ISIS POLICY BY AMERICA

My thought is that Obama is feeling for the minimum U.S. exposure to ISIS territory to accomplish its elimination.  He also insists that the locals participate in the erosion of ISIS.  I agree with this. ISIS seems to be steadily losing ground in Iraq with estimates of 20% loss in Syria.

He is also delaying a major move against Assad until some agreement is reached on a replacement for him.  We didn't do this in Libya with chaos resulting and two governments.  There are some encouraging signs of the two governments merging, however, and both dislike ISIS.  I am surprised that Republicans want to repeat the Libya experience in Syria where ISIS would almost certainly win in the short term.

With the recent election in Afghanistan, I think we got the best government one could hope for as both candidates have excellent credentials.  If they can't make it work, then I think there is really no hope.  Obama is raising the number of residual forces to be left in Afghanistan to help out, but again, the Afghans must do the heavy lifting.  Otherwise we are just another occupying force.

Tom Cotton (U.S. Senator, Arkansas) feels that we should have jumped to the final solution.  He must mean a surge, a large invading force.  A problem with this is that locals aren't participating plus our military has been at war for 15 yrs with surges in both Iraq and Afghanistan (one by Obama).

I agreed with the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan no matter how it came out.   We had to do something after 9/11. Iraq was diffenent and it put us in a quagmire of nation building.  As H.R. Haldeman said (by memory), "When the toothpaste gets out of the tube, it is very difficult to put it back in again."  What a mess!

SOME MYTHS HELD BY CONSERVATIVES

Perhaps the biggest myth held by conservatives is that denigrating  Muhammad was not the trigger for the diplomatic outpost attack in Benghazi even though there were demonstrations throughout Islamic nations.  We have had two 9/11s since Benghazi that appear to have been peaceful.  Where are the embassy attacks since Benghazi?  Besides, the sainted President Reagan had two embassy attacks, both worse than Benghazi and also had the Marine Barracks disaster to boot; yet conservatives forgive him for these.

Another myth is that if we had left 10,000 or 15,000 troops in Iraq everything would be fine there.  They are apparently unaware that President Bush did exactly that in Afghanistan when he pivoted to war in Iraq.  The Taliban had been pushed into Pakistan where they regrouped and came back stronger than ever.  Only a brutal dictator can keep Iraq together.

Then there is the Red Line in Syria over poison gas.  When Obama drew the Red Line in Syria if Assad didn't comply he would bomb Assad's retreat.  Assad offered to give up his poisons weapons in exchange for not bombing him and Obama accepted it.  If conservatives wanted to say that just getting rid of the poisonous gases was insufficient, they would have a valid point, but they feel that bombing Assad would gotten rid of him.  Though undoubtedly we could have destroyed many buildings, killing Assad was unlikely.  He undoubtedly would have been in a bunker  And if we did kill Assad, wouldn't ISIS take over?  We have the example in Libya of what happens if we aid a mob in helping take out a brutal dictator.  At best you have chaos and ISIS sympathizers seem to be taking over Libya.  President George H.W. Bush realized this when he had Saddam's troops on the run in Iraq in the Kuwait War and stopped the U.S. advance.

It could be that conservatives actually know all the above and are just using their arguments for political purposes, but I suspect many really believe these myths.

I'M SITTING OUT THIS ONE

I've decided I'll sit out the ISIS (ISIL if you prefer) War.  I usually record news programs like Morning Joe so I fast forward through the ISIS parts.  I may miss something else, but so be it.  If the news program is not recorded, I toggle between Soundscapes and the news program to avoid the ISIS War.

I went along with al Qaeda being very bad.  After all they actually killed nearly 3,000 people in this country.  Maybe more if you count those who are delayed in dying from smoke inhalation.  I felt we had to do something and invading Afghanistan to get al Qaeda was fine (remember Afghanistan tribes provided the first "boots on the ground.").  Now we are told that ISIS is even worse.  And the other day I heard of yet another organization that is considered even worse than ISIS in that their aim is to destroy the U.S.(Khorasan).*  And there are also those who say that Hamas is just as bad as ISIS.**

Now during most of my life (and I'm 83) the standard was to say that a group or individual was"worse than the Nazi's."  It is interesting that this analogy is no longer used.  After all, the Nazi's were defeated almost 70 yrs ago.  We've had two or three generations grow up since then.  I guess there is a feeling that ISIS is worse than the Russians.  Remember when it was Assad that had to go?  For the minute we'll ignore him, but I'm sure we'll get back to him some year.

