The Best Weapon to Fight Isis is Already in Iraq

[flamingdem]

(the Kurds - see link)

-- snip

Make no mistake: dismantling a nascent Islamic State is a serious undertaking, involving thousands of U.S. personnel and a robust interagency effort. The insurgents are ruthless, resourceful and are adept at weaving themselves into the fabric of the region, making them virtually undetectable until they strike. If President Barack Obama’s strategy is to “contain” ISIL, not destroy it, as the New York Times reported on Aug. 22, he will fail.

Masked and without a uniform, ISIL is impossible to fight using the doctrines of the past. Airstrikes and raids will fail to do damage without actionable intelligence. To keep pace with and then overtake ISIL, the U.S. Central Command should first select a widely respected four-star officer to lead a new joint task force. It would operate inside Syria and Iraq, and along the Turkish and Iranian borders. No Burger Kings or Best Buys on this base.

And every part of the U.S. intelligence and military apparatus has to work together; just they did with the interagency Joint Task Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2003.

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A drone-centric strategy hasn’t worked well in Yemen and Pakistan to permanently end the threat of terrorism, and will not work at all in Syria and Iraq. Without granular intelligence, drones have no way of distinguishing between combatants and noncombatants. Obama has authorized as many as 60 intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance flights of manned and unmanned aircraft per day, but that is insufficient. ISIL militants act like terrorists but think like street criminals and as such are not susceptible to intercept by the National Security Agency.

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2014/08/28/the-best-weapon-to-fight-the-islamic-state-is-already-in-iraq/

[Sopkoviak]

1. Actually the best weapon to fight ISIS in Iraq

Was Saddam and his sons.

Seems those people aren't really ready for self rule and they had things pretty much under control.

[flamingdem]

2. The Strong Man has its place

I guess the Iraq Spring is a ways off.

[FrodosPet]

4. Sorry, but regardless of the 2003 invasion, Saddam was soon to be toast

His degenerate sons would have been too busy warring with each other, and Iraq would have been split into 3 or more warring "countries" before the end of the decade.

[JDPriestly]

3. Interesting. But it does seem that the more we equip and train anti-terrorist groups

around the world, the worse the terrorism problem becomes.

Why are we teaching potential extremists our methods for fighting terrorists? Seems stupid to me.