{"id":50858,"date":"2016-06-18T20:26:51","date_gmt":"2016-06-18T20:26:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=50858"},"modified":"2016-06-18T20:26:51","modified_gmt":"2016-06-18T20:26:51","slug":"guest-post-why-the-united-states-cannot-put-boots-on-the-ground-to-fight-isis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=50858","title":{"rendered":"Guest Post: Why the United States cannot put Boots on the Ground to Fight ISIS"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Mark Safranski<\/strong> \/ “zen<\/strong>“]<\/p>\n

Today, I’m pleased to offer a guest post by LtCol. Bob Weimann, USMC (ret.) <\/strong>.\u00a0 Weimann<\/em> is the former Commanding Officer, Kilo Co., 3\/1 and<\/em> Weapons Company 3\/1. He also served as a\u00a0Marine Security Force Company commanding officer, an infantry battalion Operations Officer and\u00a0the Executive Officer of 1\/6 during Desert Storm. A frequent presenter <\/a>at the Boyd & Beyond Conferences, <\/em>Bob is on the Board of Directors of UAP<\/strong> (United American Patriots) and a contributing editor to <\/em>www.defendourmarines.com<\/em><\/a><\/strong> . UAP is a non-profit charity that aids military service members to help defray expenses for an adequate and fair legal defense. See What UAP Believes here: <\/em>http:\/\/www.unitedpatriots.org\/<\/em><\/a> <\/strong>.<\/u><\/em><\/p>\n

Why the United States Cannot Put Boots on the Ground to Fight ISIS<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Bob Weimann<\/strong><\/p>\n

The expression “boots on the ground” has an extended military-jargon history\u2026The term is used to convey the belief that military success can only be achieved through the direct physical presence of troops in a conflict area \u2026 The term is particularly applied currently (2010) to counter-insurgency operations.[1]<\/strong><\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n

The expression \u201cboots on the ground\u201d basically means we need to send in ground troops, grunts, warriors, dog-faces, jarheads, combatants\u2026those shifty eyed fowl mouth two fisted go for broke Soldiers and Marines that close with and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver in order to kill the enemy. These are the folks that must place the front site of their rifle on an enemy and pull the trigger. These are warriors brave enough to step through the doorway of an enemy occupied house, detect and disarmed an IED, engage a treacherous enemy that does not take prisoners and an enemy that does not hesitate to torturer and murder innocents. Our warriors are the sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, fathers, mothers, neighbors, and acquaintances from every community, town, city and state across this country and one of the greatest representative cross sections of patriotic American citizens in existence.<\/p>\n

Our warriors are a different generation but they possess the same spirt America\u2019s warriors have establish and exhibited since the Revolutionary War. For over 240 years these folks have never let us down and have volunteer for the nasty, dirty, immoral, brutalizing effects of combat. You can say we lost in Viet Nam, Somali, Iraq and Afghanistan but the scary truth is we lost those wars strategically after we won them tactically. The unfortunate reality is that the strategic always trumps the tactical. Tactical is all about the troops; strategy is all about the generals.<\/p>\n

The other scary fact is that since 2003, we have seen an unprecedented number of courts martial that the media labels \u201cwar crimes\u201d \u2026 more \u201cwar crime\u201d legal cases since 2003 than in all the battle history of all the United States war\u2019s combined. How can this be possible when we have fielded to today\u2019s battles the best trained, best equipped, smartest warriors in this country\u2019s history?<\/p>\n

The issue is not the troops, the issue here is the senior military leadership, the general officers that have forgotten they are warriors and exhibit the traits and leadership characteristics of politicians. Today\u2019s general officers understand careerism but do not understand the Laws of War that should be their stock and trade. \u00a0They hid behind lawyers and Rule of Law equivocations that cannot co-exist on a battlefield.<\/p>\n

