Apparently the anti-ISIS coalition is showing some teeth, launching its first air-strikes on the Islamic State's de-facto capital of Raqqah, Syria. Reports are that it was led off by Tomahawk cruise missiles, fired from US warships hundreds of miles away in the Med and perhaps as far away as the Red Sea. Then an unknown number of manned aircraft struck and it's continuing as I write this. CNN is reporting that people in the vicinity of Raqqah are posting on Twitter about hearing the sound of jets overhead accompanied by the thuds of large explosions. Some of the attacking aircraft are American, apparently both Navy and Air Force. But significantly, reports are that there are Arab aircraft too, from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Jordan. (There's apparently still some confusion about precisely who is involved.) Significantly, at least initially it sounds like there aren't any European or other Western aircraft. And very tellingly, it appears that Turkey isn't actively involved either. (I'm not sure if coalition aircraft are flying over Turkish airspace, which they could only safely do with permission.) Commentators are stressing that this would be a complex operation, not only involving American bombers and coalition fighter-bombers, but a fleet of refueling tankers, intelligence-gathering aircraft, aircraft employing lasers to designate targets for smart-bombs and so on. The ability of the American and several Arab airforces to all work together effectively in such a complex operation impressed the commentators, though they noted that most of these airforces fly US-made equipment and have trained with the Americans over the years. I don't know how many aircraft are involved. Many of the heavily-laden fighter-bombers are going to be operating at extended ranges, for example the UAE is more than 1,000 miles from northern Syria, so transit times will be several hours each way and there will have to be refueling support. That suggests that the actual number of sorties being flown tonight might not be huge. Talk is that the initial raid is going after fixed targets like administrative buildings, fuel and ammo depots, training facilities and the like. There will doubtless be intelligence assets watching closely to see where the cockroaches scatter to then these are hit. Of course ISIS knew this was coming and probably have dispersed a lot of their assets already. I wonder if the recent attacks on the Kurdish enclave north of Raqqah that's sent something like 130,000 refugees across the Turkish border in the last three days had any effect in speeding this up. Here's an early story from the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world...677e26-42b3-11e4-b437-1a7368204804_story.html
All that, and all ISIS have to do is send one dissaffected youth to behead Missy Lane, 27 years old (with accompanying photo) in a supermarket and y'all be like ZOMG! Get out of there white imperialists, we have no right to interfear! Because, after all, people have the right to govern themselves in any way they like. Racism isn't only the province of the imperialists. Culteralism, what have you. West hobbled, war goes on. In the meantime... boom, boom, shake the room. *disclaimer - spelling not a mistake.
People do have a right to govern themselves, you need to tell that to your ISIS buddies and while you are at it you might also tell them that murdering innocent women, children and men and burrying them in mass graves isn't a way to make friends. Genocide isn't acceptable.
I am aware I can be a little obtuse when completely off my trolley, Joe. People often have no idea what I'm talking about, and, quite frankly, there are times when I come back to read several days. weeks or months later, that I don't either. But if you're going to come in here and pretend not only to know what I was talking about, but also to attempt to reply - you'd probably be better off holding fire until you have at least some idea. It's not that you missed the bullseye. It's more that you missed the whole dartboard. In this case, I was alluding to the fact that the USA has been spectacularly unsuccessful in its military forays over the last few decades. It must be absolutely galling, to be one of the most powerful military nations in the world, and yet go around fighting "wars" like a ninety year old man surrounded by jeering youths swinging wildly with a crutch. Somebody should just give your politicians a copy of Sun Tzu and shut them in a room for a few hours to learn how these things work. The west appears not only to have forgotten how to vanquish an enemy, but to be completely unwilling to learn. No matter how many times you go spending billions of dollars in order to hit someone with a paddle pop and tell them not to be naughty, they just carry right on being naughty. The west should just cut their losses, be seen as cowards, stay the hell out of the middle east, and let them tear themselves apart any way they like. If not, then they need to do the job properly. completely. Permanently. Half measures and "tactical airstrikes" are just poking a stick into a hornets nest. They'll be fighting this war again, and again, and again until they learn that. The West reeks of fear. They are politically helpless, hesitant, and as a result completely incapable of fighting a war like this one. Political slogans like "people have the right to govern themselves" don't do anything to cover the stink.
