ANOTHER WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST?

Ed. comment: A PROFOUND ANALYSIS AND THOUGHTS REGARDING THE AIRSTRIKES AGAINST ISIS(L) DESTINED TO FAIL UNDER DIRECTION OF A FECKLESS "LEADER" WHO HASN'T A CLUE AS TO WHAT A STRATEGY IS AND WHO APPARENTLY THINKS THAT IN WAR WE ANNOUNCE OUR INTENTIONS TO THE ENEMY. 

BY MICHAEL WILSON 

Ed/Owner's note: Michael Wilson is not only a profound thinker, as this piece confirms, he is a veteran who nearly gave his life in service to America. I agree totally with Mr. Wilson. I am grateful to him for permitting me to post this for our 4,000+ daily readers around the world. Here are Mr. Wilson's thoughts.

It would seem that we are stumbling inexorably into another war in the middle east. I feel absolutely nothing even approaching schadenfreude as my analyses and predictions concerning the harm done by the policies of this administration are proven correct. More American lives will be lost as a result of the policy failures of this horrible administration, and I have wept for too many dead warrior friends already in my life.

Wars are won by the application of overwhelming and devastating force at any point which cannot resist it. Nuanced reaction to enemy initiative failed us woefully in Vietnam. The attempt to employ it even in the situations in which the military stabilization had been achieved in Iraq and Afghanistan, has quickly failed. The victors are now seen by both our enemies and the populations to be weak and lacking in determination, and unwilling to stay the course. As a result, the rats are crawling out of their holes once again,and the victory is being thrown away.

Sage political leaders seldom announce their intentions beyond stating the end goal. They certainly do not announce timetables, troop movements, or the tactics to be employed therein. They do not attempt to employ friendship, conciliation, and apology with foreign national leaders who understand only power, and who see public conciliation for no good reason as weakness. They do not try to advance preposterous assessments of the enemy, going so far as to publicly insult the intelligence of any listener by suggesting that a group that calls itself the Islamic State has no connection to Islam. They do not sack effective commanders who happen to disagree with their politics, or who question the wisdom and effectiveness of proposed grand strategies as is their duty. They NEVER make threats or promises which they are not certain that they can and will back with whatever force is required.

They strengthen not just their military position, but also their strategic national posture in every other area. Had we developed our energy resources, rather than capitulating to a tiny but highly vocal and well funded environmental minority, we could now walk away from the middle east and let these people carry on with their internecine warfare that has endured, if sometimes sporadically, for more than 1,400 years. Due to this administration's ignoring the advice to strengthen our energy production we are forced to remain in the area to protect our interest in this critical resource. We are also reinforcing our enemies' strength by providing the oil revenues needed to finance their aggression aimed at us and our western allies.

Vladimir Putin, with whom the President's weak attempts at unnecessary conciliation have clearly failed, is now attempting to expand Russia's hegemony in Europe. Putin, who knows how to conduct international relations to his and his nation's advantage, is clearly taking advantage of the self destructive national emasculation that has been carried out by this administration. His major strategic advantage is that he controls the gas and oil on which western Europe is dependent, not just for commerce and industry, but for heat for the entire area. We could have precluded his march westward by relieving this dependence with our exportable energy, and without one soldier on either side deploying.

Tactically we are foolishly showing inadequate force in the areas in which our lack of strategic acumen allowed a resurgence of Islamic extremism. We send a few sorties against IS, or ISIS, or ISIL, or Al Quaeda, or whatever it is calling itself this week, which fail to wipe out enough of the enemy's strength to matter, and which allow the enemy to ensconce and insinuate itself into the local populations where it will be more difficult to effectively use our air superior against them. Quite recently the IS forces were casually and arrogantly deploying their forces out in the open, where their equipment which gave them tactical superiority over the locals could have been largely wiped out by our air superiority. The pinprick assaults against them, rather than decimating them, have simply pushed them to get the bulk of their forces into civilian areas. We are told by the administration's complicit media friends that IS(I)(L)(S) is a force to be reckoned with. While it is indeed superior to most of what we have seen from the Islamic extremists by way of conventional military strength, it is no major force by western standards. It should have been riddled by our real military by now, but since it hasn't it is now being seen as something greater than it is. It is a force that has arisen from the ashes of defeat because those with real force have allowed it to become so. It is not a Phoenix on its own, but one our making.

Much is being made of the coalition cobbled together by this administration, but how many of our ad hoc allies will actually commit the ground forces that will eventually surely be needed? Of these, how many will actually be effective, battle tested forces? When American forces will be called for to enter the fray as acknowledged combatants, as it seems probable that they will be, will they committed piecemeal and reactively as the air effort to date has been? Or will we send in enough, with realistic ROE, to ruthlessly and quickly destroy this enemy and his ability to wage war effectively? I think, sadly, that we all know the answer to this question.

Thus far I have endeavored to quietly and logically deal with the facts in evidence in this situation, without much personal political philosophizing. Please allow me some personal thoughts about the leadership, or lack of it, that has gotten to this sorry pass. If this President had devoted time to some study of the history of warfare and statecraft, which really haven't changed significantly in theory since Sun-Tzu's treatise written 2,500 years ago laid out the cogent points on how to conduct war and Machiavelli produced his comments on statecraft some 400 years ago, rather than Saul Alinsky's treatise on how to subvert democratic governments, with a cursory skim of Marx and Mao, he might have some clue as to how to conduct affairs now. This, of course, gives him (if not his inner circle) the benefit of the doubt as to real his intentions for our wonderful land. We are in serious trouble, and the man who would be leader is a feckless and internationally disrespected poltroon.

God help us, our nation, and the brave and dedicated young men and women who will once again have to risk their lives to bail out a failed leader and his poor planning.