I must still be salty over memories of this little gem of a topic.
I still remember feeling like it had broader support, but I do occasionally run into the notion that being attacked, aka "suckering us in", is something ISIS wants. As if we cannot or should not defeat them militarily. "Can't kill an idea". Or "They aren't a state".
Maybe it just triggers me to confront this notion, cause it really sticks with me. They mobilize, we kill them. It works.
No worries, plenty of salt over here too.
There probably
are Dems out there that conflate the act of checking off an enemy's wishlist (like say, invading and occupying a poor muslim country) with the utility of direct "in theater tactics," I just haven't heard any anywhere (let alone a Dem of note) say so. And like I said, feel free to ignore/mock them if they're encountered.
On the battlefield, I think you will find broad bipartisan support for pummeling an enemy in the open. No matter who you vote for, we're all Americans and we all understand that for every one of those bastards you put down you end a stream of future violence directed at fellow Americans.
Strategically, currently, and to which I suspect you may be recollecting, there is a debate in Washington between DoD brass and company men on how to proceed in Syria. Pentagon thinks we can do what needs to be done with Assad in power, possibly even working with the Russians and Iran in the process. CIA says we will not be able to effectively combat an ideology that thrives in instability
while Syria is unstable. They maintain applying various types of assistance to a power vacuum with this many state and non-state actors involved will yield marginal results at best, and so far I feel they have been proven correct.
Killing does work, but not in all situations. IMO anyone who says it
always works should be ignored the same as a person who says it
never works. The utility of force is real, but even tools wear out over time. Case in point, Columbia and the FARC. That shit has been going on since
Johnson was in office. The Dutch fought Spain for what, 80 years? Eventually the people doing the fighting realize killing isn't fixing the situation.
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