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Mattis... Please end these scumbags...

For the sake of history. End them.

 wuestenfux wrote:
Isis is a heap of idiots.
The Tunesien who made the attack in Germany had contact it this 'organization' just once. I guess we'll have more isis sleepers here. Our police and prosecutors are just too stupid to track them.

This is part of their power.

They claim any and all terrorist attacks, and the media report that.

The truth of the matter is that they're losing ground badly. Resistance against them is working. So they need to claim any atrocity to maintain the pretence they're invincible or growing.

The of course, when they peddle an Us v Them ideology, and portray it as inevitable, morons like Donald Trump proposing Muslim registers and banning all Muslims, their outlandish claims come true....

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:
Isis is a heap of idiots.
The Tunesien who made the attack in Germany had contact it this 'organization' just once. I guess we'll have more isis sleepers here. Our police and prosecutors are just too stupid to track them.

This is part of their power.

They claim any and all terrorist attacks, and the media report that.

The truth of the matter is that they're losing ground badly. Resistance against them is working. So they need to claim any atrocity to maintain the pretence they're invincible or growing.

The of course, when they peddle an Us v Them ideology, and portray it as inevitable, morons like Donald Trump proposing Muslim registers and banning all Muslims, their outlandish claims come true....

True. There losing but they also still ain't dead yet.
They still hold eastern mosul, and the drive is yet to punch across the river and finish there stronghold.

There capital still stands, and they are pushing back on Palmyra after the Russians drove them back before.
Putin still has a job to do. Asaads not won this war yet.

Yet anytime they're attacked in force, they lose. Ground, 'men' and materiel.

Of course, it'd particularly help if we could take out their funding. Soon as the IRA lost much of theirs post 9-11 they started changing their tune, no?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Yet anytime they're attacked in force, they lose. Ground, 'men' and materiel.

Of course, it'd particularly help if we could take out their funding. Soon as the IRA lost much of theirs post 9-11 they started changing their tune, no?

You'd first have to define "IRA" cause there's more than one. It's splintered enough times you might need a third hand to count them all. The one you're thinking of its the Real IRA, which broke from the Provisional IRA in 1997 when PIRA started working on the Northern Ireland Peace Process. It was the conclusion of the NIPP in the late 90s that brought about an end to the rampant violence in Ireland, and nothing to do with 9/11. RIRA is still active, as are several other violent IRA groups. They're just not as big or as violent as other groups bearing the name were during the Troubles so we don't hear about it as much.

Trump wants to take out IS and their families. And he wants to secure the Iraki oil.
In another thread, the question about the vacuum IS will create is a fundamental one.

 wuestenfux wrote:
Trump wants to take out IS and their families. And he wants to secure the Iraki oil.
In another thread, the question about the vacuum IS will create is a fundamental one.

True. But that particular band of savage barbarian degenerates have earned there destruction.
Its impossible to negotiate as there a utter opposed, b would grant them legitimate level of respect, c there crazy...

Only one option.. The soft glove shall not work. Deliver the iron gauntlet.

As to after.
Work on secterian tribial divides that they exploited in first place, it be difficult but borders need to be redrawn from old colonial straight lines to ones that are accurate on the ground. Ie Kurdistan being in 4 countries...

If you can stop onwnof the things they exploited, a follow onnwill find it harder to rise to cuh heights of evil.

The greatest divide of all is the Sunni, shia split.

If you can at least calm it.. Its not going away but calm it. You could weaken instability dramatically potentially.

The situation under the Deir-ez-Zaur becomes catastrophic. No fuel, no drinking water, no manpower, no weapons and ammunition, SAA Forces split in two. Key positions in surrounding areas were lost earlier, one of that - as result of multiple air strikes made by Coalition.

The Iraqi army is crawling forward into Mosul again, and it's just painful to watch. Seriously, it's pathetic. We've spent vast sums of money equipping, training, and instructing the Iraqi army, and their strategy seems to be 'point american airstrike at house, watch airstrike hit and ISIS members retreat back a building, move forward to partially destroyed house, begin from start'. Christ, you wonder why they even bother showing up to the frontline.

