Candidates should leave war strategy to military

As an Army veteran of two wars and 25 years of active duty service, it's sad to read how the Republican candidate for my congressional district claims to know how to fight ISIS. The paragraph on national security in her webpage says: "We need to aggressively respond against ISIS but without significant numbers of American troops in Syria and Iraq or elsewhere."

She thinks this requires "infantry in large numbers," but Arab countries can supply those men.

Really? A person who has not spent one day in the Army has an opinion on how to defeat ISIS. Obama, who is a complete dilatant of war, thinks his aggressive response; his inept air campaign will destroy ISIS. It won't.

Air campaigns are used to soften up an opponent in preparation for the land campaign. Ground troops have to be deployed to win wars. There are no wars that have been won with air only.

The idea of using Arab troops is equally worthless. Like Egypt is going to clear Syria of ISIS. Sure, they are probably massing troops now.

Obama screwed up by pulling troops out of Iraq and caused this mess. Now he has slowly trickled 6,000 back in. The right way is to send 100,000 back and launch an offensive to annihilate ISIS in Iraq and Syria. It would take four weeks once they are in place.

Trust me I know. I was in the offensive that destroyed the Iraqi Army in Kuwait in 1991 in four days, and also in Baghdad in 2007 when the Surge wiped out the insurgency in a few months.

People seeking office who don't serve in the military should refrain from forming opinions about military campaigning by themselves. The same goes for practicing medicine.

Harold Knudsen

Arlington Heights