Discussion of military action against the Islamic State (Isis) is veering close to the stupidly binary – where someone either agrees with every as-yet-unspecified thing the government wants to do, or is accused of being blind to the danger and the atrocities.

If there is one thing we should have learned from the last decade it is surely the folly of committing to military action without a clear understanding of the precise objectives of the involvement, what we want to achieve or how long we are prepared to stay.

There is a humanitarian crisis in northern Iraq, Isis is engaging in mass murder and US president Barack Obama has quite rightly described the aim of previous US air strikes as being to “prevent an act of genocide”. Most people would consider it a situation that warrants action by the US and its allies.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/28/debate-over-military-intervention-isis-iraq-too-simplistic

As ISIL fighters continue to gain ground in Iraq, expanding the borders of their self-proclaimed caliphate, even with the US-led coalition's aerial bombardment underway, the question pundits ought to be asking is what the Pentagon has to show for the vast amounts of money it has spent towards "training" foreign troops.

Let's face it: for an army that has received at least $26 billion - or up to $40 billion if Russian estimates are to be believed - worth of training by the US, the Iraqi army turned out to be totally unprepared when confronted with the ISIL onslaught.

In June, around 800 to 1,000 ISIL fighters entered Iraq from Syria, sending tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers running for their lives in the west of the country, leaving their hardware and even small arms behind. That's a pretty damning image of an army that had been trained by the best of the best - the mighty US armed forces - at considerable cost to US taxpayers.

It's really amazing that in all the confusion that surrounds ISIL's many military successes in Iraq, mainstream US media hasn't gone for the juicy bone that is the obvious corruption in the US military. Whatever you think of ISIL and the people who run it - mostly Saddam Hussein's former officers, who, incidentally, had the wisdom and the cunning to vanish without a struggle during the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 - it is still striking that the Iraqi army, armed with US weapons and hardware, has been unable to stop the onslaught of a group of extremists. Incidentally, it is worth nothing that this is something that the Russians both predicted and warned the Americans about.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/10/staggering-failure-us-trained--2014101593541838433.html

From The American Conservative

...

If Iran could be the big geopolitical winner in this multi-state conflict, then the U.S. will be the big loser. President Obama (or his successor) will, in the end, undoubtedly have to choose between war to the horizon and committing U.S. ground forces to the conflict. Neither approach is likely to bring the results desired, but those “boots on the ground” will scale up the nature of the ensuing tragedy.

Washington’s post-9/11 fantasy has always been that military power—whether at the level of full-scale invasions or “surgical” drone strikes—can change the geopolitical landscape in predictable ways. In fact, the only certainty is more death. Everything else, as the last 13 years have made clear, is up for grabs, and in ways Washington is guaranteed not to expect.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/seven-worst-case-scenarios-for-iraq/

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One aspect that this article forgot to mention is of course the role played by Saudi Arabia to nurture and promote the strict religious Wahhabism that has been used by ISIL to infest Iraq. As well, a similar role by Qatar and the UAE is not to be discounted... A double-game is being played. Our idiots in charge, Turdy Tony and La Stare Bishop can't see beyond sending boom-booms to play marbles in a game they don't understand. 

It ain't going to be a picnic. There won't be any glory...

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"Ms Bishop said the special forces mission would be to "advise and assist the Iraqi government in building up the capacity of the Iraqi security forces". 

As we know the Yanks spent between $26 billion and $40 billion to "train" the Iraqi army... What La Stare Bishop is planning to do ain't going to do it.. Ridiculous self-importance beyond the joke.

read also: US failure: training platoons of poltroons for billions in cash