ISIS has already killed two Americans, and if their reign of terror and violence is allowed to continue, ISIS could eventually kill as many innocent unarmed Americans as, say, General Motors or New York police.
Image source: telegraph.co.uk
The ISIS insurgency continues in Iraq, and, as it always happens, every American politician seems to automatically assume that whenever there is a war anywhere in the world, the United States must immediately get involved. For the last few weeks, the United States has been supporting the Iraqi army by launching airstrikes against ISIS, but when Barack Obama recently said that the United States has no defined strategy on ISIS, he was criticized for it, because, as we all remember, having a strategy worked out so well the last time the US invaded Iraq. Since it appears that staying out of yet another Middle Eastern war is not an option, here are 10 strategies for defeating ISIS.
1) Persist in having no defined strategy. Choosing a military strategy allows the opponent to guess what it is and prepare for our next move, but if we continue arbitrary and chaotic airstrikes against ISIS, they can’t possibly predict when and where our next attack is coming.
2) Since officially recognizing ISIS as a credible threat to the United States only raises the profile of the terrorist organization and helps them recruit more fighters, one of the most damaging things Obama could do to ISIS would be to ignore them and go golfing.
3) Assemble an international coalition to fight ISIS, or, in other words, outsource the actual fighting to China and India.
4) Take the advice of Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty reality show, that the way to defeat ISIS is to convert them to Christianity or kill them. This recommendation must be taken seriously, since, after all, this man spent decades of his life fighting the bloody take-no-prisoners war against ducks.
5) Bomb Russia: Not only it would punish Russia for its meddling in Ukraine, but a Russian retaliation would prevent an ISIS attack since there won’t really be anything left in the US that would be worth attacking.
6) Let National Rifle Association sell firearms to every Iraqi old enough to lift a gun: if a nine-year-old girl with an Uzi can defend herself against a weapons instructor, peaceful Iraqis should have no problem beating ISIS.
7) Refer to ISIS as “ISIL” in all official documents. This will ensure that when ISIS-related classified documents eventually get leaked, ISIS will think that Pentagon is talking about someone else.
8) Elect Republican politicians into ISIS’ leadership: by filibustering every move of the organization, they will completely paralyze it and won’t let it accomplish any of its goals.
9) Insist that there would be no boots on the ground until Iraqi government gets the hint and rolls out the red carpet.
10) Train and arm moderate Syrian rebels. The first step would be finding these people who are willing to kill and die for peace, and crush their enemies in the name of diversity and tolerance.
List of X 
Great list. The U.S. should send over the NFL and arm them with switches and fists and let them beat the shit out of every member of ISIS. Of course ISIS doesn’t have a lot of women and children so this might be a problem but still, it would be a hell of a way to redeem themselves.
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That’s a good plan. Unfortunately, there is another drawback to your plan, since NFL players can only fight for 10-15 seconds at a time, and then need a 5 minute commercial break to recover.
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ISIS probably won’t go for that.
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I like #10 – training rebels. Obama could start covert CIA flights into Syria carrying weapons disguised as bags of rice. The whole infrastructure for such flights is already in place as the tactic has been used so effectively in the past. However, the weapons need to be constructed so they explode when aimed at Americans – as all such weapons have historically and inevitably ended up killing Americans. If this is done in conjuction with having absolutely no strategy, it is assured that the results will be in line with all other modern US military interventions such as Vietman, Korea, Iraq, etc. Which is to say, no noticeable increase in the peacefulness of the situation or the safety of the residents. Introducing bombers into a war where the enemy has no fixed installations and looks and acts exactly like the local non- combatants is bound to result in far more “collateral damage” (code for killing peaceful citizens) than actual enemy reduction. This in turn, is bound to increase the number of ISIS adherrents as innocents are killed and their relatives join the opposition for revenge against the US. Given the tribal structure, it is possible to increase the number of ISIS recruits by a factor of 5 for every innocent killed. Quite an amazing achievement for a strategy-less war. And, of course, like setting out on a car trip with no destination in mind, a war lacking strategy will never end as the battle wanders amimlessly over the landscape. Given the strong ties between the American political structure and the military industrial complex, there would be no end to the amount of munitions and planes available to feed such a war. In fact it will stimulate the American economy with new high paying, benefit producing jobs – decreasing the unemployment rate, increasing the standard of living and ensuring Democrat votes for the upcoming election in 2016. And, as long as no military personnel were employed on the ground, it would satisfy the public’s major demand of having a war without American casualties.
And so, it appears as if Obama has hit on a soution for the perfect war – economic strengthening, voter approval, satisfying the military industrial complex (ensuring future political funding), no casualties, blow the heck out of every Muslim, good or bad, on the ground on the other side of the world. Such an awesome outcome for a strategy-less undertaking. He may just be smarter than we think – and the purpose may not be to end conflict but rather to sustain it.
Great Post X. Thank You.
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Great post, Paul! You should consider posting this as a guest post somewhere.
And providing weapons to future enemies is a time-honored tradition – why, even ISIS is fighting with the American-made weapons that the US provided to the Iraqi army just a few years ago.
So yes, Obama may have stumbled on a political gold mine (or oil well), but the Pentagon generals are eager to spoil everything by trying to get the US ground forces involved – which means bodies in flag-covered caskets, sharp drop in approval ratings for Obama, which will lead to Republican administration in 2016, which will, as they’ve always done, give those same generals more money than they know what to do with.
