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2015-03-13 Iraq

Iraq forces expel ISIL militants from seven villages

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Posted by Fred 2015-03-13 00:00|| || Front Page|| [1 views ] Top
File under: Islamic State

#1 USAF Pilot's recent combat perspective:

Sent: Thursday, March 05, 2015 9:20 AM
Subject: A-10 driver perspective FYSA

The squadron is doing fine. Everybody is happy to be here and we are doing some good work. The A-10s are holding up well and the technology we have have on the jets now (targeting pods, GPS guided bombs, Laser Guided bombs, Laser guided missiles, tactical data link, satellite comms), and of course the gun, make the A-10 ideal for this conflict. We are killing off as many ISIS as we can, mostly in ones and twos, working with the hand we are dealt. I've never been more convinced in my career that we are facing an enemy that needs to be eradicated.

With that being said...I've never been more frustrated in my career. After 13 years of the mind - numbing low intensity conflict in Afghanistan, I've never seen the knife more dull. All the hard lessons learned in Vietnam, and fixed during the first Gulf War, have been unlearned again. The level of centralized execution, bureaucracy, and politics is staggering. I basically do not have any decision making authority in my cockpit. It sucks. In most cases, unless a general officer can look at a video picture from a UAV, over a satellite link, I cannot get authority to engage. I've spent many hours, staring through a targeting pod screen in my own cockpit, watching ISIS shitheads perpetrate their acts until my eyes bleed, without being able to do anything about it. The institutional fear of making a mistake, that has crept into the central mindset of the military leadership, is endemic. We have not taken the fight to these guys. We haven't targeted their centers of gravity in Raqqa. All the roads between Syria and Iraq are still intact with trucks flowing freely. The other night I watched a couple hundred small tanker trucks lined up at an oilfield in ISIS - held northeast Syria, presumably filling up with with oil traded on the b l ack market, go unfettered. It's not uncommon to wait several hours overhead a suspected target for someone to make a decision to engage or not. It feels like we are simply using the constructs build up in Afghanistan, which was a very limited fight, in the same way here against ISIS, which is a much more sophisticated and numerically greater foe. It's embarrassing.

Be assured that the Hawg drivers are doing their best.

Posted by Besoeker 2015-03-13 00:11|| 2015-03-13 00:11|| Front Page Top

#2 If you not gonna let them do their job, might as well bring them home to protect the borders and become isolationist again.

Posted by chris 2015-03-13 00:50|| 2015-03-13 00:50|| Front Page Top

#3 chris, there's no chance in the world that they would be allowed to do their job to "protect" the borders.

The only thing they would be allowed to do is watch the invasion and mark the invaders to be visited by the Democrat recruiting teams.

Posted by AlanC 2015-03-13 08:41|| 2015-03-13 08:41|| Front Page Top

#4 Not a new phenomenon. This engage-by-direction has been going on for over twenty years; the only difference is the dithering is done via faster data links.

Posted by Pappy 2015-03-13 11:00|| 2015-03-13 11:00|| Front Page Top

#5 the only difference is the dithering is done via faster data links.

Maybe we should go back to smoke signals.

Posted by gorb 2015-03-13 15:28|| 2015-03-13 15:28|| Front Page Top

#6 So much for almost 150 years of advancement in tactical thought.

Roon and Von Clausewitz both stated developing the decision making and the initiative of the junior officer corps was essential to victory in battle. The fog of war and the time lost in elevating tactical decisions demand the junior officers make the decisions and execute violently.

Apparently the politicalization of our senior officer corps has left us with a bunch of REMFs and parade ground generals whose entire career has been spent on the cocktail circuit and the Pentagon. We need to bring back a bunch of the guys that youknowwho ran off or quit in disgust.

I think the hog driver has given us the final explanation of why we have so few sorties a day...the LBJ era of target selection is upon us again.

Posted by Bill Clinton 2015-03-13 19:01|| 2015-03-13 19:01|| Front Page Top

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