First, you have got to want to win

You know, I missed something obvious in my assessment of why The Empty Suit’s “no strategy” strategy will fail against ISIS:  He has no intention what-so-ever of winning.  TES is guy who insists on calling a jihadi attack on Ft. Hood “workplace violence.”  This is the guy who calls terror attacks “man made disasters” and our response to those “disasters,” “overseas contingency operations.”  This is a guy who believes the US is more likely to suffer an attack from old people carrying clever signs and wearing funny hats than from Islamo-Terror-Fascists.  This is the guy who targets returning veterans as a bigger danger to our security than home grown terrorists.  This is a guy who doesn’t believe the Islamic State is Islamic.  This is a guy who thinks it's good policy to swap five ITF generals for a single US sympathizer/deserter.  This is a guy who, when trying to build support for bombing Syria after it reatedly crossed his redlines, assured Syria and the world that the strikes would “be unbelievably small.”  This is a guy who “reset” relations with Russia, Assad, Egypt and Libya before those countries ether imploded or took full advantage of TES’s fecklessness. This is a guy who straight faced and repeatedly blamed four deaths in Benghazi on “spontaneous riots” as a result of a video no one had seen.  This is the guy who bragged about getting all the troops out of Iraq.  Then he blamed the Iraqis for not agreeing to a Status Forces Agreement.  This is the guy who scoffed at arming the Free Syrian Army when it made sense to do so, but hails that initiative as a grand strategy now that the FSA has been overrun with all manner of radical jihadi and ITF scum – and in fact now arming it makes no sense to me.    

Two points about all of this.  First, TES didn’t say/do everything above but dumbazz people in his administration did.  Next, individually each of these BS positions can be excused as political correctness, naïveté or raw political maneuvering at the time they occurred.  Taken together they represent a clear and present danger that the inmates have indeed wrested control of the asylum from rational thinking people.  You cannot accidentally make so many boneheaded errors.

Now add to the list a tepid half-hearted effort to kill ISIS from 30,000 feet.  TES gives the enemy aid and comfort by giving him detailed information about what he won’t do while actually doing very little.  Now TES is preparing to go to the UN hat in hand to make his case for an international coalition to take on ISIS.  So if you’re a foreign leader and the guy who is organizing the coalition declares to the enemy and the world that he won’t put ground troops in harm’s way to destroy ISIS, would you be willing to offer up your own youth for that task?   I doubt it.

I saw a bit of Billbo O’Really last night before I was reminded what pompous azz the guy is and changing the station.  He had on a couple of smart people to talk his idea of the US raising a mercenary army of 25,000 elite forces to take on terrorist world wide.

It’s a dumb idea Billbo.  First and most obvious is the military axiom that you are responsible for your own security.  You do not trust the French unit on your left flank for security in that zone and you certainly do not rent the responsibility out to a hodgepodge of international mercenaries.

Billbo thinks we need the mercenaries because Americans don’t want to go back into Iraq.  Americans are tired of war.  To the first assertion, I say tough.  Sometimes you don’t get to pick when or if you go to war.  It’s called leadership Billbo.  You make the case.  You get the congress behind you and then you go.

To the assertion that Americans are tired of war, I say Americans are tired of half wars.  Americans are tried of rules of engagement that put our forces in grave danger while letting ITF scum hide behind the wall of a mosque.  Given a clear objective - drive organized ISIS forces from Iraq - then letting our forces lose to do so in violent no holds barred conflict that there was no question that we intended to win would have the support of the majority of the American people.

We get into trouble when we do not pursue victory.  When we get more concerned with why a couple of Marines are reliving themselves on some dead enemy instead of wondering why they weren’t able to kill more of the enemy in a target rich environment - we are in trouble.

 

Our “no strategy” strategy against ISIS is likely to fail because TES wants it to fail.  What’s the one institution left that TES hasn’t tainted top to bottom with his special kind anti-American BS?  The military.  George Will quoted someone last night saying, “the quickest way to end a war is to lose it.”  TES doesn’t want an influential America on the world’s stage.  The best way to set us back 50 years in the Middle East and taint the US military is to lose the war he started against ISIS.  Sad but I believe it to be true.