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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsFour Months into Iraq War 3.0, the Cracks Are Showing -- on the Battlefield and at the Pentagon
from TomDispatch:
What Could Possibly Go Right?
Four Months into Iraq War 3.0, the Cracks Are Showing -- on the Battlefield and at the Pentagon
By Peter Van Buren
Karl von Clausewitz, the famed Prussian military thinker, is best known for his aphorism War is the continuation of state policy by other means. But what happens to a war in the absence of coherent state policy?
Actually, we now know. Washingtons Iraq War 3.0, Operation Inherent Resolve, is what happens. In its early stages, I asked sarcastically, What could possibly go wrong? As the mission enters its fourth month, the answer to that question is already grimly clear: just about everything. It may be time to ask, in all seriousness: What could possibly go right?
Knowing Right from Wrong
The latest American war was launched as a humanitarian mission. The goal of its first bombing runs was to save the Yazidis, a group few Americans had heard of until then, from genocide at the hands of the Islamic State (IS). Within weeks, however, a full-scale bombing campaign was underway against IS across Iraq and Syria with its own coalition of the willing and 1,600 U.S. military personnel on the ground. Slippery slope? It was Teflon-coated. Think of what transpired as several years of early Vietnam-era escalation compressed into a semester.
And in that time, whats gone right? Short answer: Almost nothing. Squint really, really hard and maybe the good news is that IS has not yet taken control of much of the rest of Iraq and Syria, and that Baghdad hasnt been lost. These possibilities, however, were unlikely even without U.S. intervention. ...............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175920/tomgram%3A_peter_van_buren%2C_iraq_and_the_battle_of_the_potomac/#more
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Four Months into Iraq War 3.0, the Cracks Are Showing -- on the Battlefield and at the Pentagon (Original Post)
marmar
Nov 2014
OP
Warpy
(111,261 posts)1. Another article posted here said ISIS recruiting is down, the leadership is in disarray
and the campaign against them is working.
I honestly think the truth lies between these two viewpoints.
Nobody seems to like ISIS, powers in the region trying to figure out how to use them before they slaughter them, and the west utterly appalled.
While it's eerily like the first stages of Vietnam, we're still not fighting the ground war directly, only giving weapons and tactics training to Iraqi brass.
malokvale77
(4,879 posts)2. 1500 more troops heading that way.
Tactics training? OK.