[graciegirl]

Originally Posted by blueash

This will be the greatest recruiting tool for ISIS they could imagine. Getting the US to drop bombs on them, which will taking out a few people, a few buildings, a few supplies is not going to scare them. But the propaganda value of the new videos, and tweets, and recruitment speeches will be huge. Get ready for an enormous increase in support for radicals by people who were formerly on the fence. Having your enemy attack you has been one of the best ways to create support for your side. Remember the Maine, Gulf of Tonkin, Pearl Harbor. When America believes it has been attacked we rally and doves become hawks. It will be no different in Islamic families. If we are seen as attacking there are many who will join to fight us who would not have felt compelled to fight in the absence of our military actions. So ISIS has succeeded by beheading 3 westerners in goading us into billions more spent, likely hundreds or thousands more deaths to fight an enemy we cannot defeat as it is not a nation but an idea. Until the local communities and people are willing to fight this idea themselves, and fight as hard as ISIS our opinion will not change the long term outcome. As in Vietnam the world's greatest military couldn't stop a rag tag outfit because the people who lived there didn't care to fight hard enough to stop Ho.

What is our exit strategy in this war against ISIS? When every Muslim who hates America is dead? Are you assuming that we are not creating more radicals than we are killing? When we take the war to them does that not make it more likely, not less likely, that they are going to take the war to us? Have the people of Gaza become less radical and less supportive of Hamas after repeatedly being subjected to Israeli responses to radical actions by Hamas's most militant fringes? Do Israelis become more considerate of Palestinian grievances when missiles are aimed at them or are they hardened in their resolve for revenge? So rather than cheer that we have done something, ask what have we accomplished and what shall we reap. I hope I am wrong.

What would YOU do?