The notion that ISIS fighters are unrivaled on the battlefield doesn’t always stand up to close scrutiny, but the ISIS leadership can certainly continue to push that narrative this week, after routing an Iraqi military offensive near Mosul.
As has so often been the case, the Iraqi troops didn’t handle coming under fire particularly well, and fled en masse as soon as the shooting started in earnest, with analysts warning that the Iraqi troops simply aren’t combat ready, and lost what little ground they took almost immediately.
Having ISIS drastically outnumbered by most estimates, Iraqi officials have been talking up the idea that the entire war would be won by year’s end, only to have this preliminary offensive put on indefinite hiatus, as they wait for reinforcements to replace the deserters.
It’s unsurprising, given how poorly the military has done, that Iraq is again turning to Shi”ite militias to try to turn the tide of battle, but many Shi’ites oppose sending their fighters so deep into Sunni country, to fight against Sunni Islamists.
And while the Pentagon is downplaying the losses, insisting the Iraqi troops are “learning the area,” it’s undeniable that ISIS has once again fallen into a major propaganda win, as Iraqi troops turn their tails and run, and reportedly flagging ISIS morale has been boosted.
Really very sensible. What is it about Americans that makes them charge into gunfire far from their homelands? Frankly if I was an Iraqi and knew GI Joe was going to do the dying for me to protect my corrupt regime, well hey easy choice.
Americans are racist. They don’t want to send their own white men to die in fighting so they fund and arm proxy armies composed of brown people.
I agree 100%. However, (we) wouldn’t think so if you watch the garbage in the movies and MSM.
Americans don’t charge into gunfire far from their homelands. If they did that then there would be thousands of casualties every month just like on the scale of the Iraqi losses. American losses are more like none or maybe one of two a year.
GI Joe isn’t doing the dying for anybody but he sure is doing the killing, albeit from 30,000 feet where there’s no effective gunfire.
Good. I hope Iraqi troops continue to flee.
Such a delay is not going to help the people there. If they keep pushing back the Iraq army, they’ll get the Iraqi militias. If the American planes can’t dislodge them, sooner or later they’ll get Russian planes having a try.
This might be bad leadership — or none at all.
It might be panic, as men genuinely don’t know what to do.
It might be a more calculated refusal to run personal risk for any reasons apparent to them.
It might be they were put into an impossible situation, or allowed to sit there until it had changed around them. That is also a leadership failure, although a different one.
The distinctions are important, because they would require different remedies. They would also have different reasons why no remedy is likely.
Refusal to invade the Islamic State and murder Sunni Arabs isn’t a “failure”.
It might be a lot of things but it’s pretty sure it’s a lack of loyalty to US ambitions, along with a general hate for Americans in Iraq. Unless they are of the opinion that the US did their country a favour by eliminating Saddam. And that has become pretty much of a propaganda generated false rumour by now.
There is the pay they get for pretending though!
Who are you insinuating that might be the bad leadership ? The Shiite government that commands the Iraqi army . The Sunni fighting force standing in their way , President Bush the world power that destroyed the functioning Iraqi government , or President Obama for withdrawing US troops to soon .and not attacking ISIS when they were traveling in their Toyota pickup trucks going from city to city . I would say there was bad leadership on every one opposing ISIS . So much so it almost looks like they would rather install and help them .
Aside from money, why would Iraq citizens want to be in the fight for Mosul? The fight is likely to destroy Mosul and kill thousands and thousands of innocent people. What the Iraqi’s need first is a government they can all stand behind and until that happens it’s an exercise in futility.
A nation divided cannot stand and nothing is more divisive than a puppet dictator put in place by the nation that has done it’s best to destroy everything they have. The Sunni people themselves are going to have to rid themselves of ISIS and that won’t happen as long as they believe they are safer under ISIS control than they are with a government put in place by their enemies.
The world won’t accept it though. You can’t leave ISIS/Al-Qaeda running countries – whether it is Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, Nigeria or Somalia. The violence and poisonous sectarianism always spills out and grows. In the case of Iraq, it is most likely to be Iran that loses patience – the shia militias of Iraq may be reluctant to advance into ISIS territory, but they will likely be whipped into doing so anyway by the Iranian Ayatollah.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Pg.-291-Pgs.-287-293-JW-v-DOD-and-State-14-812-DOD-Release-2015-04-10-final-version11.pdf
Nov 20, 2015 The One Thing You Need to Know About ISIS, ‘Americans please wake up!’
https://youtu.be/vkxFT_hJCdQ
The same time the Iraqi Army has taken nearly all of Heet. Heet or Hit is the 3rd largest city in Anbar province with a population of a 100,000. When Hit falls the only strategic city standing in their way in Anbar will be Fallujah. The Iraqis have taken Baji, Tikrit, Ramadi and soon to be Hit. ISIS is running out of cities, supplies and fighters. The Mosul offensive was stupid. The Iraqi Army is still training for conventional Warfare. It was said they would not be ready until the end of the year. We trained them in counter insurgency operations and ISIS is a conventional force. Should have kept the 10,000 troops past 2011 to have finished the job of training them. They should of had an Air Force too. We dragged our feet on selling them F-16’s.
Mosul offensive is more then political pressure being put on the Iraqis after the Paris and Brussels attacks. Throw in all of the ISIS lone wolf attack in America and no wonder their being pushed before their ready!
Another thing why in the hell would anyone be Anti War against ISIS. Their worse then Hitler’s SS!!!
The Shiites and Sunni have to separate Their leaders both want to be boss They will keep killing unless restrained by a more powerful force like Saddam or Gaddoffi . I don’t believe they want a democracy . Assad said he will have elections But the Syrian rebels don’t want Assad to run in the election . They want Assad to leave the country before the election . I don’t know what good democracies are anyway if the elections are like our elections . With a lot of unbound delegates on both political parties .
I think we backed Bosnia when they wanted to become a Islamic state too in Yugoslavia .Worse yet we blamed and bombed the Orthodox Bosnian Serbs for fighting against the Islamic Bosnian state . Traveling terrorists from all the world traveled to Yugoslavia and the United States furnished the air force for AlQaeda in Kosovo . Now we still have Serbs on trail in the Hague court for trying to protect themselves from living in a Islamic state . Today it should be obvious the Serbs knew what they were doing . The least we could do is let the Serbs out of prison for defending themselves . But the United States doesn’t want us to know and admit they furnished and helped the KLA terrorists with weapons and the airforce to subdue a Christian country .
Dude i dont know if u made this up or not but damn ur info is totally off.
The serbs attacked bosnia and there intention was to create a greater serbia.and the KLA never accepted any alqaida.
“but many Shiites oppose sending their fighters so deep into Sunni country, to fight against Sunni Islamists.”
i have a hard time believing that the Shiites want to ethnically cleanse that area
I wonder if they left their tanks and Humvees this time again .
Antiwar twice reported the “flee from ISIS”. The fact of the matter is , solders received intelligence about DAESH using mustard Gas and another chemical
against them. Daesh have been using chemical for long time and the big countries not doing something about it , just on the media.
Animals won’t like to live under Daesh control , just look around you , there are terrorists acts in many countries. It is their dogma to return to the early days of Islam and to control the world as they been learned