Republicans All Seem to Like Obama’s Strategy to Defeat ISIS

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Do any of the Republican candidates have a plan for defeating ISIS?  As near as I can tell, most of them have offered up variations on this:

  • Bomb ISIS, just like Obama, but better.
  • Use Iraqi ground troops, just like Obama, but better.
  • Put together a coalition of local allies, just like Obama, but better.

Am I missing anything? Aside from being more bellicose (the sand will glow, we’ll bomb the shit out of them, etc.), all of the candidates are saying that Obama’s strategy is basically sound, but they’d tweak it a bit here and there. They’d stop worrying about civilian deaths so they could drop more bombs. They’d somehow train Iraqi forces better than the Army is doing right now. And they’d put together a real coalition, though it’s never really clear what they mean by that or how they’d accomplish it.

Anything else?

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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