I mean, they are literally up against at worst, few thousand amateurs with submachine guns and a handful light mortars/handheld rockets (they can't use their heavier artillery because it would be nailed from the air in about five minutes). Most engagements feature a few dozen ISIL members at best. Alright, they've rigged the place up and honeycombed it with tunnels, but when you consider that there's over a hundred thousand men supposedly in on this offensive with full American aerial support, it's just....well. Pathetic.

I accept none of the peshmerga or militia want to die, but how much has been spent equipping and training the Iraqi army, who are supposedly professional soldiers? If this was the British, German, American, Japanese, Russian, or any reasonably competent force, ISIS would have ceased to have existed an extremely long time ago. If the Americans decided to take it tomorrow, I don't doubt the city would be theirs inside of a week if they wanted it badly enough to take casualties, and inside of a fortnight if they took it slow. The entire Iraq war only took three weeks! Verdun, or Stalingrad Mosul is not.

I just sit here mildly horrified that despite so much money and material being thrown at them, the Iraqi government and military clearly don't actually care enough about the people under ISIS's thumb to take this whole thing seriously and get their hands dirty. Instead, they're happy to let the nutters run rampant and leave the American airforce to fight the war for them.

 Ketara wrote:
The Iraqi army is crawling forward into Mosul again, and it's just painful to watch. Seriously, it's pathetic. We've spent vast sums of money equipping, training, and instructing the Iraqi army, and their strategy seems to be 'point american airstrike at house, watch airstrike hit and ISIS members retreat back a building, move forward to partially destroyed house, begin from start'. Christ, you wonder why they even bother showing up to the frontline.

To be fair, that's also rather common doctrine amongst NATO militaries as well, why spend three hours clearing a block through bloody infantry assault when you can call in an airstrike to level it instead? It's not like the homes will be fit to move back into either way.

The bigger issues is that the Iraqi army is ineptly led, the government insanely corrupt, their logistics support is practically nonfunctional, and initiative to act is held only by the highest commanders who will not do so unless guaranteed success to avoid embarassment in an extremely face-concsious society. Pretty typical for many middle east armies of the modern period in general actually, and not unique to the Iraqi army. One will notice the Syrian army isn't making astounding progress on its own either despite having the backing of Russia and much heavier equipment and weapons than ISIS or the other rebel groups there have.

These armies aren't really built for warfare, they're there for internal control and to give status and benefits to certain groups and classes that the government approves of and to keep the other groups "out of the way".

The Peshmerga's and other such groups and militias have different issues. Mosul for the Kurds is not a "defend the homeland" thing, it's a "if we take it, at best it's a cool money-making feather in our cap, at worst we have to give it back to Baghdad" thing, and their resources are much more limited and not sufficient to engage in an offensive on a strongly held urban fortified zone without insane casualties. For the Shia militias, even if they've got the gumption, they don't have the resources, and many of them have some of the same problems as the Iraqi army (e.g. initiative to act held only by the highest commanders).

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Ketara wrote:
The Iraqi army is crawling forward into Mosul again, and it's just painful to watch. Seriously, it's pathetic. We've spent vast sums of money equipping, training, and instructing the Iraqi army, and their strategy seems to be 'point american airstrike at house, watch airstrike hit and ISIS members retreat back a building, move forward to partially destroyed house, begin from start'. Christ, you wonder why they even bother showing up to the frontline.

To be fair, that's also rather common doctrine amongst NATO militaries as well, why spend three hours clearing a block through bloody infantry assault when you can call in an airstrike to level it instead? It's not like the homes will be fit to move back into either way.

The bigger issues is that the Iraqi army is ineptly led, the government insanely corrupt, their logistics support is practically nonfunctional, and initiative to act is held only by the highest commanders who will not do so unless guaranteed success to avoid embarassment in an extremely face-concsious society. Pretty typical for many middle east armies of the modern period in general actually, and not unique to the Iraqi army. One will notice the Syrian army isn't making astounding progress on its own either despite having the backing of Russia and much heavier equipment and weapons than ISIS or the other rebel groups there have.

