Anonymous wrote:I did the math on another thread. To beat a force like this requires an occupation. The ratio required to successfully occupy a country is 1 troop or police per 50 citizens.

To occupy Iraq and Syria (55 million people), that requires 1.1 million troops. Given that they need to be rotated annually, that is about 3 million troops.

Nature abhors a vacuum. We created a power vacuum in the region. This is the consequence.

You forgot to multiply by 4.5 FTEs

Anonymous wrote:I love how Jeb! Bush is now claiming that Obama created a quagmire in the Middle East. Dude, your brother owns that honor!

+1 so laughable!

I agree, there is no military solution. Bush's strategy of overthrowing dictators believing people in the middle east want secular liberal democracy was proven disasterous. Obama's strategy of doing very little in terms of intervention has also proven disasterous.

Our military cannot win civil wars - see Vietnam. We cannot solve the sectarian violence between warring middle-eastern tribes. We cannot foster secular democracy on a people that do not want it - see the elections in Egypt where Islamic parties under the Muslim Brotherhood was elected. See Hamas elections in Gaza.

The only solution to this is the Muslim world needs a reformation, and we can't compel it.

Muslima wrote:You can't bomb and kill enough jihadists to stop terror. You can kill as many al Qaeda and ISIS members, and that will just birth new ones and new groups. Unless the root causes are analyzed and solutions provided for them, there will always be another insurgency. You can't bomb them into submission

I can't kill every cockroach in the world but sure as hell can keep them out of my house

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Clusterfuck of the century

Millennium.

Millennials*

B.c it's their problem now

You can't bomb and kill enough jihadists to stop terror. You can kill as many al Qaeda and ISIS members, and that will just birth new ones and new groups. Unless the root causes are analyzed and solutions provided for them, there will always be another insurgency. You can't bomb them into submission

You're right. There's no simple military strategy.

I do think ISIS erred in attacking Russia and France within weeks of each other. Obama and leaders of other NATO states are now talking with Putin about shared strategies.

Anonymous wrote:I love how Jeb! Bush is now claiming that Obama created a quagmire in the Middle East. Dude, your brother owns that honor!

It's like a five-year old denying that he was responsible for the broken vase laying in pieces in the living room floor.

I love how Jeb! Bush is now claiming that Obama created a quagmire in the Middle East. Dude, your brother owns that honor!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Clusterfuck of the century

Millennium.

I almost typed that, honestly

Anonymous wrote:Clusterfuck of the century

Millennium.

Clusterfuck of the century

I did the math on another thread. To beat a force like this requires an occupation. The ratio required to successfully occupy a country is 1 troop or police per 50 citizens.

To occupy Iraq and Syria (55 million people), that requires 1.1 million troops. Given that they need to be rotated annually, that is about 3 million troops.

Nature abhors a vacuum. We created a power vacuum in the region. This is the consequence.

To me, this seems like a pretty obvious thing.

Apparently, others think the answer is just that Obama did it all wrong. But, we don't have a time machine, so, really, what does that attitude accomplish other than being negative about everything Obama related?

http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/17/opinions/isis-no-military-answer-paton-walsh/index.html


From CNN. So all the (alleged) mothers of soldiers (in the other thread) calling for more boots on the ground might want to read this.