This is
the horror:
Iraqi security forces attempting to retake control of the western city of Ramadi were routed in heavy fighting Sunday, the worst defeat for Iraq’s central government since Islamic State militants stormed across the country last June.
And this is the stupidity:
In a replay of last year’s military debacle, elite units abandoned their U.S.-provided equipment to Islamic State fighters and fled the area, leaving several hundred soldiers surrounded in the last government-held enclave in the city.
The elite units are not stupid, they're running for their lives. What's stupid is that the United States continues to send arms to fight the bad guys despite the continuing pattern of the arms ending up in the hands of the bad guys. For these particular bad guys, it's been essential to their success. As McClatchy's
Roy Gutman and Mousab Alhamadee so accurately described it:
an Islamic caliphate armed with US weapons
That description came in August. It has only gotten worse, since. The United States sends arms to fight the bad guys, and the arms
end up in the hands of the bad guys. And despite all the many lost years of training Iraqi government troops, military experts say the bad guys are
better trained. Of course, the continuing success of the bad guys while using American-made arms will only renew and increase calls for
more American-made arms to be sent. And maybe some American troops, too. The thing about
endless war is that
it never ends.