ISIS strikes, any effect?

David Horowitz would enjoy this : it is proving what he is saying in his " Unholy Alliance ".

 

Yes, and as intense as the hatred was between US Marines and Japanese soldiers, Marines still didn't target civilians. That's why we're different. We were also fighting a nation state and not an amorphous terrorist organization, that while occupying the same physical space as the populations they control, are not the government of those peoples. They maintain their power over the people using terroristic actions and threats, they force the civilians to render aid, and support. In fact if you look back at both the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Syria, most of the active combatants are from outside the areas they control, they're foreign fighters that flock from all over the middle east and the world, to wage a Jihad against the west.







Doesn't look like they feel that killing innocents is appropriate, now does it?

 

I remember reading an account by one of the Japanese civilian survivors of Okinanwa. She was not in good shape when they found her and she was very surprised that she was first taken care of by a medic then taken to a hospital for futher care.

I meant to make the point clearer about civilians if a nation state that initiated an offensive war being a bit different that civilians in an occupied area as well. Still not targetable but in the latter case it's even more important to minimize collateral damage.

 

The use of a nuclear weapon does not mean targetting civilians .

 

But where in this case could you use one that would not cause considerable collateral damage to civilians living in occupied territory? You are proposing exactly the kind of response that ISIS hope to provoke. Willingly or not you are aiding their effort.

 

The use of conventional weapons would also cause considerable collateral damage to civilians. Even the use of Drones is causing collateral damage to civilians . A war is always causing collateral damage to civilians .

 

Actually the use of conventional weapons especially smart weapons can go a long way to minimizing civilian casualties at least if that's a concern like it is in the West. Indeed we may be overly concerned (that is to the point where it may be counter productive) in that regard. However to defeat a terrorist group like ISIL that very concern is an important weapon to use against them. You wouldn't understand that though since you seam to have bought into their philosophy. Now indiscriminant use of conventional weapons can indeed cause consideragble civilian casualties that's not how the US or NATO forces are operating though.

 

The use of small nuclear weapons can also minimize civilian casualties .

Whatever,if the civilians in ISIS territory are willingly on the side of ISIS (which is the most probable hypothesis),we should not have to much scrupules if some died due to our actions, if they are forced to take the side of ISIS by ISIS terror, propaganda, pious wishes and wishful-thinking will not help us and will not help them :in Vietnam US lost the control over the civilians when these joined the VC because the VC exercised a lot of terror on the civilians,something the US could not do /refused to do .

The same is happening today in Syria/Iraq :the West is doing nothing to force the civilians to abandon ISIS,because it has not the guts to do it and because the Liberals and the Muslims are opposing it .

Without the civilians, ISIS is powerless : ISIS needs food, weapons, supplies,etc,these things are procured by the civilians :if the civilians refuse to abandon ISIS, we must force them .

 

How? Especially in a war with ISIS? In WWII it did so by precipitating the end of the war. Doing it in the current situation is not only almost assuredly going to cause more asualties at the time of the event but prolong the conflict as well.

It is most certainly not. There is strong evidence that those who live under the rule of ISIS not only are for the most part against it but are becomeing more and more so.

That is wrong is so many ways.

There is a difference between living in territory under ISIS control and taking "the side of ISIS". Read some of the stories about the individuals rescued in the raid recently. Many were prisoners because they were in one way or another opposing ISIS. Start nuking towns and cities under ISIS control and a lot of their motivation to do so goes away. Action in the way of precise targeting, raids, and retaking those areas on the other hand will help them.

Thus illustrating you know and understand little concerning what happened in Vietnam. The VC were destroyed as a fighting force and rendered pretty marginal as a terrorist force during the course of the Vietnam war.

Not really.

Trying to force them especially with nuclear weapons is almost guaranteed to create just the opposite effect as well as provoke wide spread condemenation and sanctions against the party so doing.

 

YOU have no notion at all about the war in Vietnam : the VC won the war to control the civilians,and when the US were leaving Vietnam ,the regime of SV collapsed,because it had lost the supprt of the civilians :civilians chose the side of those who practising the most terror :terror is profitable.

The VC were not destroyed as a fighting force : never heard of the Teth offensive ? Of course not .

The war in Vietnam was lost when the regime of SVN was not able to conserve the support of the population

 

I am thinking you nailed it, my friend. Gun shy Commanders at the drone trigger or F-18E CIC and frustrated soldiers on the ground who are left hung out to dry (not always but too often, see Dakota Meyer, Korengal Valley) - what a cluster.

 

Again it's you that illustrate your ignorance and lack of understanding of the Vietnam war along with many other things. The Tet offensive essentially destroyed the VC. They were no longer a significant force after that. In the closing years of the war the NVA was the opposing force. Even then when the US exited Vietnam it was not because we lost in the sense that you are talking but the American public was tired of it. South Vietnam later fell to North Vietnamese regular troops the VC were not a factor at that point.

 

There was no difference between the VC and the NVA : they were tweedledum and tweedledee.The NVA was invading SV not in 1975 but more than 10 years earlier .

 

Tet was a major strategic failure, there was no urban civilian uprising which is what the Viet Cong were hoping for, and the VC took crippling losses in return.

Tet also, as lwd points out, did destroy the Viet Cong as an effective fighting force. Tet was Vietnam's "Battle of the Bulge", however, the political and propaganda outcome was vastly different than WWII's "Battle of the Bulge."

 

The NVA weren't guerrillas, they were well trained, well equipped, hard core regulars.

 

The VC was an extension piece of the NVA.Not a separate force .

 

Wrong.

 

I'd love to see more Nam threads....back on subject, here's an article I just saw on ISIS conflict

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/kurds-battle-to-retake-key-isis-held-iraqi-town-sinjar/

'''Kurdish Iraqi fighters backed by ...intense....US airstrikes.....'''

 

Hope different ISIS groups starts doing this,too.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/11/09/taliban-factions-battling-each-other-over-choice-new-leader-afghan-officials/

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – Taliban insurgents loyal to rival leaders have been fighting in a southeastern province of Afghanistan, where about 50 men on both sides have been killed in two days, an Afghan official said Sunday.

 

There was no separate general staff for the VC and for the NVA: both formed one force;already in march 1965 the US attacked Hanoi because of the infiltration of the NVA in SVN.