Gromit - "... Airstrikes on their own, are a useless, pointless, empty gesture with no military advantage at all. The RAF Tornadoes have flown more than 1,600 missions over Iraq and carried out over 360 air strikes. And the result is that IS has grown in numbers, expanded into neighbouring countries, and has not been contained - in fact the opposite is the result. Further bombing of IS in Syria indeed a futile gesture..."
How much, I wonder, would ISIS have grown if it were not for air strikes?
I agree that without ground troops, ISIS will never be defeated. Air strikes alone will not defeat ISIS and I don't think anyone in our government or any other government thinks they will. Defeating ISIS is not what the air strikes are about.
What the air strikes are about is containment. Or, at best, the deceleration of expansion. Without air strikes ISIS would have taken a great deal more territory and as a result would have established new supply routes and through their success, recruited many more jihadis to their insane cause. Interdiction is the goal.
There is nothing more important than preventing these Islamic fanatics from spreading. Air strikes are the start. More action is needed.
I cannot for the life of me understand why anyone who values western freedoms would oppose air strikes on the murderous, bloodthirsty, inhumane vermin that are ISIS. These are people that have reintroduced slavery into their everyday lives. They hack the heads off innocent people simple because those people don't share their views. They throw alleged homosexuals off tall buildings to the delight of baying crowds of like-minded bigots.
The civilised mind boggles at the outrages these barbarians perpetrate. Air strikes are needed to begin the process of eradication.