Anyone who supports the bombing of ISIS as an efficient way of dealing with the problem is either stupid or immoral.
http://dippost.com/2015/02/25/human-rights-watch-syria-regime-barrel-bombing-civilians/
From a military perspective, bombing is only used as a show of effective strength and not as a primary arsenal into defeating an enemy. The bombings throughout Europe displayed this tactic on a mass scale and should be a warning to us all that history will repeat itself if we all decide that bombs must be the answer to the recent terror attacks . In the case of World War II , bombing never actually achieved submission or surrender. The only debatable case is that of Japan with Nuclear bombing.If you think nuclear warfare is the answer, think again. Japan is still suffering as a result of the bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the mass immigration from bombed towns put mass strains on europe’s economy and food supplies, as well as housing situation. The cost on England from the bombings or on Germany, is not worth it. Similarly, Syria will be like London after World War II, attempting to recover.
Additionally guerilla armies don’t have a central core to target, it’s what makes them so effective. Their firefight squads get in close to use small arms. This was a tactic used in vietnam in order to limit the power of the american air superiority. ISIS are likely to be attempting the same.
In the past bombing has previously been used as a way of investing in the war. Britain used it to keep Russia from allying with Germany in World War II to show sufficient strength in order to fight the spread of nazi power. I would think about this when considering why a government is proposing to go to a war on the strategy of bombing only. To me there seems to be a lack of cost-benefit analysis, as men, women; children are likely to be sacrificed as a result, with a lack of guarantee that these will obtain any results. A sane man would see that as an unthinkable gamble…
Don’t get me wrong, bombing is effective in strategic positions. I mean factories were targeted in World War 2 to slow production of ammunition, vehicles, and other armaments in order to disable an armies fighting power. With ISIS, you can’t strictly bomb them, they’ve probably stored these things underground like the Vietcong did. It would make tactical sense to protect these kinds of assets. The only way we know how to deal with these styled tunnels is to use tunnel rats, but these tunnels were highly effective at defense seeing as they made it so small that one man could protect it efficiently. Tunnels also existed that were booby trapped, should we be surprised if ISIS have done the same?
http://en.abna24.com/service/middle-east-west-asia/archive/2015/03/16/677154/story.html
With today’s technology bombing has also been used as artillery, which means it can be used in order to screen an advancement from an army . Looking at operation Desert Storm bombing was used as a way of masking what strategists call “the hail mary” or the flank attack which attacked the enemy with the element of surprise catching them off guard. A similar tactic was used in D-Day, in order to make the enemy believe that they were attacking from a different beach head in order to keep the 4th panzer division in reserve which would have destroyed an alliance invasion in the early stages.
Perhaps the government plans on using Special Forces as their secretive tunnel rats joint with bombing as a masquerade for this. This wouldn’t surprise me, but if i know this, it wouldn’t surprise ISIS either. It’s important to consider why the government have decided to choose the decision they did. It’s likely that ISIS have entire tunnels dedicated to booby trapping not dissimilar to the ones in vietnam.
But if there are alternative ways of fighting ISIS which don’t involve any boots on the ground, or bombing then that would seem most appropriate. Perhaps one of the most celebrated tacticians to have “lived” stated that if a war can be won without spending ones own strength then it is the best way, as it conserves strength for when it is needed most. Politicians have given other ways of reacting to ISIS and some of them are similar to economic starvation, this is in theory very similar to bombing as it would disrupt ISIS infrastructure, and their resources limiting their “force ratio”. The celebrated tactician is Sun Tzu, who is in fact a legend, but it is known that napoleon, general patton and other great military generals have used his book “the art of war” in order to help them in their own victories.
You could argue that we should bomb in order to support France. But in a society that condemns suicide bombings, it makes sense that we do everything we can in order to prevent it from happening again, and using the most effective method. Remember that Syria is a complex of many different armies, so getting boots on the ground wouldn’t help the situation, but would only make it more complicated.
My Question remains the same, why are we really bombing ISIS?
DISCLAIMER: Despite all the text being my own views and words , I have found the images included in this text from other sources. I take NO RESPONSIBILITY, LIABILITY OR CREDIT for the images included in this article and I will always link the author or the site I found it on in the blog post.
Nathanwei 