Althouse: "The airstrikes from the coalition have been very helpful, and now the ISIS fighters are confused and don’t know where to go."

November 6, 2014

"The airstrikes from the coalition have been very helpful, and now the ISIS fighters are confused and don’t know where to go."

"They have also raised the spirits of the groups on the ground that are fighting ISIS."

30 comments:

Skeptical Voter said...: Let's see what the optimistic Iraqi general has to say come the end of the year. A few desultory air strikes will not take and hold ground.; 11/6/14, 11:13 AM
Anonymous said...: A fantasy Obama Puff piece. Though we're dropping a few more bombs, the situation is far from improving. The Anti-ISIL opposition in Syria has been routed. ISIL is growing stronger, abeit, at a slower rate. The Iraqi Army has been proven to be a waste of billions in funds.

The Central government in Iraq, can't even agree in letting Aussie SOF forces in to be "boots on the ground".

The only ray of hope is that the WH has green lighted limited shipments of ammo to the Kurds.

Now that the WH has won the real fight, e.g. the 2014 election campaign, I expect that will be cut.

We're not trying to be ISIL, we're just spending enough treasure and lives so as not to lose badly before 2017...; 11/6/14, 11:18 AM
$9,000,000,000 Write Off said...: Like the Obama administration after teh elections, ISIS will now resort to sitzfleisch. (To endure and endeavor through sedentary determination.); 11/6/14, 11:25 AM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: It would have been more helpful if we hadn't let ISIS happen in the first place.

Now all these people are dead.; 11/6/14, 11:30 AM
Anonymous said...: Obama's war in the Levant reminds me of McNamara's incrementalism in Southeast Asia.

The road to protracted failure.; 11/6/14, 11:37 AM
Lyle said...: Assad is still kicking and using chemical weapons. The Yazidis on Sinjar mountain are still threatened with extermination. And Anbar province is still controlled by ISIS.

We have a long way to go. Maybe in the next 2 years under Obama we can accomplish something.; 11/6/14, 11:53 AM
RecChief said...: OK, I can tell you that in this area, if IS is not in the city of Kobani, there is now where to hide. A serious tactical plan could wipe out them out. done. Why are there still IS forces outside Kobani?; 11/6/14, 12:02 PM
LYNNDH said...: BS; 11/6/14, 12:07 PM
~ Gordon Pasha said...: The Japanese have a saying of saya no uchi. Interesting take on this concept by an iaido sensei from Canada and it's relationship to the US projection of power.

https://www.facebook.com/kim.taylor.1422/posts/10152336490090666; 11/6/14, 12:10 PM
traditionalguy said...: The Saudis just spent 3 billion dollars on French weapons. They do not trust Obama and friends to be on the Sunni side.; 11/6/14, 12:11 PM
David said...: So Isis is only going to partition Iraq and make it ungovernable by any kind of compromise or coalition. I feel so much b ether.; 11/6/14, 12:31 PM
Matt said...: This would be great news if it were true; however, any positive news I hear about Obama successes draw skepticism from me. I believe it was Dennis Prager who said something along the lines of 'the real news in news articles appears in the last four paragraphs'. I read the last four paragraphs and, sure enough, the beginning of the article does not match the end.

Also, at the start the nameless analysts say ISIS' momentum "appears" to be stalling. I'd like it to be true but this sounds like, as other's have noted, an Obama puff piece.; 11/6/14, 12:36 PM
Anonymous said...: Did he also say American forces have been repelled and were not in Baghdad?

Is his name Baghdad Bob?; 11/6/14, 12:39 PM
m stone said...: 'the real news in news articles appears in the last four paragraphs'

This applies to many NYT pieces. News is also buried on inside pages. The inverted pyramid approach in journalism reporting has reverted to feature writing/reporting with a point of view.

From the photo, the school in Qirnis has now become real valuable property to Iraqi forces.

The IS certainly had no use for it anymore.; 11/6/14, 1:03 PM
mikee said...: If we know where the ISIS fighters are, why aren't there bombs falling on those locations?; 11/6/14, 1:34 PM
James Pawlak said...: This reminds me of the 1944 statements of Nazi victory as the Soviets were attacking Berlin.; 11/6/14, 3:11 PM
Joe said...: I agree with the above that this is a puff piece. You can't win wars by air, regardless of what the Air Force claims.

