Quote from: HuDaFuK on Dec 03, 2015, 02:27:09 PM
Quote from: Corporal Hicks on Dec 03, 2015, 02:20:16 PMA more precise ground operation would be more appropriate than just bombing IMHO. If they have have actual targets, they could attempt to deal with it with cleaner operations. Bombing wont help anything other than alienate the people and cause a bigger influx of refugees.
I just think going in on the ground will create more of a mess than it solves. Look at Afghanistan and Iraq.
It's different with Islamic State, because it wouldn't be an occupying action. The countries in question have their governments, it wouldn't be a question of deposing a Taliban or Saddam Hussein and implanting a democractic system in their place - they're being invaded by a force they can't repel.
The problem is that the state military forces in the principal theatres, Iraq and Syria, are massively overwhelmed, due in large part to us - Iraq's military was largely disbanded during western occupation, and Assad's regime was already stretched thin fighting rebels that we've been supporting. It's those opportunities that allowed Islamic State to gain such a foothold.
There's no getting away from the fact that bombing is an indiscriminate way of waging war. The vast majority of drone strikes kill unintended targets, according to that report a couple of months ago - including hundreds of innocent civilians, and that Doctors Without Borders hospital. Pursuing IS in that way is only going to further alienate our culture from theirs, and provide future recruits for militant NGOs like Islamic State. Given the decimated state of national state military forces in the region, I'd imagine the countries would need to be absolutely blitzed to allow a victory for government forces - so it'd be a pyrrhic one.
Really there should have been a ground force assembled right when Islamic State was developing a territorial foothold, but the stigma of Bush-era foreign policy is making western powers reluctant to put boots on the ground in the Middle East. There's also the political dilemma of Syria, because of the western/Russian deadlock over Assad's regime, which I think might be the main problem. If we could only fight a ground war in Iraq, it'd mean securing the border with a vulnerable garrison until Assad, Putin or some rebel group finished off Islamic State in Syria.
