http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/12/08/...tters.html

Quote:Hundreds of ISIS fighters had just been chased out of a northern Syrian city and were fleeing through the desert in long convoys, presenting an easy target to U.S. A-10 "warthogs."

But the orders to bomb the black-clad jihadists never came, and the terrorists melted into their caliphate -- living to fight another day. The events came in August 2016, even as then-Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump was vowing on the campaign trail to let generals in his administration crush the organization that, under President Obama, had grown from the “jayvee team” to the world’s most feared terrorist organization.

“I will…quickly and decisively bomb the hell out of ISIS,” Trump, who would name legendary Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis as secretary of defense, promised. “We will not have to listen to the politicians who are losing the war on terrorism."

Just over a year later, ISIS has been routed from Iraq and Syria with an ease and speed that's surprised even the men and women who carried out the mission. Experts say it's a prime example of a campaign promise kept. President Trump scrapped his predecessor’s rules of engagement, which critics say hamstrung the military, and let battlefield decisions be made by the generals in the theater, and not bureaucrats in Washington.

Quote:SIS remains a danger, as members who once ruled cities and villages like a quasi-government now live secretly among civilian populations in the region, in Europe and possibly in the U.S. These cells will likely present a terrorist threat for years. In addition, the terrorist organization is attempting to regroup in places such as the Philippines, Libya and the Sinai Peninsula.

But the military’s job -- to take back the land ISIS claimed as its caliphate and liberate cities like Mosul, in Iraq, and Raqqa, in Syria, as well as countless smaller cities and villages, is largely done. And it has taken less than a year.

“The leadership team that is in place right now has certainly enabled us to succeed,” Brig. Gen. Andrew Croft, the ranking U.S. Air Force officer in Iraq, told Fox News. “I couldn’t ask for a better leadership team to work for, to enable the military to do what it does best.”

President Trump gave a free hand to Mattis, who in May stressed military commanders were no longer being slowed by Washington “decision cycles,” or by the White House micromanaging that existed President Obama. As a result of the new approach, the fall of ISIS in Iraq came even more swiftly than hardened U.S. military leaders expected.

“It moved more quickly than at least I had anticipated,” Croft said. “We and the Iraqi Security Forces were able to hunt down and target ISIS leadership, target their command and control.”

Quote:Marine Col. Seth Folsom, who oversaw fighting in Al Qaim near the Syrian border, agreed. He wasn’t expecting his part of the campaign against ISIS to get going until next spring and figured even then, it would then "take six months or more."

Instead, ISIS was routed in Al Qaim in just a few days.

“We really had one mandate and that was enable the Iraqi Security Forces to defeat ISIS militarily here in Anbar. I feel that we have achieved that mission,” Folsom said. “I never felt constrained. In a lot of ways, I felt quite liberated because we had a clear mandate and there was no questioning that.”

Brig. Gen. Robert “G-Man” Sofge, the top U.S. Marine in Iraq, told Fox News his commanders have “enjoyed not having to deal with too many distractions and there was no question about what the mission here in Iraq was.”

Quote:Sofge said criticism that loosening rules of engagement put civilians at risk is “absolutely not true.”

“We used precision strikes, and completely in accordance with international standards,” he said. “We didn’t lower that standard, not one little bit. But we were able to exercise that precision capability without distraction and I think the results speak for themselves.”

The U.S.-led coalition said this week the Coalition Civilian Casualty Assessment Team has added 30 new staffers to travel throughout the region. It said military leaders continue to “hold themselves accountable for actions that may have caused unintentional injury or death to civilians.”

The coalition also said dozens of reports of civilian casualties have been determined to be “non-credible,” and just .35 percent of the almost 57,000 separate engagement carried out between August 2014 and October 2017 resulted in a credible report of a civilian casualty.

Quote:While the Trump administration’s success is often underplayed in the U.S. media, it is obvious on the ground in Iraq, according to a spokesman for Iraq’s Ministry of Defense, Yahya Rasool.

“I was not optimistic when Trump first came to the office,” Rasool said. “But after a while I started to see a new approach, the way the U.S. was dealing with arming and training. I saw how the coalition forces were all moving faster to help the Iraq side more than before. There seemed to be a lot of support, under Obama we did not get this.”

Quote:“ISIS is very adaptive,” noted Col. Ryan Dillon, the U.S.-led coalition spokesman. “We are already seeing smaller cells and pockets that take more of an insurgent guerrilla type approach as opposed to an Islamic army or conventional type force. So we have got to be prepared for that.”

He said as a result the coalition is “adjusting some training efforts” so the Iraqi forces -- upwards of 150,000 have already undergone training -- are equipped to address such threats and ensure long-term stability.

Folsom said “the worst thing we could do” is not finish the job.

“If a country becomes a failed state, if it becomes a lawless region, you begin to set the conditions for what happened in the years before 9/11,” he said. “In those ungoverned spaces where we don’t know what is going on, that is where those seeds of extremism begin to blossom.”

The community organizer was in over his head the entire 8 years. Amazing what someone that knows leadership can do, which is often times to state a general objective - then get the hell out of the way.......

Welp, there goes Obama's Caliphate. I wonder if Obama is sad.




Yep. He sad.

Hundreds of ISIS fighters? That's it?

I guess they really were JV.

(12-08-2017 02:15 PM)Fitbud Wrote:  Hundreds of ISIS fighters? That's it?

I guess they really were JV.

this is why you garner ZERO respect.....and dippos simply don't have a clue how sense of humor works.....

you asked for the hell hound......you got him today sunshine.....

I know how to play this game.....you won't like the outcome....

Kap's post defines how you are a mere troll with that response.....

#pitbulltime

So at most, 999 ISIS fighters were defeated and we are supposed to act like this was the biggest military victory since WWII.

Give me a freaking break.

(12-08-2017 02:08 PM)UofMstateU Wrote:  Welp, there goes Obama's Caliphate. I wonder if Obama is sad.




Yep. He sad.

Yep, you're absolutely right. He is sad. Sad because whether the stupid people that voted for him would NEVER ADMIT that he was/is a closet Muslim. Only those that close their eyes about this won't admit it. EVERYTHING he did was to give a hand to Isis and terrorists without seeming to pro-terrorists. Even Iran benefitted from this, aka, 50 millions dollars worth.

When I saw the trains of Isis fighters leaving like ducks in a row and the US not bombing the Shite out of them that told me enough about Oblunder to realize where his allegiances laid. News outlets were reporting on this train of fighters and Isis was thumbing their noses all the while.

Good riddance you POS. You can now join your Muslim brothers on the battlefield, but I doubt that you have the cajones, you grandma pants wearing blankety blank.

Merry Christmas MF'ers.

Funny, the news hasn't covered much of this success against our enemy. I wonder why?

(12-08-2017 02:21 PM)Fitbud Wrote:  So at most, 999 ISIS fighters were defeated and we are supposed to act like this was the biggest military victory since WWII.

Give me a freaking break.

here's DJT in your arena of bs....

(12-08-2017 02:37 PM)GrayBeard Wrote:  Funny, the news hasn't covered much of this success against our enemy. I wonder why?

MSM is awful.

(12-08-2017 02:21 PM)Fitbud Wrote:  So at most, 999 ISIS fighters were defeated and we are supposed to act like this was the biggest military victory since WWII.

Give me a freaking break.

You might want to read the article again