(One of the most important lessons from World War 2 and in subsequent wars is how effective coordinated close-air support is. So much so that the weird division we have now between the Army and Air Force is counter productive and leads to highly delusional thinking. (One thing that makes the Marines so effective is the lack of this hard line distinction.)); 11/6/14, 3:12 PM
SteveR said...: NYT - Battle ground prep for HRC. Its not conscious, but its what they will do. Sometimes it will puff for Obama (usually) but its all about 2016.; 11/6/14, 3:20 PM
trumpintroublenow said...: RecChief -- You sound like you know what you're talking about. Let's hope our leaders get it right.; 11/6/14, 3:30 PM
Anonymous said...: LarsPorsena said...
Obama's war in the Levant reminds me of McNamara's incrementalism in Southeast Asia.

The road to protracted failure.

grossly unfair to Mac. It reminds me of his boss LBJ, on his knees in the oval office looking over photos and picking individual targets in Hanoi to send message to Uncle Ho.

Insanity...; 11/6/14, 4:14 PM
khesanh0802 said...: @The Drill Sgt. There is no way to be "grossly unfair to Mac." I hold him and Westmoreland chiefly responsible for the failure of strategic and tactical thinking that caused the loss of so many lives in VN. Mac was supposed to be smart enough to figure out that we were the third party in a civil war, never a good place to be. You do remember his bullshit trips to Saigon when victory was just around the corner. Hubris is a terrible thing. Hell, even the lowly enlisted Marine could figure out we had our heads firmly wedged to be there in the first place.; 11/6/14, 4:55 PM
hombre said...: Funny how I'd feel better about this if it wasn't being reported by the NYT.; 11/6/14, 5:54 PM
RecChief said...: (One of the most important lessons from World War 2 and in subsequent wars is how effective coordinated close-air support is. So much so that the weird division we have now between the Army and Air Force is counter productive and leads to highly delusional thinking. (One thing that makes the Marines so effective is the lack of this hard line distinction.))

Damn right, that's why ending the A-10 is such a poor decision. Also, I'd support folding the Air Force back into the Army. for the reasons you allude to, above.; 11/6/14, 6:22 PM
furious_a said...: A day late and a dollar short for the decent rebels in Syria.; 11/6/14, 6:41 PM
Michael K said...: "Obama's war in the Levant reminds me of McNamara's incrementalism in Southeast Asia."

Exactly. Obama and his generals remind me strongly of Johnson and his in Vietnam.; 11/6/14, 7:04 PM
Paul said...: Breaking news.... Obama says he "sees light at the end of the tunnel" and later waved a white handkerchief and said, "we have peace in our time."

And the masses look up and chest and then go back to their feeding trough.; 11/6/14, 11:19 PM
Bob Loblaw said...: The Iraqi Army has been proven to be a waste of billions in funds.

Worse than a waste. When three Iraqi divisions dropped their equipment and ran it all got repurposed by ISIL. Plus the bad guys were able to loot every armory in Anbar, which were all stuffed to the rafters with new American equipment and supplies.

The Central government in Iraq, can't even agree in letting Aussie SOF forces in to be "boots on the ground".

Well, that's kind of understandable. You let the Aussies in and suddenly there's no beer in the fridge.; 11/7/14, 12:05 AM
Achilles said...: RecChief said...

"OK, I can tell you that in this area, if IS is not in the city of Kobani, there is now where to hide. A serious tactical plan could wipe out them out. done. Why are there still IS forces outside Kobani?"

With Obama as president it is not fair to wipe them out. They are just misguided practitioners of the religion of peace. The TEA party is far worse than ISIL.; 11/7/14, 1:27 AM
Achilles said...: Joe said...

"(One of the most important lessons from World War 2 and in subsequent wars is how effective coordinated close-air support is. So much so that the weird division we have now between the Army and Air Force is counter productive and leads to highly delusional thinking. (One thing that makes the Marines so effective is the lack of this hard line distinction.))"

I think this is a bit off. There was no shortage of close air support for us. Without getting into specific units/identifiers/MOS's the Air Force and Army have some decent integration. We were able to call in air strikes whenever necessary. Some of the best war stories at dinner are the ones told about the aftermath of a 105 from a spectre or what a hellfire does to a car and its occupants.

Later on in Afghanistan after Obama was sworn in there were limitations put on use of air support that had nothing to do with integration. It became obvious Obama would rather we died than actually kill off the taliban.; 11/7/14, 1:35 AM
Joe said...: You miss my point. The single greatest development of air power was coordinated close are support. The Air Force, however, is stuck with the notion that air power in and off itself and especially strategic bombing can win wars. They do close air support only reluctantly and not only support weapon platforms that are not conducive to this mission, but deny the Army any say in the matter.

For example, leading up to the first gulf war, the Air Force vehemently argued for a pure are battle and are still quite bitter that General Schwarzkopf told them to fuck off.; 11/7/14, 1:21 PM