What would be most helpful in defeating ISIS? Equipment? More manpower? Logistical support?
So far most of the US gear goes to ISIS. You'd think I'd be over-exaggerating, but just last weekend US equipment (eg Humvees) that went to the Shia militia also known as Iraq "army" (ISF) was left while back while they abandoned Ramadi so ISIS could get in. Not the first time the Iraqi "army" does that.
The Peshmerga desperately need Anti-Tank/IED gear. So far they are relying on MILANs from Germany. They have enough trained soldiers and experienced soldiers from old wars to tackle ISIS, but they are working with some really old weapons. I've seen snipers using old ww2 rifles. No joke.
From what I understand there is a bill at congress (pushed by the Republicans) to arm the Peshmerga (Kurdistan) directly instead of relying on Baghdad (HAH!) to give the the kurds their 10% share. Not sure if it has passed yet.
Essentially the Iraqi "Army" has failed, the only thing that is stable in Iraq is the "Gold Division", essentially their Special Forces. They are pretty effective at holding ISIS at bay, but have endured heavy casualties because of the Militia/Army incompetence.
The Shia militia can't hold their grounds... except when it comes to abusing Sunni civilians.
Iraq doesn't exist anymore. It's now Iran... the US is arming Iran 馃槀. Let that sink in.
Aside from some very specialized troops (combat controllers and maybe some other SOF; high level logistics people to interface with the rest of the supply chain; some trainers and advisors) you could probably equip the Kurdish forces with modern weapons to good effect.
The biggest issue is bypassing the Iraqi central government basically admits that Iraq is/was/will always be a failure, and guarantees it. This might cause both Iran and KSA to intervene in the territory. This could lead to escalation; I'd personally be willing to accept the status quo in Syria if the alternative is a regional war.
You know, it was only when really forced to deal with things that we intervened with the Nazis. They were decent business partners otherwise.
The US went into WW II because of Pearl Harbor. We didn't go in after Hitler had invaded most of Europe. We did send war supplies but didn't send troops. The urgency was when Japan committed a formal and very humiliating act of war. So that's probably not a great example of the US treating things with urgency.
ISIS is odious, but given that we create the conditions for their existence due to previous rash military action, it would be wise to get a proper multilateral response with a full commitment and some actual hope to actually manage the aftermath with some chance of not having another horrifying group fill the power vacuum once we've stopped bombing. Realistically it's a hideous situation where if we grind ISIS into the dirt, we'll be elevating Iran's power in the region even more when we already got rid of Saddam's regime and replaced him with an Iranian puppet.
They will not be a reliable ally against ISIS.
1. The Iraqi army is not Shiite, it is overwhelmingly Sunni and especially in places like Ramadi. This extends to the upper military command as well[0], including the Minister of Defense.
2. The Peshmerga have more than enough weapons and have been given all the weapons they could handle. What you should be more concerned about is the Kurdistan Democratic Party refusing to arm the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan Peshmerga, and arresting Yezidis (the people that ultranationalists such as yourself exploit) who try to seek arms from the Iraqi central government.
3.The bill pushed at congress has nothing to do with arming the Peshmerga, it instead has to do with violating Iraq's sovereignty (which Sunni politicians, including the governor of Anbar[1] and Iraqi separatists[2], are against), arming American-vetted militias independently and without the approval or consultation of the Iraqi government, and also refusing to arm the Iraqi government on the basis that it is exclusionary. This is all based on the fantasy that your type (the liars, the ultranationalists, the sectarianists) try to sell to the uninformed that Iraq is not providing arms to non-Shiites, which is a blatant lie. Baghdad is providing more than enough arms to every group in Iraq, and any honest observer of Iraq has the same conclusion. The Sunni forces from Ramadi also argue that the local government (read: democratically elected Sunni representatives) were witholding weapons and ammunition, of which there is plenty[3]. This includes Reidar Visser, a Norwegian historian of Iraq commenting that what the republicans are seeking is essentially a restoration of a Sunni dictatorship[4].
4. The Iraqi army has not failed. The liberation of Diyala, the liberation of Samarra, the liberation of the Baghdad belts, the liberation of various areas in Salahideen, and so on.