These armies aren't really built for warfare, they're there for internal control and to give status and benefits to certain groups and classes that the government approves of and to keep the other groups "out of the way".

The Peshmerga's and other such groups and militias have different issues. Mosul for the Kurds is not a "defend the homeland" thing, it's a "if we take it, at best it's a cool money-making feather in our cap, at worst we have to give it back to Baghdad" thing, and their resources are much more limited and not sufficient to engage in an offensive on a strongly held urban fortified zone without insane casualties. For the Shia militias, even if they've got the gumption, they don't have the resources, and many of them have some of the same problems as the Iraqi army (e.g. initiative to act held only by the highest commanders).

It took the Marines and US forces a whole to take back ramifi and other cities but yeah they where far better lead, equiped, and trained for that assult utilising alot more capable soldiers.

Thr Iraqi army... They ran before Isis, they ran at numerical advantages.
The Peshmerga are better motivated, seem better lead and managed more with far less.

 Vaktathi wrote:
To be fair, that's also rather common doctrine amongst NATO militaries as well, why spend three hours clearing a block through bloody infantry assault when you can call in an airstrike to level it instead? It's not like the homes will be fit to move back into either way.

Sure, but put it this way. If a militia seized Minneapolis with 2000 guerillas, and it turned out they'd secretly been mining and tunneling the place under a dominated local government for a few months beforehand, it would still only take the nearest US force a couple of days at most. If the US military heard that what's been going on in Mosul was happening in Minneapolis? Hours. The concept of those sort of civilian atrocities and casualties would galvanise them into action.

They would take casualties, but that's the point of a professional army. They're willing to lay down their lives for the civilians of the country. Not cheaply, or unnecessarily, but if it comes to the crunch? The commander says go in, and the troops go in. That's what separates a professional army from a bunch of hastily conscripted teenagers with guns. (well, that and much better equipment and training)

The bigger issues is that the Iraqi army is ineptly led, the government insanely corrupt, their logistics support is practically nonfunctional, and initiative to act is held only by the highest commanders who will not do so unless guaranteed success to avoid embarassment in an extremely face-concsious society. Pretty typical for many middle east armies of the modern period in general actually, and not unique to the Iraqi army.

I'd be inclined to argue it's deeper than that. It's a cultural thing. There's a reason nobody has ever been able to truly rule Afghanistan. I actually don't think the soldiers on the ground in Iraq are actually willing to risk their lives. It's why they all turned tail and ran the first time. They're happy to be paid to be 'trained', they're happy to parade around, and impress the girls with the uniforms and weapons. But lay down their lives? One sniff of actual danger, and they change career faster than Arnold Rimmer. They're a fething joke. Even if they take back Mosul, an army like that will be fighting a guerilla war against ISIS for the next two decades, if not forever.

The Peshmerga's and other such groups and militias have different issues. Mosul for the Kurds is not a "defend the homeland" thing, it's a "if we take it, at best it's a cool money-making feather in our cap, at worst we have to give it back to Baghdad" thing, and their resources are much more limited and not sufficient to engage in an offensive on a strongly held urban fortified zone without insane casualties. For the Shia militias, even if they've got the gumption, they don't have the resources, and many of them have some of the same problems as the Iraqi army (e.g. initiative to act held only by the highest commanders).

This I agree with. Which is why it's the Iraqi army I'm really holding in contempt here.

 Ketara wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
To be fair, that's also rather common doctrine amongst NATO militaries as well, why spend three hours clearing a block through bloody infantry assault when you can call in an airstrike to level it instead? It's not like the homes will be fit to move back into either way.

Sure, but put it this way. If a militia seized Minneapolis with 2000 guerillas, and it turned out they'd secretly been mining and tunneling the place under a dominated local government for a few months beforehand, it would still only take the nearest US force a couple of days at most. If the US military heard that what's been going on in Mosul was happening in Minneapolis? Hours. The concept of those sort of civilian atrocities and casualties would galvanise them into action.

