Having spent 10 years in the Air Force, this Administration provides endless entertainment every time they open their mouths about their use of air power. Even in a conventional war we AF types would find their discussion ridiculous, stupid, naïve, and dangerous, but especially in a nonconventional scenario like this one, more so.
ISIS will just start to fade into the populations. There are no uniforms. There is no Geneva Convention. Bombing them has only slowed their warp speed advance. Now they're just advancing at a slower rate.
They've gone from 10,000 people to almost 30,000 in 2 months. That's not retreat.
So what would rank and file soldiers suggest? All in? Walk away? Limited engagement?
Pennywise, that's a really good question that requires a long answer. If I don't get to it soon, I will come back and answer it tonight when I have more time.
Also I was not in Iraq as a military person; I got out awhile ago.
My short answer is that I don't see ANY strategy working until Obama leaves office, no matter what it is or how many military, diplomatic, or economic tools he uses.
The reason is because none of that power means anything if the president doesn't have the resolve to WIN in his stomach. Obama doesn't have that, has never had that (Afghan will become a similar mess soon), and never will have it. It's not the way he's wired. He's wired as an appeaser and pacifist. He will go through the motions because the polls and his desperate party will force him to, but those of us Vets who know good and bad leadership when we see it, don't trust his spin, and more importantly, our enemies don't believe him for one ******* minute.
That's why you'll see the more Obama does, the more ISIS will hit back in gruesome ways. I predict you'll see them start to kidnap people in other parts of the world where no one's even thinking about ISIS and citizens of the world will really feel vulnerable. ISIS has so many sympathizers around the world that will help them.
Obama's weak strategy will appear to help in some ways but will only embolden extremists and will swell their ranks with people who are not normally as crazy. That's because people go with whom they think will win. No one believes Obama can do the long haul.
What pisses me beyond belief is this new explosion in ISIS and extremism has occurred because Obama left a huge vacuum when he pulled out......nullifying all the hard work so many of us had done while in Iraq.