How to defeat ISIS

[libertyvidz]

I haven't made this video public yet. I'm not happy with it, but I felt the need to get my ideas out there. I welcome all constructive criticism. And if anyone would like to actually help with this project I would love it! Ultimately I'd rather have slick graphics explaining what I'm talking about rather than me rambling on. Even better would be links embedded in the video. (I don't know how to do that). We must get this information out there. Nearly 80 of Americans now support ground troops against ISIS, which is a very stupid idea.



Oh, and here is my previous work.

[Working Poor]

um maybe just not funding ISIS would put an end to them

[libertyvidz]

um maybe just not funding ISIS would put an end to them

Hi. I agree with you. Two problems. The first is that now ISIS is no longer completely dependent on foreign funding. Most of their money comes from selling oil. The second is that it's hard to convince the average teocon/libtard voter that ISIS is funded by the U.S. But that's what I was getting at indirectly when I said we have to cut off the FSA.

[cindy25]

just ignore them. they would lose their common enemy, and greatest recruiting tool. also, stop aid to Israel, the Egyptian military dictatorship and all the others.

[Peace&Freedom]

um maybe just not funding ISIS would put an end to them

Yup, AND the training, AND the equipping, AND with providing them intelligence or other logistical support. Stop giving them the silent (or open) go-ahead for bloody shirt operations that the Western governments can dutifully act "appalled" by, in order to ratchet up the demands for more bombing/troops/surveillance.

Stop calling the organization uniformly "terrorist" (the convenient demonization term that allows states to not acknowledge any legitimacy to an armed faction they are in conflict with), and recognize the caliphate for negotiation purposes, including its insistence on re-establishing the older borders.

[GunnyFreedom]

Assuming that ISIS is a threat, this is how you defeat them:

Applying Marque and Reprisal to the Islamic State - Jeffersonian Model

There has a lot of discussion lately about the Islamic State (IS) and what exactly we should do about it. Most people are locked into the status quo: we either bomb from afar with no Congressional permission Clinton style, go in for a full invasion with only a brief statement of Congressional non-rejection and no declaration of war Bush style, or we do nothing at all. Clearly the first two are not options for a nation that obeys the Constitution, and the third, assuming that IS is a legitimate threat, is no option at all.

What people fail to account for, and the media is primarily responsible for this, is the Founders and Framers gave us a Constitutional means to deal with Non State Entities should they aggress against us, a means that not only works better and more efficiently than the traditional ground invasion and occupation, but it is also more effective, costs a fraction as much, and creates an order of magnitude less blowback.

I am talking about Marque and Reprisal. Now, you have probably been led to believe that M&R was simply the act of Congress shelling out bounties to third parties for named actors dead or alive. While that is sort of the basic idea, M&R is way more than that. People don't like the thought that with M&R our military would not be utilized. The US Navy and the US Marine Corps have it as one of their fundamental missions to support M&R, going back to before Thomas Jefferson and the Barbary Pirates at "the Shores of Tripoli."

So, the Islamic State is a legitimate threat, but there is no actual country to declare war on, what ever shall we do?

Deploy all possible intelligence assets America has to bear against the IS target. Identify the threat down to the last individual soul. Assign an initial value to each name, and count up how much it will cost to bounty out every one of them.

Go to Congress and obtain a letter of Marque, authorizing 10 Billion dollars in bounty plus 50 Million operating budget. While there, also obtain a letter of Reprisal, authorizing American forces on the ground to participate operational activities in support of privateers, and to capture their own targets.

Send in a full company of MARSOC Marines with a SOCOM HQ intelligence element and a senior officer with the power to hand out cash bounties along with his security element. Work actively to hand out bounties safely in exchange for prisoners (lesser awards for remains), and work actively to assist in the live capture of targets, or also capture targets on their own, as MARSOC teams.

Reduce the known list of IS operatives to zero in a short period of time, and then make it a point to let the fish go that were only caught up in it tangentially.

Because the people who are not actually operatives are cut loose as quickly as possible, we will get less resistance to people (who are not operatives) getting picked up, and the people who are actual operatives will identify themselves by going even deeper to ground, where they will sit until their jacked up bounties become too lucrative for someone to ignore.

You can bring every weapon to bear that a full heavy company of MARSOC Marines and their Navy (and potentially SOCOM) support elements can provide - which is a LOT - special forces operators can run around cleaning up the list like gangbusters while operating behind the confusing cloud of privateers so that the IS will never be able to get ahead of the US.

Run the ops exclusively person-to-person with the most elite warriors we can put together, fill the environment with privateers such that the American warriors can operate relatively unmolested, and reduce the enemy network to nothing quickly and quietly like the individuals composing the IS just get sucked into a black hole never to be heard from again.

