then persevere until victory occurs, and provide the resources need to win. Think WWII or Gulf War 1991. Regretfully, it will most likely take American troops at some point IMHO.
A final point … there is no excuse for not having a strategy by this point. Strategies will usually evolve which is fine. The intel community has known about ISIS for several years and senior policymakers get briefed on it every day. ISIS is NOT a new development … it just started getting public press when they overran Mosul in June of this year.
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It sounds to me that you believe that we are currently doing nothing. I don't think that's the case. President Bush talked about the fact that this was going to be a very kind of war. He said that we often not be aware of things happening. Just because you don't see tanks and missiles and men in uniform shooting bad guys does not mean that we are doing nothing.
This is part of the ongoing war on terror and most of it will be fought behind the scenes by covert operatives. ISIS is just the current battle. We will degrade and destroy them and unfortunately, another radical group will pop up. I really don't think that this is a winnable war. It is more like our war on crime. We know that there will always be crime but we will never stop fighting it. The same goes for terrorism.
Like I said, in some ways a lot of people would feel better if they saw our soldiers on the ground over there. They would feel that we are at least "doing something." But doing something just to do something even if it's the wrong thing would be foolish. It may also be that in a clandestine operation like this, it might be foolish for the president and congress to state it's objectives and strategy plainly and openly. Like I said we may never know what's going on and that will make a lot of us very uncomfortable.
Maybe boots on the ground will have to happen. I personally believe that we are not going to destroy ISIS without boots on the ground at some point but I don't have all of the information. Maybe the Iraqi and Syrian armies can destroy this threat with only our support such as the air strikes that seemed to be pretty effective. That would be ideal. But do't think that just because we don't see ground operations that we are doing nothing.