For this reason, we cannot put combat boots on the ground because the troops are being used as political cannon fodder. Over and over again we see American combatants thrown under the bus for the sake of justifying a policy objective of executing a bad military strategy.\u00a0 Names like Lt Ilario Pantano, Sgt Larry Hutchins, SSgt Frank Wuterich, Sgt Michael Williams, Sgt Jose Nazario, 1Sgt John Hatley, Sgt Derrick Miller, Capt Roger Hill, Lt Michael Behenna, Major Fred Galvin, Major Matt Goldsteyn, PFC Corey Clayett, GySgt Timothy Hogan, SPC Franklin Dunn, SSgt Osee Fagan, SPC Michael Wagnon, and Lt Clint Lorance are the more notable cases. You can be certain that the list will continue to grow not only with the recent Afghanistan Kunduz Hospital Airstrike[2]<\/a> but also any combat actions against the terrorist in Iraq and Syria.<\/p>\n

Military campaigns are always based on a \u201ckill or capture\u201d strategy, however, our leadership does not believe in a kill strategy nor do they believe in a capture strategy. Our military leadership believes that our Soldiers and Marines are in combat to die for the \u201cgreater good\u201d<\/a>.[3]<\/a> Instead of capture, we have a \u201ccatch and release\u201d program that continually frees known enemy combatants and terrorist to again kill, not only our service members, but also civilians. \u201cCatch and release\u201d is nothing more than a treachery award program for the enemy. Our generals believe that our combatants have no right to self-defense on the battlefield<\/a>.[4]<\/a> The idea that our warriors are there to make the enemy die for their cause is a lost priority in our general officer\u2019s politically correct minds.<\/p>\n

We cannot put boots on the ground because our generals do not trust our Soldiers and Marines to show the initiative necessary for successful combat operations. The generals have forgotten how to fight and win. They have forgotten how to support our warriors by setting the correct strategic policies to allow them to fight. We no longer have combat commanders. The Washington DC political cronies continue to dedicate failed policies that undermine and kill our warriors in order to acquire political curry and favoritism.<\/p>\n

War is not a moral exercise. There is no morality that can justify the slaughter of war. War is the ultimate competition that is won by killing the bad guys and bringing our warriors home alive. Collateral damage is an unescapable reality. Yes, collateral damage considerations are important but collateral damage must be weighed against military necessity. The Laws of War principle of military necessity allows for a rigorous war; a rigorous war is a short war; and a short war minimizes civilian casualties. Mixed into military necessity is the idea that field commanders have a responsibility to bring home alive as many of our warriors as possible. Sending them to Leavenworth is not part of the \u201cbringing them home\u201d equation.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/u><\/em><\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Boots_on_the_Ground<\/a><\/p>\n

[2]<\/a>https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Kunduz_hospital_airstrike<\/a><\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> http:\/\/www.wnd.com\/2012\/03\/sacrifice-marines-for-the-greater-good\/<\/a><\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> http:\/\/newsok.com\/article\/3690397<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Mark Safranski \/ “zen“] Today, I’m pleased to offer a guest post by LtCol. Bob Weimann, USMC (ret.) .\u00a0 Weimann is the former Commanding Officer, Kilo Co., 3\/1 and Weapons Company 3\/1. He also served as a\u00a0Marine Security Force Company commanding officer, an infantry battalion Operations Officer and\u00a0the Executive Officer of 1\/6 during Desert Storm. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[350,126,760,132,45,1078,1047,125,499,210,667,1308,1336,492,278,418,1044,39,821,822,530,440,605,211,783,612],"tags":[1376],"class_list":["post-50858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-army","category-counterinsurgency","category-counterterrorism","category-dystopia","category-iraq","category-is","category-isis","category-islaminsurgency","category-islamic-world","category-islamist","category-justice","category-lawfare","category-lawyers","category-leadership","category-legal","category-logic","category-marines","category-military","category-military-professionalism","category-military-training-education","category-strategy-and-war","category-syria","category-tactics","category-terrorism","category-threat","category-usmc","tag-bob-weimann"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50858"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50859,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50858\/revisions\/50859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}