UAE female F-16 pilot in Syria strike
 

Fox and others reporting: UAE?s first female fighter pilot likely dropping bombs on ISIS militants in Syria - NY Daily News

This has serious implications for Islamists killed by this lady! :D

Has there ever been an example of "arming the rebels" in the middle east that hasn't come back to bite us on the bum one way or another? There's some phrase about what happens if you fail to learn the lessons of history...

Depends what you arm them with.
If it's AK47s then perhaps there's less likelihood of it all going pear shaped than if you give them Gucci gear like Stingers etc.
Don't know if I buy the whole `this is just another disaster in the making' thesis.
The US military learn with each conflict.
Am watching with interest to see the tactics used to degrade and destroy.
I wonder if weapons like the small diameter bomb are being used...
I also see it reported that they've hit oil refineries used by IS to generate income.
Will starve them of much needed cash no doubt.

Female fighter pilots rock!

It's all well asking about the fine detail of the weapons we're using. I'm far more interested in the details of the "nice rebels" we're handing weapons to. Who are they and are they our friends.?

So as we drop precision bombs on buildings and lots of dust gets thrown into the Air....anyone stopped to think how useless that really is in advancing our ambition to "destroy" ISIS?

All we have to do is look to Afghanistan.....despite all the bombing we have done there and the Russians before us....the Taliban are just as active today as ever.

How does one defeat an Ideology by bombing buildings?


What the Heck.....if we are gonna Bomb.....Let's BOMB!



https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.n...a52ba643901a4b

Great, let's bomb! I was impressed by Mr Cameron's "barbarians" speech. Clearly IS are a vile bunch. Could someone explain, though, why we are at the same time fighting a proxy war against Syria, the main force opposing them?

Unlike an AK-47, Stinger needs somebody with good training and skills to operate it. Stinger also has a shelf life, after a period of time its chances of actually working go down. Also there is the manhood and status of owning a Gucci bit of kit like a stinger compared to the underlings that all have AK's in that neck of the woods. Fire the Stinger and that man goes from a king to a man with an empty bit of pipe at the press of a trigger.

Precisely the point I was making.

I'm still skeptical.
The popular narrative (promulgated by the media, who are steeped in lay wisdom) is this:
"Big dumb United States (or substitute name of any other large Western Power of your choice) with all its 21st century weapons, can't beat small wily asymmetric opponent. Woe is us, it's Vietnam all over again - in the long run, they will win, we will lose."
To which I call - bull****.
Where's Osama?
Dead.
Where are many of the other most feared AQ figureheads?
Dead or in jail.
Has there been another 9/11 scale atrocity?
No.
Have AQ established any significant beach-heads outside the arc of instability running from North Africa through the Middle East to Pakistan?
No - and I wouldn't call Boko Haram significant.
IS themselves implored Allah to grant them the means to deal with their enemies airplanes - which they cannot cope with.
Say what you will, but personally, if I had the choice between being a martyr with a AK47 (or a Stinger for that matter) or being a few miles up moving a target designator on to said martyr, I know where I'd be.
Whenever I hear or read stories of ominous portent about how we can't fight asymmetric enemies I remind my self of two things: The first is Stormin Norman's luckiest man in Iraq video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AjCAuYkrgA
It reminds me of the utter lethality of modern weapons - because the luckiest man in Iraq may have missed the blast, but was more than likely killed by the overpressure.
The next thing I think of is the lead up to the operation to kill Bin Laden. I believe it's an example of how AQ et al fundamentally underestimate the west.
Despite the other popular narrative that we're war weary and fear death, the reality is that we're rat cunning, incredibly persistent and don't want a fair fight.
Yes, Iraq is still a mess. So is Libya and much of the middle east.
But it's a long war, and it ain't over yet.
Ideas that oppress and restrict people cannot persist in the long run - history has proven that time and time again.
Radical Islam will eat itself in the end.
Inshallah bismi-llāhi r-raḥmāni r-raḥīm.

Looks like the UK is going to use the Tornados in Cyprus for offensive operations against the Islamic State, but only in Iraq.

Bob C

Good post, tartare. It's certainly true that the West and USA in particular are massively competent, not just militarily but in most other areas too. What has ISIL/Al Qaeda ever achieved other than trash things? But against that, there's the lingering impression that all our military ever do is sweep up the collateral from previous interventions. The shadow of our Iraq invasion looms long over the rise of ISIL and here we are attacking Assad's enemies when only a few months ago we were on the point of attacking Syria.

The Free Syrian Army (FSA) are reporting that there is no coordination or communication between them and the US military concerning the US air strikes, which are sometimes bombing the folks we are supposed to be helping!

If true, this could be a disaster waiting to happen.

Bob C :(