US military commander in Iraq and Syria rejects GOP pledges to 'carpet-bomb' Isis

[GMDino]

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/01/us-military-iraq-syria-sean-macfarland-republican-carpet-bomb-isis?CMP=fb_us

Quote:The US military commander in charge of the Iraq-Syria war has tacitly rebuked pledges by leading Republican presidential contenders to “carpet-bomb” theIslamic State.

Though army Lieutenant General Sean MacFarland did not call out Donald Trump and Ted Cruz by name, he rejected what he called “indiscriminate” bombing as illegal, immoral and un-American.

“We are bound by the laws of armed conflict and at the end of the day it doesn’t only matter whether or not you win, it matters how you win,” MacFarland told reporters on Monday.

As Iowans were set to caucus in the first presidential contest of 2016, MacFarland said “indiscriminate bombing, where we don’t care if we’re killing innocents or combatants, is just inconsistent with our values”, despite two major White House contenders adopting it as a central proposal against Isis.

Trump, the Republican frontrunner, told an Iowa crowd he would “bomb the shit out of ’em … there would be nothing left”. His closest rival, the Texas senator Ted Cruz, has repeatedly vowed to pursue the “fundamentally different military strategy” of carpet-bombing Isis without “apology”, most recently in last Thursday’s debate.

“We will carpet-bomb [Isis] into oblivion,” Cruz said in Iowa last month.

MacFarland said the proposal contravened military professionalism and likened it to “what the Russians have been accused of doing in parts of north-west Syria”.

Russia’s authoritarian president, Vladimir Putin, and Trump have traded praise. MacFarland characterized Putin’s airstrikes on behalf of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad as a divergent objective from the US goal of defeating Isis.

Though MacFarland said his goal was to get home to his grandchildren, it is likely he will remain in command through the presidential election, and will in any case largely shape the war the next president will inherit.

Unlike previous military officials and even the man who appointed him last fall, defense secretary Ashton Carter, MacFarland pointedly declined to provide reporters with specifics about the changing nature of the war in Iraq and Syria, particularly over key details such as prospective US troop increases or the recently expanded role of special operations forces.

“I’d like the enemy to find out for the first time when the area around them is going up in smoke,” MacFarland said.

Yet MacFarland telegraphed that he was looking at proposing “additional troops” for the fight, particularly as he examines military capabilities that the current effort lacks. He characterized the war as closer to the beginning than the end, stating that the “beginning of the end” will come when Isis loses its Syrian capital, Raqqa.

MacFarland said the December recapture of Ramadi from Isis represented a “turning point” in proving the prowess of the long-sponsored Iraqi military. A forthcoming push to retake Mosul, Isis’s power base in Iraq and the country’s second-largest city, could also include US attack helicopters, he said, in an intensification of US air support for what is expected to be a large operation this year.

Yet MacFarlane indicated that ridding Iraq of Isis completely is an unlikely goal. Defeating Isis “as currently configured” in Iraq – a conventional force that holds territory and fights along front lines – would not rule out its persistence as a “low-grade insurgency [or] terrorist organization”, even if Iraqi forces backed by the US and Iran reclaim the areas Isis currently occupies.

As an army colonel in 2006 in Ramadi, MacFarland made his reputation by embracing a nascent split between Sunni tribal chiefs and the faction of al-Qaida that would, years later, transform into Isis. A decision by MacFarland, later adopted by higher US command, to align with Iraqi fighters he and other commanders had previously understood to be enemies became the genesis of the “Awakening”, a realignment of allegiances that aided the Iraq war’s greatest period of tactical success.

But what the military has regarded as a turning point in the Iraq war has proven difficult to emulate. A program inspired by the Awakening, the Afghan Local Police, has yielded instead turf battles within US-sponsored Afghan ministries and allegations of human-rights violations. Around the time MacFarland took control of the war – an October 2015 move to consolidate a sprawling effort under a single officer – the Pentagon abandoned an expensive initiative to build a Sunni Syrian fighting force and opted instead to sponsor existing Kurdish and Sunni militant forces.

While MacFarland and other US military officials have characterized the airstrikes against Isis as among the most precise in the history of warfare, the US has recently begun conceding that it has mistakenly killed and wounded civilians.