5. Any area the Shiite militias have entered has been held, including Diyala, Baghdad belts, various parts of Anbar, Tikrit, and so on. There has been no abuse of Sunni civilians that can be attributed to anything other than isolated incidents, and it is the Sunni civilians and politicians who call for the Shiite militias to enter their areas and provinces. Unlike yourself, it seems that outside of the Kurdish nationalists and ISIS supporters, the Iraqi people are not racist or sectarianists.
6. Iraq does exist. It is not Iran, and neither the Iraqis or Iranians want it to be that way. The US is not arming Iran, so stop with your nonsense. There is an Iranian part of Iraq, it is called Kurdistan. This is where much of the economy is dependent on Iran, the locals are an Iranic people, speak an Iranian language, and the majority of their arms come from Iran.
The problem with you ultranationalists is that while trying to make yourself victims, you come across as the most vile, oppressive, racist and overwhelmingly sectarian idiots in the region. Keep your lies to Twitter, stop trying to force it to spill into places like Hacker News.
Edit: and just for full disclosure, I am an Iraqi-born Mandaean[5] whose entire ethnoreligious group (save for a few hundred people) has been robbed, killed and ethnically cleansed from Iraq. I am not Christian, I am not Shiite, I am not Sunni, I am not an Assyrian, I am not an Arab, I am not a Kurd, I own no land in Iraq and have no role to play in Iraqi politics.
[0] https://twitter.com/IAlsodani/status/599199851079933953, https://twitter.com/IAlsodani/status/599448705012506624, https://twitter.com/IAlsodani/status/599449216474288128
[1] https://twitter.com/Sohaib_Alrawi/status/592754103358464001
[2] https://twitter.com/reidarvisser/status/594467244224155649
[3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mt0opjDXgTc
[4] https://twitter.com/reidarvisser/status/593493534696673280
http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/04/07/398004441/a...
1. Are those names real?
2. Were Shiites responsible?[0]
3. Were they civilians?
4. Have they been abused?
5. Have they been released?
Linking to an allegation from early April as evidence of oppression, when the alleged group themselves deny it, isn't evidence. Feel free to link to any formal complaints or follow up articles. It's been six weeks since that article and eight weeks since the incident, so I'm sure there is a follow up by now if anything came from it.
If it did happen as described, and the missing were abused or murdered, then I hope the people responsible are punished. Until then, all we have are unsubstantiated allegations which don't appear to have been followed up.
It's too late for that. They are here to stay just like the mollahs in Iran or the Talibans in Afghanistan. Most people in the west are fed up with western military involvement in the middle east anyway, rightfully so.
Also, from my understanding, what I've heard from people that are there is that small arms and especially antiarmor weapons are what is needed (some volunteer fighters are having to trade cash for weapons). ISIS has a hell of a lot of American equipment via IA (Iraqi Army) forces. IA is fighting, but they have had to withdraw from some areas against the quick offense of ISIS, which has resulted in powerful equipment captured. The Jordanian pilot they recently murdered was shot down with a MANPADS from a stockpile they captured some months before. ISIS has M1 Abrams. As an (American) infantry veteran, this is the fact that concerns me the most: There are not a lot of things that can kill an Abrams. We are going to need a lot more air support, and it's going to take a committed ground force to stop their advance, let alone push them into retreat and defeat.
Probably what they need most is a committed ground force. We need another Iraq War, with hundreds of thousands or millions of people on the ground, fighting ISIS in the streets. Unfortunately, Dubya already blew through the Iraq War we need. I saw earlier today that 57% of Americans support ground forces in Iraq to fight ISIS. 1) ISIS almost certainly wouldn't exist if Saddam was still around (i.e. it's our fault). 2) So many people are so tired of war, that even in the face of this pure fucking evil, it will be hard to convince the public to start another one.
That being said, if we don't destroy ISIS, it will be a defining force of evil in the 21st century. They will not stop in Syria or Iraq. They will move into and attack Europe and the Americas. It is a global problem that needs to be destroyed.
This does not take boots on the ground. This can be done with drone strikes, supported from aircraft carriers locally and with pilots in the Las Vegas desert.
This is our mess, and we should be required to clean it up.
EDIT: Also, as a US citizen, how could one be prevented from being renditioned against one's will back to the US by US military forces if in Syria or Iraq fighting against ISIS as a volunteer. Just curious.