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Originally Posted by blankall
The question is will that help? ISIS doesn't care if you carpet bomb a city. They don't care about civilian casualties. You can't beat them down with hardships, and they will exploit any military action as motivation to recruit more members. They want an apocalyptic and widespread jihadist war. That's where they thrive.
ISIS has also shown themselves to be adaptable and mobile. When you push them out of one area with a heavy military presence, they set up shop somewhere else. How do you stop that? Send in 2 million troops to impose military rule and fight some never ending urban guerilla conflict all across Syria? It's the same reason military campaigns failed in Vietnam and Afghanistan. It's an unwinnable conflict.
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With Vietnam and Afghanistan, modern conventions of war practically stopped any hope for a complete victory. Has any war since WW2 ever been "won" without the ensuing "war crimes"? Capitulation just doesn't happen without complete destruction.
ISIS is even worse because it is essentially a borderless conflict. It's like playing whack-a-mole. How do you beat that? It's like the war on drugs and other borderless conflicts. It's hard to win when you have nothing to take away from them. If you let them establish a state, then they would have something to lose, but no one is their right mind would ever want to do that.