"Canadian Win Firefight with Daesh" Topic

Apparently, for the first time in Iraq, Canadian ground troops have come into direct contact with Daesh fighters, who were firing on them with mortars and machine guns:

link

The Canadians used sniper fire to eliminate the threat.

That should read "Canadians" in the title.

And as usual our gov't is wringing it's hands and worrying about the domestic reaction.

Go Maple Leafs (The 'Brits' Americans ' see Pattons' comments in WW2 :)
Cheers here's to Dirty Daeshs downfall.

GO TEAM!

The "Training Assignment" seems to be going well. I guess nobody interpreted their mandate as teaching ISIL fighters how to die and become wounded. Well I hope that our soldiers are all well and the insurgents have been schooled with extreme prejudice.
Rod Robertson.

Hurray the war is won. And everyone is home before Christmas.

At least one country on this continent has some .

At least one country on this continent has some .

I'm sure US forces would fight to if they were attacked.

As I stated clearly the war is won because the Canadians fired back on some IS guys after they came under fire.

Really this event is totally and utterly meaningles. It's an example of our obsession with mindless details whilst ignoring the big picture.

It's the equivalent of reporting, "a German patrol exchanged fire with an American one in Italy," whilst ignoring Operation Overlord or Bagration.

The big picture is "war is going nowhere" despite this firefight or 12 A-10s being deployed or some construction equipment being destroyed or some IS getting killed every now and then.

Indeed. Didn't I recently read somewhere that IS now controls an even larger swathe of Iraq and Syria than before the air campaign started to degrade/destroy them?

This sounds like Westmoreland giving micro-management 'bodycount' statistics to the media as an indicator that we were winning the Vietnam War.

The sad truth is, in a 'war of wills' like this we are destined to lose in the long run, even if we win tactical victories in the short term.

Yep, Daesh now controls 3 x as much territory in Syria, as it did in October, just three months ago, and in spite of the heavy bombing campaign against them.

Congrats to Canada for whupping on the Daesh-bags.

Yep, Daesh now controls 3 x as much territory in Syria, as it did in October, just three months ago, and in spite of the heavy bombing campaign against them.

I wouldn't call it a heavy bombing campaign. It's rather limited assets operating under ridiculous rules of engagement.

It's amazing how many sorties came back with ordnance still attached.

It's beyond ridiculous that the world's only superpower backed up by most of the West as well as Arabs and Iraqis with cobelligerent Syrians and Libyans, can't dislodge what is still essentially a rag tag militia.

It shows how uncommitted everyone is to this war.

What do you want instead? Domestic "American" jihadists attacking like the locally-born brothers did in Paris a couple weeks ago? That would commit a lot more Americans I bet. And the escalation would become enormous.

This thing needs to die out naturally through on the ground attrition. But if the Middle East Muslims won't solve their own problem, then this really could morph into the next "world war". But that will take some years yet, I'm guessing….

Deadone – ISIS is actually in toruble – for one thing it's running out of money.

It's oil wells and oil trucks have been destroyed, and the oil it is pumping has collapsed in value.

The Kurds have turned them back, and they're now losing ground to the Iraqi Army. Elsewhere the tirbes are beginning to get restless.

I know it's fun to turn entire areas into glass just because you can, but it's just possible the people in charge of this conflict know what they're doing.

I haven't seen any reports of oil trucks being destroyed on the internet, or the nightly news.

Is that happening?

Seems to me we need to cut way back, or eliminate all of those wasteful air sorties, especially since many aren't dropping bombs anyway, in order to fight the real, existential threat of "global warming".

Can you imagine all the carbon (really, carbon-dioxide, which if I recall from biology, is actually quite good for plant-life), being spewed into the atmosphere on those jet sorties?

[Yes, you suspected it, and probably guessed it, heavy sarcasm was intended – but even I can't make this stuff up. Check the pronouncements at the UN, and at other venues.]

What do you want instead? Domestic "American" jihadists attacking like the locally-born brothers did in Paris a couple weeks ago? That would commit a lot more Americans I bet. And the escalation would become enormous.

Here's an idea: don't let them come back into the country. And don't let more Muslims into the country. Oh and force the ones you've got to integrate.

And all of these attacks are not stop local jihadis who are smart enough to realise you don't need to go to Iraq/Syria to learn how to ram a car into some soldiers or police or shoot some journalists or take hostages in a cafe or blow up a marathon or lop someone's head off with a machete.

After all the problem lies in burgeoning Islamic populations in the West.

It's kinda like letting Germans emmigrate en masse to the US and UK during 1941-45. Of course some of them are gonna be Nazis and are going to be planning trouble.

Deadone – ISIS is actually in toruble – for one thing it's running out of money.

It's oil wells and oil trucks have been destroyed, and the oil it is pumping has collapsed in value.

They're making money other ways – e.g. selling electricity to the Syrian government, ransoms, private donations (including most likely from Qatar), taxation etc.

The Kurds have turned them back, and they're now losing ground to the Iraqi Army. Elsewhere the tirbes are beginning to get restless.

Yet they and Al Nusra are gaining ground in Syria.

but it's just possible the people in charge of this conflict know what they're doing.

Sure they do. That's why Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan have been such success stories. I'm sure countries around the world are praying for American military intervention so they can reap the benefits of American liberal democracy and have peaceful and prosperous futures.

Really American intervention in middle east has destroyed Iraq, Libya and covertly helped destroy Syria. It's also destabilised Yemen and handed over power to the fundamentalist Persian Gulf oil states.

I doubt the people in charge have a clue.

Oh and here's a map as of 13/01/15:

Grey is Islamic State.
Red is Syrian government
Light green in other rebels
White is Al Nusra
Other greens are Kurds
Purple is Iraqi government

Current population of the Islamic State is 8 million people. That's more people than many countries in the world.

Now tell me again how the mightiest superpower on the world is letting a "terrorist" organisation control such large swathes of territory despite bombing them for 7 months?

Sure they've been dislodged to a degree from Kobani and made occassional gains in Kurdish Iraq (also with thanks to Iran who has provided heavy armour and fighter aircraft).

But overall the result is pathetic. The truth is there's no will for this war in the west. It's been fought because they feel like they have to.