![\"mout2\"](\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/mout2-300x189.jpg\")
<\/a><\/center><\/p>\nChief Tango sends us a link to the Washington Post<\/a> opinion piece written by retired Marine Corps colonel Gary Anderson who presents the case for returning US troops to Iraq. He discusses the battle in Tikrit and how the Iraqis are having real trouble prying the ISIS troops from their defenses, and he talks about how the US military trained hard and long to become experts at Military Operations in Urban Terrain (that’s what they called it in my days) and he arrives at this conclusion;<\/p>\n Anyone who has seen both real and simulated urban combat knows that only experienced, well-trained troops will be able to oust the Islamic State from the Iraqi and Syrian cities it has infested. This is the hard truth: U.S.-trained Iraqi troops and Syrian rebels may be able to hold those cities once they are cleared, but only Americans are capable of defeating the Islamic State in close urban combat.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I’ll agree with Mr. Anderson that US troops are the best trained, most experienced troops in the world at this type of combat, that ISIS troops have little hope of defeating determined US soldiers and Marines, but I disagree that US troops should be on the front lines of the war against ISIS. It’s not the troops, it’s the politicians- the politicians inside and outside of the halls of government.<\/p>\n ISIS is a brutal enemy that needs to be dealt with in a brutal, take-no-prisoners manner. The soldiers opposing ISIS troops need to kill them all without respect to the laws of land warfare, because that’s the only way that ISIS will ever be defeated. The lawyers and hand-wringers at the Pentagon would never allow US troops to engage in the type of warfare that needs to be inflicted on daesh forces. Those Rules of Engagement (ROE) will never be written. <\/p>\n As it is, we fret some Marines who urinated on dead enemy or pose with the body parts of suicide bombers. We pull Silver Star medals from officers<\/a> who kill the enemies that bomb and maim our own troops.<\/p>\n The Iranians, the Iraqis, the Jordanians, the Egyptians aren’t hamstrung by public opinion and hand-wringing non-combatants who don’t mind killing our own troops with an overly-restrictive and confusing ROE. The pointy-headed class will never allow US troops fight the war that needs to be fought to defeat ISIS, so keep our troops in a support role, and let our allies deal directly with the enemy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"