First, some MSM news. According to the Wall St Journal, U.S. officials claim the air strikes are having an effect on ISIS in Erbil, and will slow them down.
"ISIS is starting to realize there are consequences to using heavy artillery and equipment near Erbil," said one senior U.S. defense official. "It's going to slow them down and give the Pesh time to fortify lines with supplies they're getting from [the Iraqi military] and from the U.S."
While the strikes may have stopped ISIS from entering Erbil, they haven't slowed ISIS down or stopped them from advancing elsewhere, even despite the reported loss of a few towns to the Peshmerga.
Also, they are accumulating weaponry at an ever increasing pace. Check out tanks and heavy weapons they took in their recent siege on the Brigade 93 army base in Raqqa, Syria. Here's their video tour (no violent images.) Here's the photos of them planning and carrying out the siege (again, no violent images.) They got at least 20 tanks (they say 40), 5 Howitzers, and more. This set of photos has more images of the weapons seized, but it also has some dead bodies.)
Today ISIS attacked the Kuweiris military airport in Aleppo, Syria. A few official ISIS photos are here. There are reports ISIS destroyed one of the bridges between Erbil and Mosul, near Eski Khazir, and rigged the other bridge with IEDs to prevent the advance of the Kurds. They fought today in Jalawla (Diyala) and claim they took control. CNN confirms. Rûdaw Media Network in Erbil tweeted out "For those who asking about #Jalawla conflicts and losing ground... Infos must not be publish right now." An hour earlier it claimed the peshmerga were in control.
More reports on today: ISIS was advanced in Awenat, south of Tikrit. They are also advancing to Mukayshfah, 25km north of Samarra. And they struck a police and military building in Kirkuk.
Republicans want to step up the war against ISIS to prevent it from attacking here. Why do Republicans get everything as*-backwards? ISIS has no intention of launching or ordering attacks in the U.S., unless we attack them. Do they just listen to the chatter of ISIS fanboys on Twitter who don't speak for ISIS and are sitting behind computers in other parts of the world? (I won't be surprised if the latest hashtag being used to warn the U.S. of the horrors it will face if it engages ISIS, and the "calamity" tag that preceded it, were started by the U.S. intelligence agencies as a trap -- an easy way to identify the IP addresses and twitter accounts of ISIS supporters and potential ISIS recruits, to add them to a database and keep track of them.)
There is no question ISIS is a huge threat to the Middle East. Or that it commits acts globally viewed as horrific. It wants to rule the Muslim world, and it's their way or the graveyard. Our airstrikes may not accomplish much, but they were only intended to do two things: Assist in a humanitarian effort to save the Yazidis on the mountain and stop ISIS from entering Erbil where U.S. oil companies have big interests and personnel.
Calls for the U.S. to leapfrog from airstrikes for these limited purposes to sending troops to fight a war against ISIS in Iraq or Syria should be soundly rejected by the Obama administration. We don't need to lose American lives or fund another bottomless pit. Nor should we fund or train whichever rebel group we think is on our side right now. While the group may be our current flavor of the month, next month it will probably be with ISIS.
ISIS is Iraq's problem. ISIS has not indicated it plans to attack the U.S. and the only thing that will change that is if we attack them. Even if it does not react immediately, some lone wolf will take revenge on its behalf. Our intervention could also make ISIS stronger. As soon as the U.S. causes any civilian loss in a war against ISIS, which is inevitable, ISIS will get a windfall of support from other groups who have thus far resisted joining them, becoming even more powerful.
Everyone can agree ISIS is a horrific threat to the Middle East and debate the political reasons for it. That's where it should end -- with debate, not war.
