Air power without boots on the ground in the battle against the Islamic State (ISIS) is a mistake, Arnaud de Borchgrave, director of Transnational Threats Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Friday on "America’s Forum" on
Newsmax TV.
"I have yet to see how air power without boots on the ground can achieve the defeat of an enemy and I don't mean Iraqi boots, I mean U.S. boots," he said.
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Saying people have the "collective institutional memory of a gnat," de Borchgrave pointed out numerous times over the course of history when air power alone could not do the job, including the United States in Vietnam and the Nazis in the 1940s.
"There is example after example, but we don't seem to remember anything these days," he said.
Americans, and the west, need to have a
better understanding of the Islamic State (ISIS), al-Qaida and al-Qaida-associated movements, which he refers to as AQAM.
"ISIS’ main objective is to carve out an extremist Muslim state out of Iraq and Syria whereas al-Qaida and its associated movements are focused on harming what they consider the founder of all evil: the United States," he explained. "That's the current U.S. air campaign against ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria."
Despite all the international hoopla about the United Arab Emirates sending its
first female fighter pilot to participate in the airstrikes, de Borchgrave doesn’t think it "will make much difference."
"It's good in western headlines, but it doesn’t' really impact what's happening on the ground or their view of what's happening," he said.
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