Posted on 10/23/2014 9:52:14 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
For a few months, the marauding jihadis of ISIS might have looked like an unstoppable army. That’s when they were moving at high speeds, their power blurred by hype and velocity. Slowed down by real resistance a clearer picture takes shape and the limits of ISIS’s military power come into focus.
At the Caliphate’s edges, in areas like the Syrian border town of Kobani, ISIS’s march has stalled and its armor is starting to crack. We may be reaching the limits of ISIS as a conventional military force.
Facing a small Kurdish resistance and Western airpower, ISIS has been unable to take Kobani, despite surrounding and besieging it for months. That doesn’t mean the group is giving up, though, or anywhere close to defeat. The façade of ISIS’s power as a conquering army may be wearing off, but they can still revert to terrorist form and continue killing even if they can’t take ground.
Early on, ISIS leaders committed to a risky gambit: they decided to form a state, which put them in open conflict with other world powers. The group could have survived as a terrorist organization or a local insurgency as it had for years, but instead wagered on the Caliphate. That decision provided an aura of authority that attracted new recruits and seemed to pay off in the short term. But it also transformed a regional threat into a global enemy that was easier to target in the areas it controlled.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
translation: Pay not attention to ISIS. They’re a paper tiger. The Kurds can handle them. Go, Obama! Yea, Democrats!
From what I have read about ISIS’s conquests, they are based on asymmetrical tactics and terror. Targeted assassinations, bombings, and mass executions to break leadership and resistance before occupying a town or region.
You can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours, but even at those odds, you will lose and I will win.
—Ho Chi Minh to the French, late 1940s
I see light at the end of the tunnel.
—Walt W. Rostow, National Security Adviser, Dec. 1967
Sigh, your insight is great!
RE: You can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours, but even at those odds, you will lose and I will win.
If we fought the Vietcongs the way we did the Japs in World War II, we would have had Ho Chi Minh’s head in a few years.
We didn’t and that made the difference.
The way to fight ISIS is the way the Brits fought Muslims in Colonial India.
Round up the ten biggest leaders. March them into a giant pig pen. Force all of the others to stand around the edges and watch as you shoot them in the midst of the pigs. Make sure the crowd sees your troops dipping their bullets in pork fat before sending them home.
Wouldn’t suprise me if special forces from a few countries are already there wreaking havoc.
RE: Round up the ten biggest leaders
Where do you find them?
The biggest catch would be Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, but he’s as invisible as Osama Bin Ladin was...
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