If you were in a United States government position charged with completely wiping ISIS off the face of the earth by any means, how would you do it?
I’d start a US government funded effort to reform ISIS in order to increase its productivity and victory to loss ratio. I would call it something like: “No flaky jihadist from Western Europe left behind” or maybe a more obscure reform name “Not everything government touches immediately turns to s#%t”.Having gotten this reform rolling I’d get busy doing something else, only to check up on ISIS five or so years from now. Not expecting to find any traces of it. With some luck even the records of its previous existence will be lost somewhere. All while money spent “reforming” it will be so tangled up in some misguided ideas and attempts to improve its performance that anyone ever attempting to audit this mess would be immediately overtaken by depression caused by institutional lack of intelligent design behind all and every attempt to improve or reform Isis.In short any US government oversight reform attempt would most likely produce the very same effect we have come to expect from all government buracratic Efforts of past 20–30 years.If we could somehow sneak a word “war” into the legislation tittle or its later slogan we would likely observe a speed increase of the process by at least 24.71%.Something similar to “War on poorly motivated suicide bombers” but less specific or clear in its goal. Like “war on lack of fanatic resolve among all”Also if we could get involved With isis recruitment efforts and assist, better yet outright take over isis training and recruitment program. We than would likely see its financial structure collapse within a year, as cost of traing would go up to billions while the number of actual trainees completing training annually and joining ranks would drop to single-double digits ( as in 5–10).
Why doesn't the US go to Mexico and destroy the cartels?
Thanks for the A2A.We don't go into Mexico (I'm assuming you mean military here) for lots of reasons. Here's some:Because we have a history of invading Mexico that is unique in the world - no other country has lost half its territory to the US in the past - and this makes any military intervention today a complete taboo in Mexico and in the US as well. Any mass-scale intervention by the US into Mexico would make us into a pariah state and nullify most of our "standing for freedom" ethos and moral authority.Because we are bound by treaty with Mexico, our neighbor and second largest trading partner, to be at peace and settle our differences diplomatically.Because we try (sometimes unsuccessfully) not to militarize law enforcement operations. You know, freedom and all.Note that the Taliban, ISIS and political/ideological terrorism are more about geopolitical issues and therefore more likely to have to be resolved using all available means, including the military - so you're comparing apples and oranges there).And basically, for the same reason we can't stop those same cartels - and our own internal ones from getting those very same drugs all the way to places like Manhattan and Minnesota once they cross onto San Diego or El Paso.Or what, you think the drugs just grow legs and walk 2,700 miles by themselves to the small-time dealers? ;-)We do provide Mexico with all sorts of assistance, technical, material (money and weapons) and military intelligence-wise. Cooperation is actually about as close as it's ever been.And they happily do their part, while Mexico's population does most of the dying, seriously taking one for Team North America.So it's probably a good idea to be polite and let them do the dangerous job we have asked them to do, particularly if we're not going to slow down and stop consumption. Or better yet, ask of each other, as Americans, to either stop doing illegal drugs, seriously put the money in rehabilitation programs instead to take care of the massive, unstated American mental health epidemic that causes our population to not stop consuming illegal substances, or just downright legalize them.