re: Big invasion in Iraq has begun.

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Are the Kurds taking part in the invasion or just Iraqi military?

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I damn sure hope so...the Kurds are the only reason ISIS doesn't have more territory...those folks have balls...

I've been speaking with a friend in special forces on the ground in Northrtn Iraq about the Kurds. He says, the Kurds will fight with the right weaponry but they are a myth. We spoke at length about the Kurds retreating into the mountains when ISIS went on the offensive. Recently they have had some success but their military reputation is way overblown.

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Can you elaborate?

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Our Rules of Engagement are suicidal and anti-victory - they imply a rational way to chain the dogs of war that doesn't exist in the real world.

Once you tell soldiers that they cannot kill civilians or damage property (even inadvertantly), you've already lost the war - particularly to an enemy more than willing to kill civilians and use houses of worship as sanctuaries.

No such rules of engagement were in place for wars in which we were successful, such as the U.S. Civil War, WWI, WWII, etc.

(And I don't mean that we should target civilians or places of worship, but when the shooting starts - it's on.)

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The worst part of the ROE was when it went from perceived threat to actualized threat. Unless they were shooting at you, you couldn't fo shite.

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Soldiers are not police officers. War is not law enforcement.

When politicians started treating things like this, we took victory off the table. Fighting for the status quo, in a defensive posture - the logical end of that is defeat and surrender.

You are correct, sir.

I think the IA needs to FIRST realize we ain't fighting for them anymore and if they don't want to be ISIS's bitch, they need to "man up".

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Our Rules of Engagement are suicidal and anti-victory - they imply a rational way to chain the dogs of war that doesn't exist in the real world.

Once you tell soldiers that they cannot kill civilians or damage property (even inadvertantly), you've already lost the war - particularly to an enemy more than willing to kill civilians and use houses of worship as sanctuaries.

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I remember when my uncle, who was a Marine fighter pilot & flew 2 tours in Vietnam, spoke of this in reference to that clusterfrick, he was highly frustrated, not surprisingly. He didn't talk about Vietnam much, but when he did, this was his major point of contention.

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Once you tell soldiers that they cannot kill civilians or damage property (even inadvertantly), you've already lost the war - particularly to an enemy more than willing to kill civilians and use houses of worship as sanctuaries.

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Eh, I see the point I guess. My umbrella was the absolute right of every soldier to defend himself and the ROE was under that umbrella.

I did a year in Iraq and had one ROE briefing on day one in country, all other briefings were mission specific. I did a year in Afghanistan and did not have a ROE briefing. The focus was accomplishing the mission not obsessing over the ROE.

Our real problems with ROE in Afghanistan and Iraq had more to do with where and when we could use air and supporting arms. Late in the Afghan war you needed regimental approval for even a 60mm mortar strike.

Also, troops were highly restricted on when and where and for what reasons they could enter a house or place of business. A squad leader on patrol could not randomly stop and search a house if he suspected it of having bad guys or weapons. Intel had to be passed all the way up and then the go ahead had to come all the way back down.