My thoughts on Iraq and the bombings.

[Savannahmann]

I've been thinking since last nights speech. An escalation that will not result in us being drawn into another war. When you are killing people, you are in a war no matter what name you attach to it. Korea resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths from all participants and civilians. It wasn't a war by US standards, but a Police Action. Viet-Nam was the same, it wasn't a declared war. There have been many conflicts, but no declared wars since 1945. People die, and a generation later, we call it a war officially.

So why are we in the position where we must escalate our presence by bombing? Because the personnel we have in country are threatened. The personnel we sent to assist the Iraqi Government in their fight against ISIS/ISIL. So our advisors are threatened, and we respond by bombing. We escalated our presence, and we have just increased it again. When those people are threatened, and bombing is no longer able to hold the hostiles back, what then? Do we deploy the Marines to help stabilize the region and protect our personnel?

I guess in the vernacular of a hot date, we are at the stage of heavy petting, but not to full fornication. But eventually heavy petting will proceed to full fornication in a vast majority of situation. Granted it might take a date or two more. But eventually you will probably get to full fornication.

Forgive the analogy if you find it offensive. But to those who love war, we are at the heavy petting stage, and they look forward to going all in. Normally, these war lovers aren't the ones who are there. But we are talking about the nation, and where we go.

The normal response is if something isn't working, you jack it up to the next level. If a small hand powered drill isn't working, you get an electric one. If that isn't enough, you get a bigger more powerful one. A small hammer might drive a nail into your wall to hang a picture, but if you are driving a grounding rod into the yard, you'll toss that little hammer aside and go for one that is much larger.

If the bombing of the ISIL/ISIS doesn't work to drive them back and give the Iraqi forces the advantage they need, will we go to close air support? Already Drones haven't done it, and now we're up to F-18's dropping bombs. Will we stay with bombing, or will we jack it up again to more troops, more hardware, and more death.

My question, do we really think this relationship is going to remain in the stage of heavy petting? Or are we ready to admit that soon we'll go for full fornication? Because from where I sit, full fornication is right around the corner. Oh we'll wait until the next date, but the argument then will be we have invested this much, and in for a dime, in for a dollar. And it isn't that bad, we won't lose that many troops with our superior equipment and technology.

I'm wavering between uncertain, and opposed to this action. My support of President Obama is a factor, but my knowledge of History is another. We rarely just bomb and dance away, usually bombings are followed by combat troops. If we can't afford to let ISIS/ISIL take this town to the extent that we must bomb, then when they bypass this town, and threaten our lines of communication, we will be justified in the minds of many to go and engage in ground combat. I want to trust him, but there doesn't seem to be a next move. It's either going to work, or the bombing isn't. If it doesn't then what do we do? Pull out and abandon Iraq or increase our presence again? The argument against pulling out will be we have too much invested just to walk away.

For the first time in my life, the argument of abstinence only seems to make sense. Because I don't see anything good coming from this heavy petting. Especially when I believe it will lead to full fornication and troops in battle again. Perhaps we would be better off, perhaps the world would be better off if we just abstained from war. Because I have a hard time believing that just dropping a few bombs is going to settle this situation.

Perhaps it's that I don't like feeling pressured into going all the way, and I feel that will be the situation on the very next date we have with Iraq.

[bigtree]

1. that's pretty reasonable to worry about escalation

. . .one thing leads to a defense of another - especially a defense of the US personnel we deliberately place in harm's way.

Already we're seeing reports of one of the first airstrikes reported and it's a said to be a hit on the combatant's artillery (not a unreasonable target), but there's that defense of U.S. personnel associated with this particular effort which is the same self-actualizing, self-perpetuating violence which characterizes many of our modern military deployments . . .

Rear Adm. John Kirby ‏@PentagonPresSec
US military aircraft conduct strike on ISIL artillery. Artillery was used against Kurdish forces defending Erbil, near US personnel.
8:44 AM - 8 Aug 2014

As you say, the military action often becomes a defense of it's own activity, and so on . . . so it's a reasonable concern that this order will escalate into a wider involvement.

The White House says it won't, but you can already see the conflation of this concern into their larger description of their efforts against the specter of what they define as al-Qaeda in Iraq.

. . .from last night's WH briefing:

The Yazidi population has been targeted by ISIL. This is not something new. ISIL originally was the group led by Zarqawi and al Qaeda in Iraq, an organization we know very well. It’s important to keep in mind that ISIL is not a new phenomenon. It is al Qaeda in Iraq, and a part of the ideology which was spawned by Zarqawi all the way back in 2003. And to date, the largest terrorist attack ever in Iraq took place up in the Sinjar region in August of 2007, killing about 700 Yazidi civilians in a series of devastating car bombs then conducted by al Qaeda in Iraq.

It is their mission -- ISIL, and then al Qaeda in Iraq, same organization -- it is their mission to ethnically cleanse areas of anyone that it disagrees with, and that could mean Christians, it could mean Yazidis or anyone else. It is important also to keep in mind that it is targeting Sunnis in Sunni areas -- anyone that it disagrees with. And it is so ruthless -- quite literally putting people’s heads on spikes as a sign of anyone -- the fate of anyone that would resist them . . .


. . .and, so it goes.

[Savannahmann]

2. And sadly I doubt that bombs will fix the problem

Imjust don't see where bombs will end the sectarian violence. We humans seems to define ourselves by what we are not. I'm this not that. We are good, and those not like us are bad.

I saw where we dropped some more bombs. Looks like another day of heavy petting, but have no fear, we will go all the way next time.

[Lurks Often]

3. What the bombing might do

is give the government of Iraq and the Kurds enough time to get re-organized so that they can deal with ISIS themselves. It won't stop the sectarian violence in Iraq, that is something they will have to deal with themselves.

Perhaps I am being a pessimist, but I have a strong feeling we are going to go about this half assed again and drop as few bombs as possible and try to be "nice" about it. All that will do is delay things a couple of weeks.

If we are going to go after ISIS, really go after them: find the large troop concentrations, armor formations, artillery formations or supply trucks in the open and away from civilians and then blow it to hell. Do everything we can from the air to make ISIS cease to exist as a fighting force.

I know that sounds harsh and cold and bloodthirsty but ISIS has no interest in negotiating and no interest in tolerating anything but their own goals and they have already shown a complete willingness to murder people in large numbers.