The private organization Airwars, which attempts to track the civilian impact of the bombing, has tallied allegations of between 2,029 and 2,635 noncombatants mistakenly killed in nearly 18 months of bombings, two orders of magnitude beyond what US military officials have confirmed.

MacFarlane rejected criticism that recent attacks on Mosul facilities where Isis keeps its cash risked targeting civilians.

“Is an enemy banker a combatant or not? Just because he doesn’t have an AK[-47] leaned up against a teller window, he’s still a bad guy, right?” MacFarland said, stating that the US airstrikes occur during times the US assesses will minimize loss of life.

Hawkish legislators and presidential candidates have proposed loosening the rules under which US pilots can open fire on targets, claiming that the US hamstrings itself in target selection out of fear of inflicting additional death on civilians in areas where Isis operates.
MacFarland neither stated that he felt unreasonably constricted nor indicated sympathy to the critique, instead portraying distinctions between military from civilian targets as a battlefield advantage.

“Right now we have the moral high ground, and I think that’s where we need to stay,” he said.

[Benton]

I'm shocked a billionaire who ran from military service and a faux Conservative don't know much about military action. But, really, none of them do. And — for better or worse — they don't have to. Whoever sits in the seat relies on briefings. Those briefings come from the same people who have been around for decades.

That's why, generally, you don't see much change regardless of what candidates say.

[GMDino]

(02-02-2016, 11:25 AM)Benton Wrote: I'm shocked a billionaire who ran from military service and a faux Conservative don't know much about military action. But, really, none of them do. And — for better or worse — they don't have to. Whoever sits in the seat relies on briefings. Those briefings come from the same people who have been around for decades.

That's why, generally, you don't see much change regardless of what candidates say.

Yep, it is just pandering but I enjoy when someone with knowledge speaks out.

[Benton]

(02-02-2016, 11:27 AM)GMDino Wrote: Yep, it is just pandering but I enjoy when someone with knowledge speaks out.

Agreed.

I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often. It's really got to grate on your nerves a bit when some moron looking to score points starts running his mouth and you know it's not going to do much.

[BmorePat87]

It doesn't really surprise me that military leaders tend to not speak publicly about things like this. I would want to stay above it all too.

[McC]

Nah, let's just ***** foot around with them for the next hundred years. This generation's Viet Nam.

[GMDino]

(02-02-2016, 11:54 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: It doesn't really surprise me that military leaders tend to not speak publicly about things like this. I would want to stay above it all too.

It would help keep the rhetoric down and stop riling up hate for all Muslims though.

[fredtoast]

(02-02-2016, 12:01 PM)McC Wrote: Nah, let's just ***** foot around with them for the next hundred years.  This generation's Viet Nam.

Right, because after we stopped bombing the North Vietnamese the communist came over here and took over.


The similarities between our screw up in Vietnam, and Iraq are scary.  Both military actions were justified by a lie ("Gulf of Tonkin", "Weapons of Mass destruction") and fueled by fear ("If we don't defeat them over there we will have to fight them here in America").

It is amazing that we never learned our lesson from Vietnam.  We did not kill them all, yet instead of it being the first stepping stone of world domination by communists we now have Viertnam as a favored trading partner of the United States.

[*michaelsean*]

A general shouldn't react to anything someone who has no authority babbles about military force. The next time someone says something and nobody replies do we take that as tacit approval?

[McC]

(02-02-2016, 12:15 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Right, because after we stopped bombing the North Vietnamese the communist came over here and took over.


The similarities between our screw up in Vietnam, and Iraq are scary.  Both military actions were justified by a lie ("Gulf of Tonkin", "Weapons of Mass destruction") and fueled by fear ("If we don't defeat them over there we will have to fight them here in America").

It is amazing that we never learned our lesson from Vietnam.  We did not kill them all, yet instead of it being the first stepping stone of world domination by communists we now have Viertnam as a favored trading partner of the United States.

It's just a terrible situation.  If we're sending our sons and daughters over there to fight, there should at least be some prospect for ending the conflict.  But this is not a conflict that will end and all our considerable military won't make it so.  It's as much a CIA operation as a military one. 

What happens if you just leave?  What happens if you do carpet bomb whole countries?  You don't want Al Qaeda to have its own country but they are never going to go away.  You can't invade every country that harbors terrorists.  It seems so unwinnable and just looks like an eternal struggle because we, the infidels aren't going away either.

