"ROE loosened agains IS/ISIL/ISIS/Daesh" Topic

Looks like the jihadists won't be able to hide behind civilians any longer. There's going to be more 'collateral damage' though:

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Will this be a 'game changer'?

Well, that does happen in war, so it's usually best for civvies not to mix with the bad guys.

Probably less of a concern with this group, given all the beheadings/murders, etc. they conduct against anyone not with them.

It will make it a bit easier to strike them, though I'm sure a lot of restraint will still be used, and we are STILL the only Western country who is fighting them in Syria, so……… probably not as much of a "game changer" as is really needed.

Let the media hand-wringing, and second-guessing begin……

I hope it is a game changer … but yes collateral damage will be on the rise …

Could not be a better result for ISIS – this is exactly what they want.

Could not be a better result for ISIS – this is exactly what they want.

Totally agree. Every civilian is a new martyr. And given IS's clever manipulation of modern media, there will be lots of nasty photos spread across Facebook, Twitter and forums to incite more hate and rage.

I've never understood humanitarian interventions when you kill civilians and especially the ones your meant to be helping in the first place.

Can we go back to old days of war for territory? It made more sense then.

Never understood this nonsense anyway. At the end of WWII US troops would drive up to a town and tell them to surrender or they would blast the town to rubble with artillery. Millions died as collateral damage in all the wars ever fought.

I grew up during the cold war and then spent the next 20 years living on Air Force bases, the collateral damage would have been the whole world including my family and me. You live next door to a monster expect the world to someday bomb the monster.

Have we gotten too soft in the 21st century?

Thankfully, I have it on good authority that we are not at war with ISIL, so…….. I submit that it really isn't an issue to be concerned about.

"Have we gotten too soft in the 21st century?".

Yes, (including the 20th Century) ever since Vietnam, when the media decided to play for the other side.

I love this line by Republican Adam Kinzinger:

"But nothing is perfect," and whatever civilian deaths resulted from the U.S. strikes are "much less than the brutality of the Assad regime."

How is an American bomb any different from a Syrian one?

Have we gotten too soft in the 21st century?".

Yes, (including the 20th Century) ever since Vietnam, when the media decided to play for the other side.

To be honest

But I do think it's hypocritical to state your protecting people and then killing them.

And it also means our wars are pointless. We wage wars on vague humanitarian grounds or even vaguer "national interests" that are undefinable.

War should be waged with clear and identifiable goals using equally clear strategies and tactics.

Those goals should be achieved as quickly as possible and without least cost to yourself.

My concern is I see the West (i.e. my world) declining in terms of overall power and spiralling into reactive lack of control to the Russians, the Chinese and Arabs.

And the war on terror is moronic – chip at the edges whilst ignoring the real power players and at the same time allowing more of these people into our countries!

Using WWII as an analogy, it's equivalent to beating up pro-Nazi Croatia and Slovakia whilst ignoring Germany, Italy and Japan and then letting Germans/Italians/Japanese emigrate to your country with only cursory controls and buy up your companies etc.

It's madness.

No, it's the "Alice in Wonderland Strategy"…….

Are you willing to become as bad as the worst ISIS militants?

In case you hadn't noticed, other than occassionally the Western states, noone on the planet cares about this "as bad as they are" stuff.

Wars are waged with absolute brutality.

If it's one Darwinian concept all the other guys secretly agree on, it's survival of the fittest.

We have to do what is necessary to maintain our society as top dog, not theirs, not the Chinese and not the Russians.

"Have we gotten too soft in the 21st century?".

Yes, (including the 20th Century) ever since Vietnam, when the media decided to play for the other side.

The Vietnam war was thrown away. The US allowed a system of oppression to grow up which was so bad that the Communists turned into the legitimate and popular government of Vietnam. It was amazing that such a war could be kept going so long, and that so much could remain hidden from public representatives. Not surprising that the press would turn on a war like the Vietnam conflict.

Wasn't it Churchill who opened unrestricted naval warfare on civilian supply vessels in WW1? Bombing of population centers became common in WW2. It wasn't always this way. Sanctions which end up starving civilian populations are also a disgrace.

In a war where the enemy hides in the civilian population "collateral damage" is victory.

Isn't naval blockade an age-old tactic, legal under international law? I seem to remember something about the Royal Navy blockading all of Napoleon's Empire and all their friends. Why bring up Churchill?

Could not be a better result for ISIS – this is exactly what they want.