They would take casualties, but that's the point of a professional army. They're willing to lay down their lives for the civilians of the country. Not cheaply, or unnecessarily, but if it comes to the crunch? The commander says go in, and the troops go in. That's what separates a professional army from a bunch of hastily conscripted teenagers with guns. (well, that and much better equipment and training)

Absolutely, and I don't think anyone would really consider the Iraqi army to be a professional army by any standard we'd really expect.

Even under Saddam, the regular army was mostly worthless as an actual battlefield force, with only the Republican Guard being considered a meaningful force on the battlefield that would stand and fight, and when brought to do so was generally swiftly defeated anyway.

I'd be inclined to argue it's deeper than that. It's a cultural thing. There's a reason nobody has ever been able to truly rule Afghanistan. I actually don't think the soldiers on the ground in Iraq are actually willing to risk their lives. It's why they all turned tail and ran the first time. They're happy to be paid to be 'trained', they're happy to parade around, and impress the girls with the uniforms and weapons. But lay down their lives? One sniff of actual danger, and they change career faster than Arnold Rimmer. They're a fething joke. Even if they take back Mosul, an army like that will be fighting a guerilla war against ISIS for the next two decades, if not forever.

In many ways, that's absolutely true. Part of that is the fiction that "Iraq" is any sort of actual unified nation. It's not. Neither is Afghanistan. These aren't places that really recognize themselves as being a nation as opposed to random borders drawn and imposed on them by others with largely no consideration given to the cultural, economic, ethnic, and power realities on the ground. That's been a core part of ISIS's draw actually, erasing the psykes-picot borders and redrawing them to the advantage of their favored groups or obliterating the others entirely, and for others they don't want to die for groups they don't consider kindred. Part of it also is that, yes, for many, they want the training and equipment, but don't want to go really leave home or fight for others they don't really care about. That said, some absolutely are willing to go in and fight and die if they must, but discipline and training is so bad that they're too inept to actually manage anything, or they just aren't provided the logistics support to do so. The Iraqi army is a mess from top to bottom in every conceviable way, and that's not uncommon for state armies in the region.

Even amongst ISIS fighters lots of these things hold true, lots of their major advance years ago was due to espionage and treachery rather than battlefield prowess and command ability. Iraqi army commanders disappeared after ordering their fighters to disarm and return home so ISIS could just roll over and collect them all at will for mass execution, and ISIS never really had to slog through tough urban combat to take many of these areas.

 jhe90 wrote:


It took the Marines and US forces a whole to take back ramifi and other cities but yeah they where far better lead, equiped, and trained for that assult utilising alot more capable soldiers.

Thr Iraqi army... They ran before Isis, they ran at numerical advantages.
The Peshmerga are better motivated, seem better lead and managed more with far less.

Aye, the Peshmerga are a far better fighting force soldier for soldier, but they have a lot more limited resources and support and scope of operation.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Ketara wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
To be fair, that's also rather common doctrine amongst NATO militaries as well, why spend three hours clearing a block through bloody infantry assault when you can call in an airstrike to level it instead? It's not like the homes will be fit to move back into either way.

Sure, but put it this way. If a militia seized Minneapolis with 2000 guerillas, and it turned out they'd secretly been mining and tunneling the place under a dominated local government for a few months beforehand, it would still only take the nearest US force a couple of days at most. If the US military heard that what's been going on in Mosul was happening in Minneapolis? Hours. The concept of those sort of civilian atrocities and casualties would galvanise them into action.

They would take casualties, but that's the point of a professional army. They're willing to lay down their lives for the civilians of the country. Not cheaply, or unnecessarily, but if it comes to the crunch? The commander says go in, and the troops go in. That's what separates a professional army from a bunch of hastily conscripted teenagers with guns. (well, that and much better equipment and training)

Absolutely, and I don't think anyone would really consider the Iraqi army to be a professional army by any standard we'd really expect.

Even under Saddam, the regular army was mostly worthless as an actual battlefield force, with only the Republican Guard being considered a meaningful force on the battlefield that would stand and fight, and when brought to do so was generally swiftly defeated anyway.

