“It’s like exterminating cockroaches – you have to try and get all of them or they multiply.”
The days of fighting ISIS with half-measures are over.
Obama’s approach was one of attrition. Push them from one place to another, and hit them while they move.
Obama’s approach has failed.
Now Trump has put Mattis in charge. His approach is a LOT more direct.
It’ is clear that ISIS is using Civilian populations as human shields. That is intentional, to protect against air strikes, and hamper our efforts to root them out.
Because of their deliberate choice of using human shields, and because they are too cowardly to assemble on a field of battle, some civilian casualties are inevitable. But that was true of Obama’s approach, too.
[Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford]: “He asked me and the military chain-of-command to make a conscious effort not to allow ISIS fighters to just flee from one location to another, but rather to deliberately seek to ‘annihilate’ the enemy,” he continued.The Pentagon has yet to reveal a new strategy to defeat ISIS but Mattis has heavily emphasized his focus on “annihilation” in recent months.
“We have already shifted from attrition tactics where we shove them from one position to another in Iraq and Syria, to annihilation tactics where we surround them. Our intention is that the foreign fighters do not survive the fight to return home to North Africa, to Europe, to America, to Asia, to Africa. We’re not going to allow them to do so. We’re going to stop them there and take apart the caliphate,” Mattis declared in a late May interview with CBSNews.
Dunford also says that we are heavily relying on intelligence sources to accomplish military goals. Mattis has previously stated that the U.S.-led coalition was increasing its pressure on ISIS by encircling fighters in their “strongholds.” Then they move in for the kill. “[Trump] directed a tactical shift from shoving ISIS out of safe locations in an attrition fight to surrounding the enemy in their strongholds so we can annihilate ISIS,” Mattis said. It’s like exterminating cockroaches – you have to try and get all of them or they multiply.
It’s good to have a Winner in the White House again!
Let’s stop playing around and show these goat-shaggers why America’s fighting forces are the most feared in the world.