You end up reducing the enemies’ entire network to nothing, quickly, with nearly zero collateral damage, and nearly zero motivation to blowback. Piracy, Terrorism, acts of the Nation against individuals and individual networks are why Marque and Reprisal were written in the first place. It is not exactly war, but it can be something like war. It is just a different way of using our massive military might to address the problem we currently face.

Trying to fight terrorism with conventional warfare, is akin to the Redcoats marching in massed formations while the Americans fired from behind trees, except now we are the Redcoats. Piracy and terrorism are not new things on this world, they have been around since before America was even colonized. Marque and Reprisal is not some fancy new-fangled idea, it was put into the Constitution from Day One specifically because it is the best solution to the kind of problem we now face.

So now there is talk on BOTH sides about going to Congress and getting another AUMF and launching Iraq War 3. The fact that Iraq Wars 1 and 2 didn't solve the problem is not a clue? Are we going to be right back here in another 10 years working up to Iraq War 4 because 3 didn't really do the job?

That's what happens when you use the wrong tool for the job. If you drive deck screws with a hammer, you deck is going to need repaired sooner than if you used a screw gun, or drove nails with your hammer instead. We keep using the 'wrong tool for the job' in addressing non-state terrorism and wondering why in never really works out right, and pretty much all the Hawkish voices out there want to use the same old hammer to drive the same old screws again.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but to go back and do again what we've done twice before is not going to solve the problem any more than it did the last two times.

But this is not all naysaying and empty criticism. I do know the solution, and I do know how to solve this problem quickly and efficiently. Do it with Marque and Reprisal. But not the cartoon version of M&R that America today has been fed, which is just some kind of Old-West style bounty system and nothing more, but the real and vital version of M&R as demonstrated by Thomas Jefferson in the Barbary War.

A company of SOCOM (in this case, for Constitutional reasons it would be MARSOC or SEAL; probably MARSOC since M&R missions would be more extended ground campaign than nightly amphibious assaults) can bring a level of devastation equivalent to a light regiment. Add an armored platoon and they can bring the destruction of a heavy regiment. But instead of running around destroying cities, they will wield every ounce of that power towards the surgical capture of named targets on an extensive list.

Our operators are already good enough. Throwing 10 Billion dollars around to whomever brings back named terrorist X, will 1) get some amount of your work done for you, and 2) provide an incredibly effective 'operating screen' behind which the MARSOC teams can operate with near impunity. While IS leadership is freaking out about Dog the Bounty Hunter raiding mid level safehouses, the Marines ghost in, capture the #2 guy in the org, and ghost out leaving everyone to wonder WTH just happened.

Marque and Reprisal, when used correctly, is not only hundreds of times more effective (and one-tenth of the cost) for this kind of problem than what we have been doing the last few times, it was also designed specifically for this kind of problem by the Framers who wrote the Constitution in the first place.

It's time to trust the Framers again. No more AUMF's. No more undeclared wars. No more trying to perform surgery with a sledgehammer. Use the Constitutional tools of Marque and Reprisal, deploy an M&R element to each of the areas where the enemy operates (acquire host nation permission when possible, but acquire the permission of some nation to land without exception, even if it's a neighbor nation to the target.) Use M&R to surgically eradicate the entire IS network, and instead of hating us, the world will thank us for cutting out the cancer.

[jmdrake]

Gunny, if Marque and Reprisal are only applied to "ISIS", it won't work. The funding sources have to be attacked. The problem isn't that we haven't killed enough "terrorist targets". The problem is that there are plenty more where those came from. If M&R are applied against the people raising money for ISIS then that might work. Also ISIS oil revenues need to be cut off. One sure way to do that is to end the isolation of Assad. He needs to be able to buy oil from legitimate sources. It's less clear why the Kurds are buy oil from ISIS though. And U.S. banks that are laundering money for ISIS need to be taken down.

[GunnyFreedom]

Gunny, if Marque and Reprisal are only applied to "ISIS", it won't work. The funding sources have to be attacked. The problem isn't that we haven't killed enough "terrorist targets". The problem is that there are plenty more where those came from. If M&R are applied against the people raising money for ISIS then that might work. Also ISIS oil revenues need to be cut off. One sure way to do that is to end the isolation of Assad. He needs to be able to buy oil from legitimate sources. It's less clear why the Kurds are buy oil from ISIS though. And U.S. banks that are laundering money for ISIS need to be taken down.

Well, with ISIS out of the picture, the Iraqi Kurds could start pumping that oil, which would take care of their (current) primary funding source. There are likely all manner of steps that can be taken to further erode their funding without true military intervention, but even if military intervention is necessary, that could certainly be accounted for in a Congressional M&R Bill. This would require intelligence sources and analysis that i do not currently have access to, therefore I am unable to account for them at this point in time. If I worked in a DC Policy team, then I would have access to such sources.