What they want is to push the US/West into invading again, and say, "Look all moslems, the Crusaders are back ! And we must kill more of the infidels !!" Limited collateral damage is the best of a lot of bad or worse options. The BOTG must be other moslems[save for small numbers of SF,CIA, etc., types] besides the small effective Kurdish forces. As far as Vietnam, for all the bad things that occurred and came about, as bad as the VC/NVA were. They had not reached the level of slaughter that Daesh has. But on occasions they came close …

Wait till they weaponize ebola. See what the ROEs are then!

Wars are waged with absolute brutality.

If it's one Darwinian concept all the other guys secretly agree on, it's survival of the fittest.

As much as I agree, if the US used all the firepower in our inventory … it would be nothing short of genocide, a war crime, crimes against humanity, etc. … The enemy in many cases uses our [the West] humanity against us.

War should be waged with clear and identifiable goals using equally clear strategies and tactics.

Those goals should be achieved as quickly as possible and without least cost to yourself.

I agree … However, in the late 20th and early 21st Centuries. The attitude of the West has many time made that almost impossible. With the attitude/mind sets of the West, trying to be effective without killing or maiming to much of the current enemy, limiting collateral damage, trying to solve some problems by talking about it, etc. … That pretty much only works if both sides are willing to play by those rules. I'm sure, I'm pretty safe in saying Daesh does not play by those rules …

Found something on the blockade. I remembered that it was unusual. Churchill was First Lord of the Admiralty at the time. It was probably in a general TV show on WW1 I heard about this – decades ago. I think that is where I heard it was Churchill's baby. I don't remember more.

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Blockade

The British—with their overwhelming sea power—established a naval blockade of Germany immediately on the outbreak of war in August 1914, issuing a comprehensive list of contraband that all but prohibited American trade with the Central powers, and in early November 1914 declared the North Sea to be a War Zone, with any ships entering the North Sea doing so at their own risk.[5] The blockade was unusually restrictive in that even foodstuffs were considered "contraband of war". There were complaints about breaches of international law, however most neutral merchant vessels agreed to dock at British ports to be inspected and then escorted—less any "illegal" cargo destined for Germany—through the British minefields to their destinations.[6]

How is an American bomb any different from a Syrian one?

The American one is aimed at the Bad Guys. A Syrian one is aimed at the civilians, full stop.

The death of civilians is horrible, but there is absolutely no way to fight the Daesh-bags without that risk.

And there is no option but to fight Daesh. The only choice the US and Europe has in the matter is where we do the fighting: in Iraq and Syria, or in our home countries.

I agree … wish we could do more from the air … but war is a very bad, messy affair … regardless …

The American one is aimed at the Bad Guys. A Syrian one is aimed at the civilians, full stop.

The Syrian one is aimed at "Bad Guys too" – however the Syrians lack any sort of precision capability hence saturation fire.

Essentially their technology and tactics are straight out of WWII.

Indeed they were losing so many MiGs and Sukhois to trash fire because of this lack of medium-high altitude precision capability.

They then resorted to WWII style high altitude carpet bombing using fuel air explosives.

And there is no option but to fight Daesh.

Hilarious as up to recently there was no option but to support ISIL in order for them to wage war on Syrian government.

I agree … However, in the late 20th and early 21st Centuries. The attitude of the West has many time made that almost impossible. With the attitude/mind sets of the West, trying to be effective without killing or maiming to much of the current enemy, limiting collateral damage, trying to solve some problems by talking about it, etc

Problem with West is that there is no longer any medium term or long term strategic outlook on anything be it defence or health or education or whatever.

Even electoral cycles are too long these days – it's down to next opinion polls.

Hence we support jihadis in Syria and Libya without thinking of the ramifications and just focusing on political gain.

Then those jihadis start causing grief in Mali or Iraq and then we do a turn around.

Or the completely conflicted policy on China and Russia "they"re bad but we don't want to offend them but they're bad so we'll aggravate them".

We need long term strategic planning with definable goals.

The fight on IS is hilarious – it's half arsed without clear goals (e.g. final outcome for Syria and Iraq), without any serious commitment of forces and without any coordination with half the forces fighting Daesh (Syria and Iran).

Especially when the Iranian/Syrian ground forces have proven far superior to the dismal Iraqi ones.

The allied airpower appears to be do nothing to change things on the ground and is actually alienating the FSA rebels the West wants as allies against IS.

In fact the targets being hit seem pointless – buildings and even stationary 4WD's!

And now they're training an army of jihadis in Saudi Arabia.

