Our Major Ally against ISIS is…the French? We are so Screwed.

Our Major Ally against ISIS is…the French? We are so Screwed.

Our first national ally against the Islamic State is the French? In all the nightmares I had, my imagination was not enough to encompass that. When was the last time the French successfully accomplished a military task? Before Waterloo?

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, seems infatuated: “The French were our first ally and they are there again for us.  It just reminds me why these relationships really matter.” I thought he knew a little history. Besides the Revolution, everything we had done involving the French, has been to our detriment. The French were so grateful after the first two times we saved their country for them that they actually pulled out of NATO, the organization that was created to prevent it from happening a third time.

There was a time when France had a first-rate army, but that time has passed. These days, the only reason that French bombs can even hit the ground is because gravity works for all sides.

Australia has stopped a terror attack on home soil. How many are still planned? How many Nations might see the result? There are Islamic State fighters back in the United States that may or may not be planning anything.

But we have the French on our side.

All it takes is one successful attack and ISIS gets a victory. The Islamic State continues to take territory in Syria and Iraq forcing thousand to evacuate to Turkey. They continue to gain the disaffected youth of other nations who rush to their cause and they continue to establish their own twisted version of order on the areas they have captured.

But we have the French on our side.

Our most faithful allies, people who we have stood back to back with in battle, the British, have not answered the call yet. They had some issues with nationhood but still, they have not stepped up to join us. They are thinking about it. Of course they are still standing beside us in Afghanistan so maybe that is a wash.

Congress and the President have agreed to support for the Syrian Rebels, which is what the Islamic State was in the beginning, and oh wait, they left out that part. The current enemy was an enemy but we helped them because they were fighting an enemy and now they are the enemy so we are going to help the enemy we were helping them fight. So the most important aspect of this entire situation is the fact that this President cannot form a consensus with anyone and cannot decide who we should be helping or hurting. Besides us that is.

But we are going to spend money, out of the DOD budget, to support African countries with their Ebola problem. Why is this even on the dance card?

The President is running out of options for how he continues to conduct the current level of operations because without Congress, he is running out of Executive maneuver room. If he tries without them, he could very well be in violation of the law. Not to mention that the money needed is being tied up in additional budget battles.

Arab Nations have signed up but they have not done anything and they are waiting on the United States to lead the way and all the President wants to do is bomb people. Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with bombing people in support to ground operations but there are no ground operations.

We have apparently got over a thousand personnel in Iraq right now without shoes since the President does not want ‘boots on the ground’. I don’t know why anyone has not concerned themselves with making sure those poor soldiers are not getting blistered feet walking around in that hot sand without boots.

Vice President Joe Biden is telling the world that we have to let Iraqis fight their own battles because we cannot win. President Obama thinks that dropping bombs wins wars. Congress cares about getting reelected so they have already left the building. The British have not decided whether or not to help, but we have the French on our side!

Military tactics 101: in order to take and hold territory, you must take and hold that territory with soldiers on the ground. You cannot control anything from the air. You can interdict from the air, you can disrupt from the air, but you cannot take and hold ground from the air. You cannot “defeat” from the air; you must have troops on the ground in order to own it.

The Iraqi military is done. They cannot stand against the Islamic State, they have already lost. No amount of training is going to make soldiers out of them no matter how many years you have and we tried for nearly 10 years.

Supporting the Syrian rebels, which is how this all got started for those of you who remember, is putting failed strategy on top of failed strategy. Supporting the Syrian government is so patently ridiculous that it puts us as allies to someone who is using barrel bombs and quite possibly chemical weapons on his own people.

The Russian are putting pressure against Ukraine and using support against the Islamic State as a bargaining chip to keep America from interfering, as if the President might have the balls to do that, and Russian president Vladimir Putin does not care because the Islamic State has not done anything to Russia yet. And we have Russian scout bombers probing our National Airspace again just like the Cold War days when they did it to test our reaction times and defenses.

The Arab public does not believe that America will accomplish anything more than to get ground into dust alongside the Islamic State. They have a valid point.

But then our NATO ally Turkey, who have done pretty much nothing about the situation on their border with Syria, is now going to allow the Egyptian leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood to have asylum after Qatar kicked them out. Great teamwork, guys.

The only thing more disturbing than this particular facet of the situation is that apparently the United States pressure is not even remotely affecting the decision.

And why should it? Turkey has sheltered Hamas and we have not managed persuaded them to stop, what should a few more matter. Turkey has not joined in any discussion or action to stop or limit the Islamic State and their border is open, they buy black market oil, in short, they don’t care.

And if you’ll remember, Turkey didn’t even allow us to cross through their territory on our way to invade Iraq.

So what are we left with? We are left with a mess and the President continues to dither and try and use powers he does not have to make things happen that cannot be influenced the way he believes they will.

But the French are on our side. Yay.

LOTB

© 2014 The Havok Journal

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