[jmdrake]

Well, with ISIS out of the picture, the Iraqi Kurds could start pumping that oil, which would take care of their (current) primary funding source. There are likely all manner of steps that can be taken to further erode their funding without true military intervention, but even if military intervention is necessary, that could certainly be accounted for in a Congressional M&R Bill. This would require intelligence sources and analysis that i do not currently have access to, therefore I am unable to account for them at this point in time. If I worked in a DC Policy team, then I would have access to such sources.

Okay. I'm not following you. Unclear pronoun. When you say "Their (current) primary funding source" are you meaning ISIS? If you're saying "If you take out ISIS then ISIS no longer has a funding source...." well....that's kind of cart before the horse. What the OP is saying is that if you take out ISIS funding source, you take out ISIS. Taking out ISIS funding source can be done without "boots on the ground." Taking out ISIS, even with M&R, requires boots on the ground.

[GunnyFreedom]

Okay. I'm not following you. Unclear pronoun. When you say "Their (current) primary funding source" are you meaning ISIS?

Yes.

If you're saying "If you take out ISIS then ISIS no longer has a funding source...." well....that's kind of cart before the horse.

Not at all, they are currently gaining primary funding from the sale of oil from wells they possess. Eliminate them, and they will no longer be pumping oil out of the ground. Voila, primary funding source gone.

What the OP is saying is that if you take out ISIS funding source, you take out ISIS. Taking out ISIS funding source can be done without "boots on the ground." Taking out ISIS, even with M&R, requires boots on the ground.

If you eliminate all extraneous funding, they will still be pumping oil out of the ground and selling it.

[jmdrake]

Yes.

Not at all, they are currently gaining primary funding from the sale of oil from wells they possess. Eliminate them, and they will no longer be pumping oil out of the ground. Voila, primary funding source gone.

If you eliminate all extraneous funding, they will still be pumping oil out of the ground and selling it.

If you blow up the wells, funding source gone. If you "get rid of them" you are back into the same "body count" mentality that didn't work or us in Vietnam, didn't work for the Russians in Afghanistan, and so far isn't working for us against ISIS. And don't forget that half of ISIS is in Syria.

[GunnyFreedom]

If you blow up the wells, funding source gone.

I'm not talking about blowing up the wells, but rather removing the people working them now, and giving them to the Iraqi Kurds whose territory ISIS is occupying by force.

The Jeffersonian doctrine of M&R that I am proposing is a lot different than what we have come to recognize as 'war.'

Mind you, this is assuming for the sake of discussion that ISIS is a threat to the United States, a threat I am not willing to just assume as of yet. I just want to make it clear we are speaking hypothetically, and not in terms of actions that I am proposing we actually do right now. If there is a legitimate need to 'take out' ISIS, then I do in fact know the best way to do it. That does not mean that I agree that taking them out is what we need to be doing at this point in time. I just want to make that clear lest someone think I am a warmonger.

If you "get rid of them" you are back into the same "body count" mentality that didn't work or us in Vietnam, didn't work for the Russians in Afghanistan, and so far isn't working for us against ISIS. And don't forget that half of ISIS is in Syria.

I'm not talking about wars of attrition, I'm talking about decapitating the snake. There is a difference between a war for body counts, and taking down named persons on a list of known enemies. If ISIS is such a threat that they actually need taken out, then there is no sense in half measures. If they are not, then don't bother with them, but if they are, then bother all the way. Detail a list of all the individual persons who are a threat and disappear them, either by death or by Guantanamo. I don't mean random unnamed soldiers but Abdul Jaleel Dada (invented name) on a list of known enemies of the United States.

[jmdrake]

I'm not talking about blowing up the wells, but rather removing the people working them now, and giving them to the Iraqi Kurds whose territory ISIS is occupying by force.

I know your aren't. Why did you think I thought that? The OP is talking about taking out the wells. That's because taking out the people isn't doing any good. We've killed between 6,000 to 10,000 but another 20,000 to 30,000 are streaming back in. If those 20,000 to 30,000 had no wells to work with, they would have no money supply.

The Jeffersonian doctrine of M&R that I am proposing is a lot different than what we have come to recognize as 'war.'

Sure. But that's not the point being made. In fact a smart M&R campaign would focus on taking out the money supply by blowing up wells and capturing and/or killing those funding ISIS through charities.

Mind you, this is assuming for the sake of discussion that ISIS is a threat to the United States, a threat I am not willing to just assume as of yet. I just want to make it clear we are speaking hypothetically, and not in terms of actions that I am proposing we actually do right now. If there is a legitimate need to 'take out' ISIS, then I do in fact know the best way to do it. That does not mean that I agree that taking them out is what we need to be doing at this point in time. I just want to make that clear lest someone think I am a warmonger.

