‘Top advisors predict a long, very long campaign’ in Iraq

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Hot Air:

“We don’t understand real evil, organized evil very well,” said America’s former ambassador to Iraq and Afghanistan, Ryan Crocker, in an interview with The New York Times. “This is evil incarnate.”

 

“People like [islamic State commander] Abu Bakar al-Baghdadi have been in a fight for a decade,” he added. “They are messianic in their vision, and they are not going to stop.”

 

President Barack Obama authorized military strikes on select targets in Iraq on Thursday aimed only to halt the Islamic State’s advance on the cities of Erbil, the Kurdish capital in the north, and Baghdad. At the same time, however, the president continues to assure the American public that this is not the start of a third Iraq War. For the time being, the introduction of American ground forces has been ruled out.

 

American military commanders seem to think that the president’s strategy of using airpower alone to reduce the threat posed by the Islamic State fighters is insufficient.

 

“We must neutralize this enemy,” Army Lt. Gen. Mick Bednarek, U.S. chief of the Office of Security and Cooperation-Iraq told a Military Times reporter. “This is not just an Iraqi issue. This is not just a regional issue.”

 

He added that, as even those only familiar with the threat posed by the Islamic State through media accounts know, this organization “is not just a violent extremist organization.”

 

“This is an army,” Bednarek added, “and it takes an army to defeat an army.”

________

 

The slow fog of war. Meanwhile, Iraqi troops step up.

[Draggingtree]

Obama’s War

Jon Gabriel, Ed.

August 8, 2014

Our Commander-in-Chief is belatedly learning a lesson that every infantryman knows his first year. You don’t “end” wars; you win them or you lose them.

 

Thanks to our valiant armed forces and the Petraeus/Bush surge, we defeated the militants in Iraq and were ready for a gradual, organized hand-off to the newly elected civilian government.

http://ricochet.com/obamas-war/

[Valin]

"This will be a long campaign,"

George W Bush

Sept 25 2001