[XenoMorph]

if he wont do his job he will be replaced... simple. his job is to follow orders.

[GMDino]

(02-02-2016, 12:29 PM)michaelsean Wrote: A general shouldn't react to anything someone who has no authority babbles about military force.  The next time someone says something and nobody replies do we take that as tacit approval?

Of course not.

The sane people know the inmates are just babbling about the bombing.

But it is still nice that when asked they speak up and say the people who want to be commander and chief are clueless.

[oncemoreuntothejimbreech]

(02-02-2016, 12:47 PM)XenoMorph Wrote: if he wont do his job he will be replaced... simple.  his job is to follow orders.

Unless those orders are illegal or immoral, then your job is to counsel the idiot giving the illegal/immoral order.  And if they can't be dissuaded from giving an illegal/immoral order then your job is to disobey them.  This is Into to Soldiering 101.

[fredtoast]

(02-02-2016, 12:30 PM)McC Wrote:   It seems so unwinnable and just looks like an eternal struggle because we, the infidels aren't going away either.

90% of the violence is Shia Muslim against Sunni Muslim.

I say leave and just let them fight it out.  We are not their main target.  and we are even less of a target if we stop propping up Israel and pumping billions of dollars of support into Saudi Arabia.

[XenoMorph]

(02-02-2016, 01:04 PM)oncemoreuntothejimbreech Wrote: Unless those orders are illegal or immoral, then your job is to counsel the idiot giving the illegal/immoral order.  And if they can't be dissuaded from giving an illegal/immoral order then your job is to disobey them.  This is Into to Soldiering 101.

at which point the higher ups would have him arrested and replaced. his moral conscience would be clean. but the end result would be the same.

We arent as brutal as some militarys in the past where your decision is to obey or be shot.

But he hasnt been given this order yet. so this whole thread is mute.

[*michaelsean*]

(02-02-2016, 01:04 PM)oncemoreuntothejimbreech Wrote: Unless those orders are illegal or immoral, then your job is to counsel the idiot giving the illegal/immoral order.  And if they can't be dissuaded from giving an illegal/immoral order then your job is to disobey them.  This is Into to Soldiering 101.

That's a pretty tough one to win isn't it?  The refusing illegal or immoral orders I mean.

[McC]

(02-02-2016, 01:08 PM)fredtoast Wrote: 90% of the violence is Shia Muslim against Sunni Muslim.

I say leave and just let them fight it out.  We are not their main target.  and we are even less of a target if we stop propping up Israel and pumping billions of dollars of support into Saudi Arabia.

That's a big problem because we're never gonna do either of those things.  Plus, it seems like it's gone too far for it to stop.  In the Jihadists' minds, only our elimination would end it.  Seems like they want all Christians off the face of the earth.  We are not the only country they attack.

[GMDino]

(02-02-2016, 01:13 PM)XenoMorph Wrote: at which point the higher ups would have him arrested and replaced.  his moral conscience would be clean. but the end result would be the same.

We arent as brutal as some militarys in the past where your decision is to obey or be shot.

But he hasnt been given this order yet. so this whole thread is mute.

moot.

And I don't think even if the president went on live television and demanded we do such a thing that he would take that as an "order" and just do it.

[Vas Deferens]

(02-02-2016, 01:18 PM)McC Wrote: That's a big problem because we're never gonna do either of those things.  Plus, it seems like it's gone too far for it to stop.  In the Jihadists' minds, only our elimination would end it.  Seems like they want all Christians off the face of the earth.  We are not the only country they attack.

Jihadist's wouldn't have the financial support and willing foot soldiers if we stopped killing civilians and supporting Isreal's wretched occupation and general war crimes.

...But that wouldn't be great for raytheon stock

 

[McC]

(02-02-2016, 01:33 PM)Vas Deferens Wrote: Jihadist's wouldn't have the financial support and willing foot soldiers if we stopped killing civilians and supporting Isreal's wretched occupation and general war crimes.

...But that wouldn't be great for raytheon stock

 

The problem with that is that our enemies choose to surround themselves with civilians.  And, last I checked, killing civilians is their basic MO.  I can't buy that we're the only bad guys here, like you apparently do.