Today\’s quote comes to us from General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
General Dempsey said this about the series of air strikes President Obama has ordered to hit ISIS targets in Iraq:
“Theairstrikes have made it clear both to the Iraqi security forces andto the pesh and to (the Islamic State) that they\’re no longeruncontested. The pace at which they wereadvancing has been abated. It doesn\’t mean it will stay abated.”
Translation: bombing from the air can show ISIS that it has something to worry about. And it can abate (slow down) ISIS\’s progress. Period.
What it cannot do is stop ISIS, or even push it back. In that regard, bombing is ineffective.
The only thing that would be effective is boots on the ground – whether those boots are worn by US soldiers, Iraqi soldiers or the Kurdish “peshmerga” fighters – who seem far better at contesting ISIS than Iraqi soldiers are.
So why, over the months that ISIS has grown exponentially and taken over so much territory that it can declare its own caliphate, has President Obama not given significant military assistance to Iraq or armed the peshmerga?
He sure as hell has boned up on his golf game. Maybe stopping the spread of mass murdering Islamic lunatics is important too.
I award General Dempsey Quote Of The Day honors for being so bluntly honest about the inherent ineffectiveness of President Obama\’s “way too little, way too late” action (if you can call fighting an army on the march with a few air strikes “action”).
I wonder how many innocent people, how many beheaded children, it has cost in that terrible area of the world.