I'm not suggesting you're a warmonger. I fully understand M&R. I'm saying that however force is used, if it doesn't take out the money supply, it won't matter.

I'm not talking about wars of attrition, I'm talking about decapitating the snake. There is a difference between a war for body counts, and taking down named persons on a list of known enemies.

Wrong analogy. Insurgent groups like ISIS are not "snakes" that can be "decapitated". They are more like a hydra. Or worse like coral. Each cell is able to self replicate. We've been killing the "leaders" of ISIS already. It doesn't matter. If you don't take out the funding source, they'll be back.

If ISIS is such a threat that they actually need taken out, then there is no sense in half measures. If they are not, then don't bother with them, but if they are, then bother all the way. Detail a list of all the individual persons who are a threat and disappear them, either by death or by Guantanamo. I don't mean random unnamed soldiers but Abdul Jaleel Dada (invented name) on a list of known enemies of the United States.

Again, you are focusing on operational leaders. They are irrelevant. New ISIS leaders are created everyday on the battlefield. It's the funding leaders, that are right now safe in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and other countries (the U.S.?) that are the real issue. Take them out and ISIS dies. That and if you take the oil wells out too.

[jmdrake]

Why taking out the leadership of ISIS doesn't matter.

http://news.yahoo.com/destroying-isi...-politics.html
The United States-led campaign against the Islamic State has yielded little tangible success so far. But things may suddenly have changed. The Telegraph reported Sunday that a Coalition bombing attack has killed a close aide to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Islamic State leader, near Mosul, Iraq. In addition, a member of the Iraqi parliament claimed that a separate attack near the city of al-Qaim injured al-Baghdadi himself, and that he is currently being treated in a hospital. The U.S. acknowledged that an attack on a convoy had taken place, but would not confirm that al-Baghdadi was among the dead of injured.

An injury or killing of al-Baghdadi would be a coup for the U.S., which has placed a $10 million bounty on his head. But previous experience with terrorist organizations has shown that groups tend to be resilient.
The U.S.-led mission to degrade or destroy the Islamic State goes far beyond killing the group's top leadership.

In 2006, a U.S. attack took out Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant who headed Al Qaeda's branch in Iraq. The moment was a clear victory for the Bush Administration, who had placed a bounty on Zarqawi's head. But the group survived and regrouped as ISIS. Al Qaeda itself, meanwhile, lacks the organizational strength it enjoyed under Osama bin Laden before his death in 2011. But the group has survived under his successor, Ayman al-Zawahri, and still has significant influence over its branches in Yemen and northern Africa.

The U.S.-led mission to degrade or destroy the Islamic State goes far beyond killing the group's top leadership. ISIS controls a large swath of land across Iraq and Syria, and has an estimated 30,000 fighters under centralized command—a number that has swelled through recruitment in foreign countries. ISIS earns significant revenue from oil sales and kidnapping and possesses large caches of weapons discarded or stolen from the Iraqi military. Neither the government in Baghdad nor the government in Damascus is powerful enough to rout them. And while the Obama Administration authorized 1,500 additional troops to expand the fight and train Iraqi forces, the president has ruled out use of American ground forces.

According to Aki Peritz, a former CIA counterterrorism official, al-Baghdadi's death would be welcome, but hardly a sufficient cause for victory.

"[It] will be cause for presidential speeches and commendations, but not the death of the Islamic State nor its loathsome ideology," he said.

[presence]

No foreign aid to anybody.
No imperial military bases.
No ground troops off the US coastline.
No Air or Navy outside of our national waters.

Problem resolved.

Next?

[Brett85]

No foreign aid to anybody.
No imperial military bases.
No ground troops off the US coastline.
No Air or Navy outside of our national waters.

Problem resolved.

Next?

I generally agree with that, although I've always thought that it was a legitimate role of the Navy to keep global sea lanes open.

[enhanced_deficit]

Same way defeated Al Qaeda in Iraq from 2003-2007 - invade mideast again but spread freedom in Syria this time.



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[fr33]

Don't topple secular dictators is a start. Too late for Iraq and Libya. Not too late for Syria.

The war on terror has created more terrorists. If you are a member of the military that thinks you are fighting for freedom, think again.

[presence]

I generally agree with that, although I've always thought that it was a legitimate role of the Navy to keep global sea lanes open.

Are the interests which profit from this protection the same that pay for it?

Sounds like corporate welfare to me.

Which country's navy is in charge in open water?

Sounds like saber rattling and instigation of hostilities to me.

[enhanced_deficit]

Sudan's President claims CIA and Mossad 'stand behind' Isis and Boko Haram

[paleocon1]

um maybe just not funding ISIS would put an end to them

novel idea!!!!!!!!! Of course few folks in Middle America are aware of just what ISIS actually is or would be able to hear the truth for that matter.