The unfortunate part is that after the Kurdish Regional Government spending the past 20 years trying to seize Ninewah province and expand their empire, now U.S. airstrikes are going to do it for them, and the Kurds can advance to take what they want. From the Kurdish pov, the more Sunni we kill, the easier for them to occupy all of northern Iraq.

And there is no option but to fight Daesh.

Hilarious as up to recently there was no option but to support ISIL in order for them to wage war on Syrian government.

I don't know about *your* government, but the issue of having our arms go to the Daeshbags instead of the 'moderate' Syrian rebels stopped a whole lot of aid from the US.

And I still don't see any option but to fight them. Either there in Syria or in our home countries. Sucks to be the Syrians and Iraqis, but I know where *I* would prefer to have to deal with genocidal cockroaches-in-human-form.

I don't know about *your* government, but the issue of having our arms go to the Daeshbags instead of the 'moderate' Syrian rebels stopped a whole lot of aid from the US.

The aid still flowed but it was organised by Saudis, Qataris etc with NATO Turkey opening borders and NATO Croatia providing the weapons.

If the US did nothing to stop these flows of men and materiel, then they are truly incompetent.

In reality the US took a blind eye to it at best or tacitly or even covertly approved and supported it at worst.

And I still don't see any option but to fight them. Either there in Syria or in our home countries. Sucks to be the Syrians and Iraqis, but I know where *I* would prefer to have to deal with genocidal cockroaches-in-human-form.

You do realise you can stop these nutters infiltrating the West through simple customs and immigration controls?

In fact these warzones just act as rallying points and excellent training grounds.

Remember a lot of the first wave of Islamist terrorists got their training fighting Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

A lot of the 1960/70s terrorists got their training and practical experience fighting Israelis, Jordanians and later on engaging in Lebanon.

Nothing says good training like practical experience.

And it also aids tactics and weapons development – the IED was vastly advanced through the wars to include weapons with multiple fail safes and anti-armour capabilities (Explosively Formed Penetrators).

They've also learned how to use propaganda and financial support mechanisms more effectively.

Contrary to popular belief, the Islamists learn.

And if the war really needs to be fought, then take all gloves off – huge amounts of ground troops supported by massive intelligence focus and use every dirty nasty trick in the book to weed out terrorists and eliminate them. It includes cooperating with Syrians and Iranians.

It means putting pressure on countries like Qatar who support IS and invading them if they refuse.

It means slamming Turkey diplomatiically and if need be economically if they don't want to play ball.

In reality the commitment to this war is minimal. It comes across as a "seen to be doing something" affair and there are concerns the US is more interested in deposing Assad and limiting Iranian influence.

I don't know about *your* government, but the issue of having our arms go to the Daeshbags instead of the 'moderate' Syrian rebels stopped a whole lot of aid from the US.

And I still don't see any option but to fight them. Either there in Syria or in our home countries. Sucks to be the Syrians and Iraqis, but I know where *I* would prefer to have to deal with genocidal cockroaches-in-human-form.

A lack of political will is all that keeps countries unsafe from terrorist interlopers. In some places, families of terrorists who died in Jihad, or in bombing western targets, are living on welfare in western countries. Properly policing borders, deporting anyone who shouldn't be there, and even large scale repatriations would solve the problem. None of these actions will take place.

We could make a deal with Russia, Syria and Iran to solve the ISIS problem. But we won't because western leaders have other agendas. There is no feedback for politicians who screw up one conflict after another.

It means putting pressure on countries like Qatar who support IS and invading them if they refuse.

A little support for opposition in Saudi Arabia and Qatar would make the point. These regimes would be taken out from within if the US wanted to do this.

It means slamming Turkey diplomatiically and if need be economically if they don't want to play ball.

No need. There are (at least) two factions in Turkey, both of which, it turns out, are criminally corrupt. One can be played off against the other.

If you have a view then call your representative. Certain groups flood the offices of ministers and parliamentarians to push the interest of their group. That blinds politicians to more common feelings. A former foreign minister in Australia caused a fuss by discussing his experience of this recently.

Gentlemen, the sooner we resign to the fact that the policies of our government have no basis in 'common sense' the better. Government has always been a battleground of competing interests and goals, leading to 'compromises' that end up pleasing nobody.

Closing our borders to illegal immigration? Why would we do that? Businesses will have their main source of cheap labor shut off.

Improving relations with Russia, Syria and Iran? But they are our 'enemies,' not to mention we would alienate our Eastern European and Middle Eastern 'allies' as well as Israel with its powerful lobby in Washington.

Supporting opposition in SA and lose one of our largest arms importers in the region? Perish the thought.

C'mon guys, just don't worry be happy.