http://radio.foxnews.com/2014/09/23/obamas-war-shock-and-awe-or-pin-and-pr*ck/by John Gibson
Whether last night’s salvo against ISIS and Khorasan in Syria was a big attack or something less than big, it was undoubtedly not a great night for people there who found themselves on the business end of an American organized attack. Forty seven Tomahawk missile launches, Hellfire-firing drones buzzing overhead like an annoyed beehive, and F22’s, F18, and F16’s from the United States, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the UAE and Bahrain unleashing precision guided missiles–it was not a good night to be in the wrong place in Raaqa or Aleppo in Syria.
The BBC said seventy ISIS fighters were killed in the Raaqa attacks on ISIS emplacements. Seventy down, thirty-some thousand to go. No word yet what the damage was in Aleppo where the Khorasan terrorist group was reportedly plotting an al Qaeda type attack on western interests, possibly the United States.
The immediate reaction here in the United States was varied. Obama-phobic Democrats facing a tough election in just a few weeks were generally holding their tongues, waiting to see how the President continues this opening gambit and how the public reacts. Others, including several retired U.S. military Generals, some of whom formerly occupied high placed positions in previous administrations, were happy that Obama had finally authorized something.
And for those of us–Democrats and Republicans–who were urging the President to do something, it would be churlish to now grumble about the action he finally took. So, good on you, Mr. President. Doing is better than not doing.
However, a report from Baghdad about yet another Iraqi military base overrun by ISIS fighters gives rise to renewed questions about how much can be accomplished with any U.S. air campaign, but especially one that is less than fully committed and sustained.
This incident occurred at Camp Saqlawiyah, just north of insurgent controlled Falujah. When one of two tanks guarding the road to the camp left to refuel ISIS pounced. ISIS fighters took over the road and besieged the camp.
The Washington Post story, by Loveday Morris, contains this quote:
“There were no reinforcements, no food supplies, no medicine, no water, and then our ammunition began to run out,” said 1st Lt. Haider Majid, 28. “We called our leaders so many times. We called our commanders, we called members of parliament, but they just left us there to die.”
And die they did, at least many did. What the soldiers thought was a rescue mission of Humvees was allowed into the camp. But it wasn’t a rescue mission. It was ISIS fighters in captured American equipment. Three Humvees were detonated in suicide bombings. The rest of the “rescue convoy” was blocked out of the camp but the fighting intensified and 400 Iraqi soldiers made a break for it, leaving many others behind.
The survivors who made it to an Iraqi army camp a few miles away said 400 to 500 soldiers were missing or dead.
This is in an area of Iraq where American airpower has already been in play. We’ve heard of more than a hundred strikes on ISIS targets in what used to be Iraq. Yet this kind of incident shows it takes more to stop ISIS from defeating and killing an under-equipped, under-supplied, and not very committed Iraqi army than a few American air strikes.
Had there been a continuous and sustained air campaign in the area of Camp Saqlawiyah perhaps this Iraqi army garrison would have survived. Perhaps the ISIS convoy of American military vehicles–mistaken for Iraqi army rescuers because both have the same vehicles now–would have been taken out before it was at the gates of the Iraqi army fortification.
In any case, the Camp Saqlawiyah incident shows what happens when aerial bombing is pin and pr*ck not shock and awe.
