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Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction
I just don't see what we can do in a combat roll that the U.S., UK and France cannot do on their own. I understand the desire to support our allies and to help the victims, but combat missions seem redundant given the history of the area and the capabilities of the countries already actively participating in the airstrikes. Optics is a terrible reason to become actively involved.
Given our military's recent experience in Afghanistan, we are in a position to help secure aid, support refugees and train/advise the locals. I really think that Canada can do more good in those areas. For example, Turkey is in a tedious position right now dealing with refugees and if things keep deteriorating, conflict spill over is not out of the question. Aid convoys leaving Turkey are being jacked almost as soon as they cross the border.
Having said all that, I realize that what I propose does put our personnel is positions of danger and I am not rushing to sign up, but I just don't see how additional airstrikes will help anything.
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Ok, question, how do we do that, secure aid, support refugees and train locals.
I agree those things are things that we should be doing as well as the current military role.
However
Train Locals - It looks like we're doing that, we're sent Special Forces troops in to act as trainers
Secure Aid - "Are you talking in the camps for refugees? Shouldn't that be a UN role? Or are you talking about securing aid to the rebel groups in Syria and Iraq, and how do we secure it? We know that ISIL is specifically targeting humanitarian Groups and Aid convoys, so do we send over some AFV's and troops to secure them, or do we just pray that the Aid and a few hostages don't end up in the tender hands of IS?
Supporting Refugees - "That's something that Turkey should be doing and the UN agencies supporting. So are you saying we do check book diplomacy, here's some cash fix it, we did this part"
I'm am for this mission on paper, I think we need to support this effort, however and as I've said in the past, this mission is based on a flawed premise and a too optimistic belief that IS will wilt under an attack by air power and that there can be a proper coordination by poorly trained ground troops and Allied Aircraft.
I believe that IS as a active force in the region and a threat in terms of inspiring barbarians to lash out in our country needs to individually and as a group eat a lot of ordinance.
But this mission will fail, it will increase IS resolve not shatter it because at the end of the day Air Power won't have much effect on this type of group, it won't degrade their logistics nor their ability to attack and hold ground and cleanse it.
I guess the only thing that would help is if you had good enough intelligence on the ground to pin point and exterminate their leadership and their replacements and their replacements replacements.
Since there is literally no end game or time table to this operation, all we're going to get is a bunch of leaders waving their hands and claiming that they're doing something and gaining some positive press out of it.
In my mind air strikes and cruise missile strikes aren't enough, you don't kill a group like IS unless your willing to go in a dig them out of their rat holes, or train a sufficiently competent and fairly ruthless counter force to do it. The third option is to take groups like JTF2, or the Army Rangers or SAS and other secretive highly trained hunter killer groups and slip the leash off.