U.S. Broadens Fight Against ISIS With Attacks in Afghanistan

The front we need to open up on ISIS is hitting their benefactors and sponsors. If we send a drone to a single home of a millionaire/billionaire that we can determine is funding operations, we will seriously disrupt their existence. Sending soldiers into enemy terrain has grave limitations and carpet bombing the innocent poor in this terrain is remarkably misguided.

War and terror are not cheap. ISIS has only limited ability to support themselves. We need to have the fortitude and gall to attack their supply lines, wherever these lines begin. This is an ancient element of warfare that needs to be understood in the modern framework of electronic transfer of funds.

If we agree that the war against ISIS is morally justifiable, are we willing to attack and kill unarmed wealthy benefactors in their homes? Identification, elimination (killing) of the target, and public reporting of the kill might not be what Americans can accept with a highly sanitized and legalistic view of war that has become confused with police work.

IF this is a "war" we should fight it like we mean to win it.

ISIS is salivating right now over Afghanistan. They know very well that many in the Taliban can be bought, as well as the Afghan National Army. And ISIS has the finances to make it happen. ISIS is also eyeing Afghanistan's lucrative opium and gem trades. The Afghan government will fall like a house of cards once key provinces are taken. Unbelievable that US forces can only now engage the 'JV' team there. With Obama at the helm, we may as well just pack up and leave and save lives and treasure. The net result will be the same regardless.

Now they're in Afghanistan? This is really going well, isn't it?

Its a right step forward to deal with ISIS on the ground.

Time and time again strategy to treat the symptoms of terrorism and menace like ISIS has proven wrong. We needs to address the underlying causes of terrorism, we kill a 1000, they recruit 3000 more, its a never ending equation.

Just policies in the Middle East.
Support for Democracy rather than Kingdoms and Sheikhdoms.
Investment to educate people in the troubled lands like Afghanistan would help them to recognize what's good for the future of their children, terrorism is definitely not an option.

Above all, give people hope, use of M16 & F16's is the wrong approach. These kill people, do collateral damage and create more hatred for the West i.e. more recruitment, rather than creating a favourable ground to produce change from within.

Bombing and operations on the ground is one approach, chaining foreign policy and creating a coalition on the ground to fight against this menace is another. Its hard for US or any foreign army to fight in a variety of local conditions, how many wars, how many losses people can take?

Just foreign policy may resolve many conflicts even before they emerge, it may and avoid a few quagmires, its still not too late.

"...the Islamic State is proving too formidable for the still struggling Afghan security forces to combat on their own."

We've been there arming, equipping and training the Afgan forces for double digit years. So when exactly is it that their military will be able to stand on their own?

The Islamic State has not physically "expanded" in Afghanistan. Its fighters are former disaffected Taliban militants, who have switched allegiance to IS and "rebranded" themselves. Many Taliban fighters are disillusioned with their new leaders. They were angry that it took 2 years to learn the death of Mullah Omar, who founded the Taliban, and shaped it into a national movement. Without Omar that cohesion has been disintegrating.
As IS is fighting also the Taliban for "influence and money," President Ashraf Ghani should reach out to the Taliban, some of whom are willing to reconcile.

Let's see now, we are going to more what we have already done which has brought us to the point where we have to do more of what we have already done with little result. Maybe it's time to let the locals do whatever it is that they want to do to themselves. It would be nice to think we really have a strategy to deal with this problem but it is hard to find it. Maybe the best we can do is negotiate a graceful withdrawal with the Talban and declare victory as we did in Viet Nam where we never lost a battle but did lose the war.

"The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do.”
Samuel P. Huntington (1927 -- 2008)

As long as our decision makers in business and in Congress continue to attempt to dominate the rest of the world, we will continue to bleed while the Military-Industrial Complex reaps high profits. Most American are ignorant of our history or turn a blind eye to it. When will the voters wake up and demand that our leaders change the policies they are pursuing?

Obama has totally screwed up the war on terror. His unbelievable incompetence has been a boon to Islamic terrorism

This article demonstrates that our war will radical Islam(not Muslims) is complex and our president has no plan to fight Radical Islam. The Islamic State came into existence with our president saying they were the JV team. The Islamic State has grown at a rapid rate and our president has reacted with no sense of urgency and certainly no plan to destroy them. In fact he talked about containment. It is not enough to even say that Islamic State must be destroyed, there must be a clear plan. With Russia now involved everything is more complex. No plan can be created by political campaigns and this president is a lame duck with no plan. We are in for a long period of watching a monster grow stronger with no plan to destroy it.