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If Obama can just stop those pesky Generals from involving troops, he will have this whole war thing down pat. I would propose that Obama create a diversion. He should send some CIA agents to Grenada to forment rebellion. Then he should tell the Generals that they must commit at least a million ground troops to crush that rebellion. We all know how that worked out last time – the citizens welcomed the troops by inviting them into their homes for tea. No shots were fired. Imagine how much that would stimulate the Grenada economy – and with no casualties. That war went so well, that it is my opinion that it should be repeated -Grenada II , coming to a war theater near you! And it will keep everyone safe while the ISIS bomber mission moves ahead without opposition.
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Clever lad.
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Thanks.
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Yesterday, in a real-world fit of life imitating art (albeit, low art), the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly for #10. It’s scary how similar the wording and spirit of their resolution is to your proposition here.
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What I find the most shocking in your comment is that the House actually voted for something. Or maybe it’s not life imitating art, but Congress imitating work.
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Apparently, nobody in the House owns a history book or has ever watched the news.
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They are watching the news, just the Fox version of them.
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That’s not news. That’s entertainment masquerading as news.
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Well, they have a word “news” in the title, so I could see how this could get confusing.
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Outsourcing. Now there’s an idea!
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I really think this is a way to go. Every other job seems to be a target for outsourcing, so why not military?
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#8 is a pearler!
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That’s the way I want to go. All this filibustering could finally do some good.
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I guess someone has to find the positive in it 🙂
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I’m adept at finding positives in negatives and vice versa. 🙂
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Atta’ boy!
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I cried down my legs reading this, you are so good. I can’t even pick a favorite, they are all so good.
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Thank you, Val. And I apologize for causing this… umm… accident… 🙂
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A great list right from the git-go … and to come up with it, all you did was work with the material the politicians gave. After all, they are quite the resource!
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They are great at providing the material for the jokes – not for much else, unfortunately.
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Well said.
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If this were your Resume (and maybe it is) for the position of Security Advisor to Obama, you’d get hired immediately. On a serious note, it is now coming to a point where this whole jihad narrative is becoming repetitive and boring (for people not in the line of fire I must clarify). One has to wonder if there really is a solution.
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Well, this jihad business was starting to get boring and repetitive, but then ISIS stumbled on a new terror weapon, namely Youtube. This must be why they are so dangerous.
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So could this be the WMD that Bush went looking for to Iraq?
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If “D” stands for “distraction”, definitely.
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X, I just loved this one: Elect Republican politicians into ISIS’ leadership: by filibustering every move of the organization, they will completely paralyze it and won’t let it accomplish any of its goals. And I want to run with it. Because the life-span of the heads of Al-Qaeda has been quite short, ISIS or ISIL will be done by the time Obama is impeached. I mean, leaves office.
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If I remember correctly, it was mostly #2 persons of al Qaeda or Taliban who kept getting whacked. Which, I guess, would roughly translate to Sarah Palin or Paul Ryan here.
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I could live with that.
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I like number 2. The Republicans are going to criticize the President no matter what he does and his poll numbers are so low he might as well go golfing.
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If they haven’t criticized him for dragging the US into another Iraq war, they will soon.
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It can help to remember that Isis is only and Egyptian mythology character who has a sister Osiris. 😛
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Isis is also a cell phone payment system. Before I knew that, I was a little unsettled to see AT&T advertising their phones as “ISIS ready”.
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Outsourcing is the answer…lol
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I guess that means that I now owe you a question. 🙂
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I like the way you think! lol
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I say we send a bunch of Congressmen over there to conduct meetings. Make sure they are Republican Congressmen, cause those Democrat wimps aren’t armed to the teeth. Also, make sure they are old and more expendable. If the ones making the decisions got to also do the dangerous fighting, somehow I think we’d have less war and people would just sit back as the Middle East imploded upon itself.
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Even if we can just send a bunch of Republican politicians to Iraq without them having the meetings and filibustering, I would still count it a win.
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So would I, but then they might get together with Korea and bomb us in retaliation. Especially if we sent Limbaugh.
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There are so many countries they want to bomb, that they’ll probably run out of bombs before they get to us.
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Maybe we should just refer to them as: Isit? I think the confusion would devastate their ability to be taken seriously… seriously…
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Or maybe refer to them as “what IS thIS ISIS”?
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love it
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Also, you cat is now famous, and might become more so if the Guinness Records people take us seriously… seriously…
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I will let my cat know. Maybe she’ll want to celebrate and type another comment.
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do it
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I like #8 the best. To date, this strategy has insured the US govt is completely paralyzed for many years now. I think it’s time we export this invention. Though filibustering isn’t new, we haven’t been sharing this technology enough. It’s probably our best chance to defeat ISIS.
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Maybe we even charge ISIS for this cutting edge technology. 🙂
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They’re not called ISIS anymore. Now they’re ISAYE: Islamic State of All Y’alls Everywhere.
#5 seems to be the solution to all our problems.
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#5, if done right, could solve all of humankind problems once and for all.
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Asinine.
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Thank you for your valuable opinion.
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I think number 7 is because Obama is an “Archer” fan, and doesn’t want to confuse Archer’s ISIS with this one.
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There is another ISIS? Other commenter already established that Isis is a Egyptian goddess and a cell phone payment system.
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