Then why don't you live there? Many people living under tyranny can't leave where they live because their "leaders" won't let them and if they try they are murdered to show others what will happen if the too try to leave. Places where you can't vote for those who rule you have no way to change their predicament unless outside forces, either good or bad, step in to help them.
What I'd like to understand is why outside countries, like Russia, supply the weapons to countries that only want to oppress their people and not allow voting or open TV for discussions about problems there. It seems to me that the only people making a profit, which is why any war is really fought , are the arms dealers. ISIS wasn't even known 6 months ago but if you look on TV you'll see most of them carry Russian weapons and none carry any of the Wests weapons, other than the ones they capture, interesting isn't it? So now more money is being made by those who supply the weapons while thousands die because of that for they have no wapons to protect themselves.
It's a long tradition - arm the enemy of your enemy. We did that with the Mujaheddin (radial Islamic terrorists) in the 1980's because they were fighting the USSR. More like expected.
And now those are the people who are fighting America, ironic isn't it that arms dealers are the only ones that make money off of other peoples lives and never give a damn.
The US is doing more than arming. It is creating an army to do its bidding in the region. It will vet, hire and train a new army and it will take a year before the army is ready for combat. Contrary to Sciforum popular opinion, no arms dump trucks will be showing up in Syria any time soon.
Some interesting figures being reported today. (I believe the numbers come from Centcom.) Total airstrikes as of today: 224 Iraq and 66 Syria Total sorties, including reconaissance, refueling etc. Roughly 4100 So it seems that less than 10% of the sorties flown actually result in the release of ordinance. I'm assuming that these numbers include drones, which apparently constitute a significant percentage (perhaps the majority) of the missions flowin inside Iraq. Another interesting thing: In Iraq, the airstrikes don't seem to be directed at targets in cities or towns. Instead, they seem to be largely directed at things like vehicles traveling on roads, checkpoints and such. That's a pretty pin-prick approach, though it does seem to have reduced ISIS' willingness to move armored and other obvious military vehicles and obvious convoys of vehicles along the long exposed roads across the Iraqi desert. In Syria, the US and its Arab coalition partners went right at ISIS sites in the middle of Raqqa and other towns. Why the difference? I can only guess, but perhaps the Baghdad government has specified highly restricted rules of engagement in Iraq, designed to minimize civilian casulties and collatoral damage. But the US and its partners aren't paying a whole lot of attention to what the Damascus government wants in Syria, so they might feel more freedom in Syria to strike whatever targets they feel need to be hit. More news: ISIS is still beseiging the Syrian Kurdish border town of Kobane. 100,000-200,000 Kurdish refugees have flooded into Turkey from the surrounding Kurdish enclave, which ISIS has almost completely overrun. The US and its partners have launched a few airstrikes on the attacking ISIS forces, but that hasn't prevented them from starting to shell Kobane (probably with mortars). In response, Turkey is moving troops and armor to the border directly opposite the town. About 15 Turkish tanks have appeared on a hill opposite, not dug in or sheltered on the other side of the ridge line, but prominently displayed. And there are rumblings in Ankara about Turkish troops entering Syria with the mission of creating a protected border buffer zone. (Presumably so they can push the refugees back into Syria.) Unfortunately, Turkey is sticking to its (in my opinion rather foolish) line that Bashir Assad is a bigger danger than ISIS. The "moderate" Sunni Islamists who run Turkey these days seemingly would rather be fighting the more secular (but Alawite) Assad than militantly-fundamentalist Sunni ISIS. Turkey has long been a major supporter of the Syrian rebels. Lastly: There are indications that ISIS might have started an offensive in the northern part of the Syria-Iraq border, presumably in hopes of separating the Syrian from the Iraqi Kurds. They are also consolidating their position in Fallujah, just west of Baghdad. Reportedly, ISIS militants have even been seen unfurling their black flags and giving speeches in some of the Sunni suburbs of Baghdad, disappearing again when Iraqi security forces appear. I guess that the residents aren't buying it so far. (They can't stand the Shi'ite regime, but apparently have also been put off by ISIS' medievalism and the savagery that it proudly wears on its sleeve.)
In a year they'll just about all be dead from chlorine gas and barrel bombs, the remainder disappearing into Hezbollah and Shabiha torture camps. Obama is kidding himself if he thinks he can just focus on ISIS and that everyone in the region will share his priorities.