I'd be inclined to argue it's deeper than that. It's a cultural thing. There's a reason nobody has ever been able to truly rule Afghanistan. I actually don't think the soldiers on the ground in Iraq are actually willing to risk their lives. It's why they all turned tail and ran the first time. They're happy to be paid to be 'trained', they're happy to parade around, and impress the girls with the uniforms and weapons. But lay down their lives? One sniff of actual danger, and they change career faster than Arnold Rimmer. They're a fething joke. Even if they take back Mosul, an army like that will be fighting a guerilla war against ISIS for the next two decades, if not forever.

In many ways, that's absolutely true. Part of that is the fiction that "Iraq" is any sort of actual unified nation. It's not. Neither is Afghanistan. These aren't places that really recognize themselves as being a nation as opposed to random borders drawn and imposed on them by others with largely no consideration given to the cultural, economic, ethnic, and power realities on the ground. That's been a core part of ISIS's draw actually, erasing the psykes-picot borders and redrawing them to the advantage of their favored groups or obliterating the others entirely, and for others they don't want to die for groups they don't consider kindred. Part of it also is that, yes, for many, they want the training and equipment, but don't want to go really leave home or fight for others they don't really care about. That said, some absolutely are willing to go in and fight and die if they must, but discipline and training is so bad that they're too inept to actually manage anything, or they just aren't provided the logistics support to do so. The Iraqi army is a mess from top to bottom in every conceviable way, and that's not uncommon for state armies in the region.

Even amongst ISIS fighters lots of these things hold true, lots of their major advance years ago was due to espionage and treachery rather than battlefield prowess and command ability. Iraqi army commanders disappeared after ordering their fighters to disarm and return home so ISIS could just roll over and collect them all at will for mass execution, and ISIS never really had to slog through tough urban combat to take many of these areas.

 jhe90 wrote:


It took the Marines and US forces a whole to take back ramifi and other cities but yeah they where far better lead, equiped, and trained for that assult utilising alot more capable soldiers.

Thr Iraqi army... They ran before Isis, they ran at numerical advantages.
The Peshmerga are better motivated, seem better lead and managed more with far less.

Aye, the Peshmerga are a far better fighting force soldier for soldier, but they have a lot more limited resources and support and scope of operation.

The Iraqi Army Golden Division or whatever its name is a elite military unit seem to be to most reports making the main drive forward.
Likely they have alot of Nato training, backing and there's Allied special forces "advising...."

Peshmerga held the line from the start, they managed to hold even when Isis was using artillery with impunity and battle tanks.

They held on the Turkish border, given no one else was protecting them, they had to do what they had to.
Thryr rvn recruited and saved some yazidi who they later trained to fight alongside them.

They are about only ones worth every backing.

The problem of the Peshmerga is that the Kurds have so much political baggage that any backing of them will be limited and very conditional.

This gave me a laugh when I found it.

It's a long shot but if anyone there deserves a nation of their own it's the Kurds. It's probably not going to happen though.

I've got to admit, if you were to hypothetically redraw many of the various borders along ethnic / cultural / religious lines, do things actually look sensible?

Because if Rory Bremner taught me anything, it's that us making the borders the way they wre back in the 20's and 30's that caused this problem in the first place.

Redrawing the borders is just part of a complex puzzle and not a single answer to a tough problem but it certainly didn't help much either. Still hindsight and all that.

So once the borders are redrawn and the populations in question are segregated based on ethnicity, how do we stop this nationalism from simply turning into our new states fighting each other for one reason or another? The ethnic and religious tensions wouldn't just go away. Look at the Balkans; true, resumed warfare has been avoided, but there's still a lot of resentment on all sides just waiting for an excuse. For a less positive example, look at Sudan and South Sudan. That partitioning along religious lines didn't really work out that well...

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
So once the borders are redrawn and the populations in question are segregated based on ethnicity, how do we stop this nationalism from simply turning into our new states fighting each other for one reason or another? The ethnic and religious tensions wouldn't just go away. Look at the Balkans; true, resumed warfare has been avoided, but there's still a lot of resentment on all sides just waiting for an excuse. For a less positive example, look at Sudan and South Sudan. That partitioning along religious lines didn't really work out that well...