To begin with, we won't put "boots on the ground" though special forces or the CIA don't count.  President Obama wants other Arabs or Muslims to do this.  I have to wonder why they haven't already done this?  They don't seem to worry about ISIS being a threat to them.  We always seem to align ourselves with a group of people that don't want to fight for their land.  Remember Vietnam and the Iraqi military divisions that collapsed when they were first threatened and armed ISIS by abandoning all their equipment?  How many years did we train Iraqi troops - 8 yrs at least, I think.  Who trained the North Koreans (well maybe the Soviets), North Vietnamese, Taliban and ISIS forces?   They seem to be self trained and better than all our training of their opponents    Hey the Americans will do it for us, calm down!

I don't remember the Korean War very well (though I was of age to be called up with the draft), but before we entered the Korean War, it seemed like the North had almost pushed the Southern forces into the sea.**  It used to be that the first thing we would do was send in 5,000 Marines and then regretfully build up from there.  It is interesting, however, that since we were kicked out of Vietnam, they want to be our trading partners, and we have no residual forces there.  Can you imagine that?  And Indonesia is still a non-Communist country.  Remember the Domino Theory where if South Vietnam would fall to the communist North, then the other SE Asian countries would fall, including Indonesia.

Of course the big focus on the Middle East concerns oil.  I had supported oil exploration of ANWR on the north slopes of Alaska and fracking, and the Keystone XL Pipeline to make us independent of  Middle East oil  and allow us to withdraw from there, but it hasn't worked.  Importing some oil from Canada, Mexico, and Valenzuela would be OK.

I yearn for the good old days of Carter and Reagan and Clinton when all we had to worry about were Embassy kidnappings, war with the island nation of Grenada, and fly by shooting of Iraqi radar posts.****  I'm going to sit out this latest war.

* http://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-the-khorasan-group-airstrikes-isis-islamic-state-2014-9
**  http://mondoweiss.net/2014/09/israeli-government-propaganda
***  http://www.history.com/topics/korean-war
**** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2014/09/good-old-days.html

IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN

There are those who feel that if we had left a residual force in Iraq that the Iraqi army and the Iraqi politics would have been much better.  Well, I am far from convinced even disregarding the fact that Milaki wanted us to leave.  After we beat Al Qaeda, and the Taliban, in Afghanistan we did leave a residual force that varied between 10,000 and 20,000 troops, and the Taliban came back stronger than ever, although Al Qaeda remained subdued in Afghanistan but grew elsewhere.  I suspect that President Obama is closer to the truth in saying that if we had left 20,000 troops there, there would just have been that many more Americans at risk.

It was really depressing that, after 8 years of training, that the first time the Iraqi army was tested, it just disbanded and turned over all the equipment to ISIS.  A woman reporter who interviewed a number of the troops that took tail said that all the deserters said they woke up in the morning and all the leaders were gone.  They feel that the officers and non-coms were bribed to disappear.  Some speculated that some of the leaders actually were given positions in ISIS.  Somehow this sort of corruption sounds realistic.  I also suspect that with time the Sunnis of Iraq will get tired of the ruthless Islamic religious right and start to rebel against them.

One hopes that the Iraqi army and militias can keep ISIS out of southern Iraq where most of the oil is.

As I have said elsewhere, I think we are trying to push something in Iraq that isn't there short of there being a ruthless dictator.*  Opinion seems to be gravitating towards supporting the Kurds to become independent of Iraq.  I presume this makes Turkey a bit nervous because there is a Kurdish part of Turkey contiguous with the Iraqi Kurds that might like to join them in a Kurdistan.

*http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2014/07/syria-vs-libya.html

AFGHANISTAN: GUARDED OPTIMISM

The resumes of the two candidates for President of Afghanistan are certainly impressive: Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah.  Now I have heard both candidates speak on the Charlie Rose Show.  I still remain impressive.  Both say they will sign the agreement on troops with the U.S.  both say they believe corruption in Afghanistan is a key issue.  Both say they will abide by the audit of the vote no matter who wins.  The "loser" will be the Prime Minister for two years, an advisory position but both say they abide by their agreement.  In the meantime they will make the system work.  They both will try to make some sort of accomodation with the "Religious right" (The Taliban) in their country.  Elsewhere I have read the religious right consititutes no more than 10 percent of the country.

So far so good, but breaking a system of corruption will not be easy and somehow absorbing the religious right will also be vary difficult.  But it looks like Afghanistan has two George Washingtons to run the country.  Unasked are questions about the "poppy trade," the main business of Afghanistan.  Ashraf Ghani does talk about the necessity of American aid in setting up business in the country.  This would seem to be an imperative.