Sunday, December 06, 2015

From the Are You Effing Kidding Me? Files

Most of the news about our war effort against ISIL in Syria and Iraq centers on the failure of our air campaign to really defeat ISIL on the ground. Apparently the effort is more than futile--it has depleted our ammunition stockpiles.

Seriously? It's come to this? (Tip to Instapundit.)

The U.S. Air Force has fired off more than 20,000 missiles and bombs since the U.S. bombing campaign against ISIS began 15 months ago, according to the Air Force, leading to depleted munitions stockpiles and calls to ramp up funding and weapons production.

As the U.S. ramps up its campaign against the Islamist terror group in Iraq and Syria, the Air Force is now "expending munitions faster than we can replenish them," Air Force chief of staff Gen. Mark Welsh said in a statement.

Mind you, I'm sure that we aren't about to go black on ammo. We probably are running our ammunition below levels we'd need if there was a major war for use until we can ramp up production.

But this does show the farcical nature of our war (a Republican president would surely have been accused of just enjoying bombing brown people if the air war effort had been so futile) that has spent months seemingly on the cusp of actual decisive warfare on the ground to defeat ISIL and drive them from their state (at least in Iraq, for now).

We need to getting on with killing these jihadi thugs to discredit their promises of victory over the helpless West and deny them the allure of the caliphate that will bring all their twisted dreams to life (or to death, in our case).

UPDATE: Strategypage has more.