Yeah, well quite frankly the world doesn't care about the Sudan. It does about the Middle East.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
So once the borders are redrawn and the populations in question are segregated based on ethnicity, how do we stop this nationalism from simply turning into our new states fighting each other for one reason or another? The ethnic and religious tensions wouldn't just go away. Look at the Balkans; true, resumed warfare has been avoided, but there's still a lot of resentment on all sides just waiting for an excuse. For a less positive example, look at Sudan and South Sudan. That partitioning along religious lines didn't really work out that well...

having more realistic borders is a first step, these areas need to reflect what their governments can actually effectively administer. Baghdad cannot administer Kurdistan, and the Kurds are already effectively their own nation in all practical senses. A first step is not the only step however, and its up to them to make it work after that, just as it is in the Balkans where things have mostly held.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
So once the borders are redrawn and the populations in question are segregated based on ethnicity, how do we stop this nationalism from simply turning into our new states fighting each other for one reason or another? The ethnic and religious tensions wouldn't just go away. Look at the Balkans; true, resumed warfare has been avoided, but there's still a lot of resentment on all sides just waiting for an excuse. For a less positive example, look at Sudan and South Sudan. That partitioning along religious lines didn't really work out that well...

Honestly, nation states fighting each other would be an improvement as that would imply that there is some degree of nationality to fight each other.

 Ketara wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
To be fair, that's also rather common doctrine amongst NATO militaries as well, why spend three hours clearing a block through bloody infantry assault when you can call in an airstrike to level it instead? It's not like the homes will be fit to move back into either way.

Sure, but put it this way. If a militia seized Minneapolis with 2000 guerillas, and it turned out they'd secretly been mining and tunneling the place under a dominated local government for a few months beforehand, it would still only take the nearest US force a couple of days at most. If the US military heard that what's been going on in Mosul was happening in Minneapolis? Hours. The concept of those sort of civilian atrocities and casualties would galvanise them into action.

They would take casualties, but that's the point of a professional army. They're willing to lay down their lives for the civilians of the country. Not cheaply, or unnecessarily, but if it comes to the crunch? The commander says go in, and the troops go in. That's what separates a professional army from a bunch of hastily conscripted teenagers with guns. (well, that and much better equipment and training)

The bigger issues is that the Iraqi army is ineptly led, the government insanely corrupt, their logistics support is practically nonfunctional, and initiative to act is held only by the highest commanders who will not do so unless guaranteed success to avoid embarassment in an extremely face-concsious society. Pretty typical for many middle east armies of the modern period in general actually, and not unique to the Iraqi army.

I'd be inclined to argue it's deeper than that. It's a cultural thing. There's a reason nobody has ever been able to truly rule Afghanistan. I actually don't think the soldiers on the ground in Iraq are actually willing to risk their lives. It's why they all turned tail and ran the first time. They're happy to be paid to be 'trained', they're happy to parade around, and impress the girls with the uniforms and weapons. But lay down their lives? One sniff of actual danger, and they change career faster than Arnold Rimmer. They're a fething joke. Even if they take back Mosul, an army like that will be fighting a guerilla war against ISIS for the next two decades, if not forever.

The Peshmerga's and other such groups and militias have different issues. Mosul for the Kurds is not a "defend the homeland" thing, it's a "if we take it, at best it's a cool money-making feather in our cap, at worst we have to give it back to Baghdad" thing, and their resources are much more limited and not sufficient to engage in an offensive on a strongly held urban fortified zone without insane casualties. For the Shia militias, even if they've got the gumption, they don't have the resources, and many of them have some of the same problems as the Iraqi army (e.g. initiative to act held only by the highest commanders).

This I agree with. Which is why it's the Iraqi army I'm really holding in contempt here.

Its sounds smart on their side. Why try to take something and lose people when you can take your time and bomb it? Its going to be full of boobytraps anyway.

