November 24, 2020 / By mobanmarket
The 2016 presidential contest has been hard on the U.S. military.
Consider what happened in the third presidential debate: Republican nominee Donald TrumpDonald John TrumpSenate advances public lands bill in late-night vote Warren, Democrats urge Trump to back down from veto threat over changing Confederate-named bases Esper orders ‘After Action Review’ of National Guard’s role in protests MORE contended that the legendary Gens. George Patton and Douglas MacArthur are “spinning in their graves” over what Trump alleged was the loss of surprise in the U.S.-backed assault on the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) stronghold of Mosul, Iraq.
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Democratic nominee Hillary ClintonHillary Diane Rodham ClintonWhite House accuses Biden of pushing ‘conspiracy theories’ with Trump election claim Biden courts younger voters — who have been a weakness Trayvon Martin’s mother Sybrina Fulton qualifies to run for county commissioner in Florida MORE didn’t defend the military’s competence against Trump’s accusation, though. Instead, she perfunctorily mentioned the “hard work” of the U.S. military in the fight against ISIS and then moved on to other topics, evidently to avoid giving Trump another excuse to blame her for the rise of ISIS.
You certainly wouldn’t know it from the debate, but American forces have taken the initiative in the fight against ISIS and — dare I say it? — are winning the war against a brutal, tenacious and resourceful foe. They’ve done it by training and assembling a coalition of religiously and ethnically diverse forces who, to put it mildly, don’t like to work with each other.
While American soldiers are on the ground and suffering casualties (one killed so far in the offensive), progress against ISIS had been achieved without committing major American ground forces. That deserves a round of bipartisan applause.
Sure, it’s not over; the fight for Mosul is likely to be long and bloody with a messy post-battle stew of booby traps and ethnic conflict, and victory could lead to a step-up in ISIS terror attacks in Europe and elsewhere. But consider what the U.S. military has achieved to date in the fight against ISIS:
The number of fighters ISIS can field has dropped from a peak of 30,000-plus to as low as 15,000.A year ago, ISIS was recruiting an average of roughly 2,000 new foreign fighters a month; that number has dropped to 200. ISIS has lost nearly 45 percent of its territory in Iraq and 20 percent in Syria, including its last strip of territory along the Syrian-Turkish border, the loss of which cut it off from the outside world. The U.S.-led coalition bombing of ISIS-controlled oil fields has so reduced its revenue that ISIS is randomly fining drivers for driving on the wrong side of the road.ISIS’s propaganda output has dropped dramatically, from 700 media products in August 2015 to 200 per month a year later.
As to the “surprise” issue, signaling the attack in advance, experts point out, allows civilians to prepare shelters, may weaken the morale of the ISIS fighters and could instigate an uprising within the city just as the coalition offensive batters ISIS.
Trump’s notion that we allowed the ISIS leaders to slip away — as though Seal Team Six could have helicoptered into a city the size of Philadelphia and captured them — reflects only his ignorance of war. Some strategists have argued for leaving an escape route for the ISIS leaders, and then killing them in the desert with drone strikes.
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In short, this isn’t the Battle of Inchon, where U.N. forces under MacArthur mounted a surprise amphibious invasion behind enemy lines that changed the course of the Korean War. Here, there are no lines to flank with a surprise maneuver. As the last major city in Iraq controlled by ISIS, Mosul has to be taken, which even the dumbest ISIS recruit knew.
The element of surprise was never there to lose.
We should be impressed by the intelligent and professional way the U.S. military has planned and led the fight against ISIS — and saddened over the manner in which it has been treated in this election.
Once, there was a time when no politician would dare denigrate the competence of American commanders, especially in the middle of a war that it was winning. Elected officials, editorial writers, veterans groups and ordinary Americans would have hounded such a politician from public life.
This year is different. The Republican candidate for president has essentially called the U.S. military leadership stupid. The Democratic candidate declined to mount a serious defense of the military’s professionalism and competence.
Let’s hope nothing like this ever happens again in the United States of America.
Wallance is a writer and lawyer, and the author most recently of “America’s Soul in the Balance: The Holocaust, FDR’s State Department, and the Moral Disgrace of an American Aristocracy.” Follow him on Twitter @gregorywallance.
The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.
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