I am a Wyoming Republican. I know Dick Cheney. I know of his and his patron Don Rumsfeld's "Project for a New American Century"(1997) which calls for "Full Spectrum Domination" of every nation on Earth. Heroin is now the #1 drug in Laramie. USBP checkpoints and traffic stops occur within 100 miles of all US borders, where US citizens have no option but to comply with a police state apparatus (children take note. this is your future: NDAA 2012 arrest with no right to trial "for duration of hostilities" if you stand up to the US Security State.

Eisenhower was right in his 1961 farewell speech: America could (and did) become a global military empire, supported by Congress. The empire is bankrupting America's education, infrastructure and - even from 4800 mostly secret bases- the empire can no longer suppress the locals. Darn! Send in the drones, operated from trailers in North Las Vegas! USA USA USA.

Back to our roots in the Revolutionary War: The agonizing shift to an asymmetric military force, augmented with US technology and training, has finally been realized. Both cultural for the military and political for the MITC stakeholders, the continuation from trend to doctrine largely depends on which party succeeds in this presidential election.

Am I the only one in the country who believes that ISIS is not America’s fight? As long as the US continues to lead the fight with 95% of the air strikes and now commando raids, countries in the region and our gallant NATO allies will never engage ISIS. And why should they? The free rider problem as it exists with NATO and the American defense posture with Japan, South Korea, and various Middle East emirates will persist. The Europeans, Japanese, and Koreans can continue to invest in their domestic economies while the US is out there, virtually alone, fighting ISIS. This gives ISIS exactly what they want, a war with America.

The US gets bogged down in a decade long quagmire while we can’t or won’t build basic infrastructure in the US. Witness Flint Michigan and thousands of other cities with decaying roads, bridges, schools, and water systems. There is never enough money for our manifest domestic needs yet always plenty of money for endless war.

Tell me again? why are we fighting here? are we bringing democracy at the barrel of a gun? This sounds like imperialism to me. Get out of the middle east NOW!

Jerry NYC

It's starting up again. As much as we want to leave Afghanistan, we cannot. The local people are not able to stem the tide of ISIS. A recent Frontline documentary on PBS showed how ISIS is poaching fighters from the Taliban and getting them to attack their previous comrades.

It's money. ISIS pays its fighters about $700/month to join up. That is big money over there. What about loyalty? What about "the cause"? Forget it. They don't care. It's how much are you going to pay me.

There is no way a structured political settlement can be implemented on a people whose loyalty can be bought and sold like items in a bazaar. Maybe that's why one has never been made. As it stands now, the cultural fertilizer that allows ISIS to grow and spread is beyond our ability to stop its use. All we can do is act like a herbicide and try to keep the weeds down. That's what we are now doing in Afghanistan.

Stuck in a hole and digging deeper. End futile military adventurism now.

We are spitting into the wind and what is blowing back into our faces is the blood and mangled flesh of our children.
Call this what it is, welfare for military contractors, and the death of our children is an administrative cost in keeping the campaign contributions flowing.
Those that continue the abomination should volunteer to clear booby trapped areas blindfolded. fat chance.
Out now.

Deja Vu? The Islamic State may end up winning and controlling Libya, Syria and, now, Afghanistan. One very basic goal is to frequent and repeated attacks in America with suicide bombers and firearms. They have made this very clear. Times Square and other targets in New York are high priorities. Too bad they keep winning.

The Russian army defeated the mighty Nazi army. The USA army defeated the mighty Nazi army. Both have failed in Foreverstan (the middle east). Russia and the USA have been fighting the Afghan people for 35 years and have lost. Please notice the verb tense; we have lost. The Russians were smart and withdrew. They wanted to stop the bleeding. The USA?
The NYT has retreated to reporting the (alleged) body count of dead Muslims. Can we say 'search and destroy' from the glory days of the Viet Nam war? Hasn't anyone noticed that there are millions of Muslims alive and hating us for destroying their culture, homes, and businesses? It is hopeless.
And if hopeless doesn't work for you, then how about immoral? Foreverstan is in a 'one hundred year war' stage of its existence as it tries to sort out Sunni versus Shia, national versus tribe, modern versus traditional, and rich versus poor forces within Islam. How can we continue to kill, to force into refugee camps, to cause to die by drowning seeking escape? Has this country no compassion left? In Foreverstan, give peace a chance. Thirty five years of war have done nothing.

It is unfortunate that the choices are so few and that most of them include, to one degree or another, armed conflict. But that is the reality, and it has to be addressed appropriately sooner than later. If it is not addressed now, we will only face the same choices again, but the next time, the adversary will be much stronger and more difficult to deal with effectively.

The conventional wisdom has always been that, when war is inevitable, go to war when it best suits you not when it best suits the enemy. We seem to have engaged in wishful thinking that, if we delay dealing with the Islamic State it will somehow go away. It will not, and it has not. It has just gotten stronger and more difficult to deal with.