 Frazzled wrote:

 Ketara wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
To be fair, that's also rather common doctrine amongst NATO militaries as well, why spend three hours clearing a block through bloody infantry assault when you can call in an airstrike to level it instead? It's not like the homes will be fit to move back into either way.

Sure, but put it this way. If a militia seized Minneapolis with 2000 guerillas, and it turned out they'd secretly been mining and tunneling the place under a dominated local government for a few months beforehand, it would still only take the nearest US force a couple of days at most. If the US military heard that what's been going on in Mosul was happening in Minneapolis? Hours. The concept of those sort of civilian atrocities and casualties would galvanise them into action.

They would take casualties, but that's the point of a professional army. They're willing to lay down their lives for the civilians of the country. Not cheaply, or unnecessarily, but if it comes to the crunch? The commander says go in, and the troops go in. That's what separates a professional army from a bunch of hastily conscripted teenagers with guns. (well, that and much better equipment and training)

The bigger issues is that the Iraqi army is ineptly led, the government insanely corrupt, their logistics support is practically nonfunctional, and initiative to act is held only by the highest commanders who will not do so unless guaranteed success to avoid embarassment in an extremely face-concsious society. Pretty typical for many middle east armies of the modern period in general actually, and not unique to the Iraqi army.

I'd be inclined to argue it's deeper than that. It's a cultural thing. There's a reason nobody has ever been able to truly rule Afghanistan. I actually don't think the soldiers on the ground in Iraq are actually willing to risk their lives. It's why they all turned tail and ran the first time. They're happy to be paid to be 'trained', they're happy to parade around, and impress the girls with the uniforms and weapons. But lay down their lives? One sniff of actual danger, and they change career faster than Arnold Rimmer. They're a fething joke. Even if they take back Mosul, an army like that will be fighting a guerilla war against ISIS for the next two decades, if not forever.

The Peshmerga's and other such groups and militias have different issues. Mosul for the Kurds is not a "defend the homeland" thing, it's a "if we take it, at best it's a cool money-making feather in our cap, at worst we have to give it back to Baghdad" thing, and their resources are much more limited and not sufficient to engage in an offensive on a strongly held urban fortified zone without insane casualties. For the Shia militias, even if they've got the gumption, they don't have the resources, and many of them have some of the same problems as the Iraqi army (e.g. initiative to act held only by the highest commanders).

This I agree with. Which is why it's the Iraqi army I'm really holding in contempt here.

Its sounds smart on their side. Why try to take something and lose people when you can take your time and bomb it? Its going to be full of boobytraps anyway.

Depends on what the people in there are doing to civilians trapped with them.

Which was Ketara's point, I think.

 Frazzled wrote:

Its sounds smart on their side. Why try to take something and lose people when you can take your time and bomb it? Its going to be full of boobytraps anyway.

Because when they can build another house quicker than you can move one house forward, you're probably missing the 'advance' part in your strategy.

There's a time and a place for air strikes and sieges. I know the British Army have always felt the American Army was a little too reliant on vehicles and airpower, and not enough on yomping and bayonets, but this is that attitude taken to the utter extreme. When the Iraqi Army could probably all pack up and leave for a weekends vacations in the Maldives and it would have little discernible impact on the offensive? It's fething ridiculous.

They've had the best gear America can provide, the best training NATO can give them, a level of tactical advantage most militaries get wet dreams over having, and they still take several years to deal with a few thousand teenagers high on Jesus(well, Allah) juice with handweapons. Meanwhile, the fanatics are given free reign to rape, torture, and kill whoever they can get their hands on.

So to answer your question, 'Why try to take something and lose people when you can take your time'? Because taking your time causes such a vast quantity of human suffering, and it's your fething job to do something about it.

You may not be giving ISIS enough credit. They may be fanatics, but they are (relatively) well trained and motivated fanatics.

Tyran wrote:
You may not be giving ISIS enough credit. They may be fanatics, but they are (relatively) well trained and motivated fanatics.

You're giving them too much credit.
There are factions within ISIS' ranks of fighters that are relatively well-trained.

For the most part it is simply "motivated fanatics".