Air strikes on ISIS
Discussion
I think that air strikes are the correct course of action at this point in time.
but as to the long game, remaining in Iraq and Afghanistan I just cant see it working.
pulling out causes chaos, but staying... how long will it take, decades I reckon.
is the answer another 'strongman' like Saddam ? no-one would openly support that kind of thing.
as people have said, the groupthink of these people en masse is medieval, how do you counter that ?
but as to the long game, remaining in Iraq and Afghanistan I just cant see it working.
pulling out causes chaos, but staying... how long will it take, decades I reckon.
is the answer another 'strongman' like Saddam ? no-one would openly support that kind of thing.
as people have said, the groupthink of these people en masse is medieval, how do you counter that ?
Worrying times with increasing conflict.
A few thoughts come to mind:
I can't figure out if the ISIS lot are a bunch of raving fanatics of the type we've seen before who cause a lot of mischief but by and large end up having limited impact or a proper organised 'new nation'.
These guys seem to have 'nation' status - i.e. £2bn of finds, arms, methods of revenue (oil), etc.
In the world of electronic payments, fuel purchasing, etc, I can't see how they are making this work (supposedly none of their neighbours are friendly towards them)
There is something too state-like about this group. And it appears that the surrounding nations also refer to them like a state...may be there has been proper national backing (western or eastern) which is now blowing back.
Secondly this situation reminds me of the concept of victors writing history.
Take the Israel/Gaza situation where we can clearly see there are two opposing sides to the story. Say if one side (any side) completely wipes out the other side (I hope not! sorry for bad scenario) and there was no social media, local journalism, to inform about what is happening, then the victor would have had a very clear story of 'us good, them bad'
In places like Iraq and Afghanistan, this local view is less obvious and therefore we cannot see what we are targeting....is it baddy militants, is it families, is it both, are there 'human shields/collateral stories', etc
So although the basic story in the press is we are taking out the bad guys who are horrible (as it was in Iraq initially, Afghanistan, Libya, etc), I wonder whether the local story would be different
...anyway, I am not condoning non action...the overall narrative sounds justified...its just we are constantly played by propaganda and media.
A few thoughts come to mind:
I can't figure out if the ISIS lot are a bunch of raving fanatics of the type we've seen before who cause a lot of mischief but by and large end up having limited impact or a proper organised 'new nation'.
These guys seem to have 'nation' status - i.e. £2bn of finds, arms, methods of revenue (oil), etc.
In the world of electronic payments, fuel purchasing, etc, I can't see how they are making this work (supposedly none of their neighbours are friendly towards them)
There is something too state-like about this group. And it appears that the surrounding nations also refer to them like a state...may be there has been proper national backing (western or eastern) which is now blowing back.
Secondly this situation reminds me of the concept of victors writing history.
Take the Israel/Gaza situation where we can clearly see there are two opposing sides to the story. Say if one side (any side) completely wipes out the other side (I hope not! sorry for bad scenario) and there was no social media, local journalism, to inform about what is happening, then the victor would have had a very clear story of 'us good, them bad'
In places like Iraq and Afghanistan, this local view is less obvious and therefore we cannot see what we are targeting....is it baddy militants, is it families, is it both, are there 'human shields/collateral stories', etc
So although the basic story in the press is we are taking out the bad guys who are horrible (as it was in Iraq initially, Afghanistan, Libya, etc), I wonder whether the local story would be different
...anyway, I am not condoning non action...the overall narrative sounds justified...its just we are constantly played by propaganda and media.
Team 17 said:
I'm struggling to believe a word of that!s1962a said:
Puggit said:
s1962a said:
As for air strikes.. it's a tough one - I think the better approach would be to go for the countries that fund these guys - Saudi's etc. Likely to happen?
Unfortunately ISIS is almost self-funding at the moment due to the rather slack security Iraq put on its arms and banks. I appreciate your point though that Saudi Arabia certainly plays a part in this. Is it also true that ISIS are comprised of the same rebels we were supporting and arming in Syria?
They may be partly funded by Saudi, but rather individual funders and not the state.
It's the same in Kuwait, their are supporters of these crazies in that country but I doubt anyone in Al-Sabar's direct family funds IS so I'd suggest research and come up with the evidence if you wish to blame it on a nation.
I think you're correct re the self-funding, they are purportedly the richest of all the terrorist groups currently out there.
Sweeping statement again re IS made up of the same Syriam rebels we're supporting. Syria probably has more groups fighting one another than any other conflict in the world, some pro-assad some against.
One of the problems the west has had, and certainly now is sorting out who's bad and who's really bad.
At the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011 the opposition was made up of only Syrians, predominanly in Daraa followed shortly after by that hot bed of opposition to assdolf in Homs but of course now we have everyone and their mother in their not forgetting Hezbollah from Lebanon who I always thought tookup arms to protect Lebanon from the Israeli's
Did anyone see Panorama a few weeks back where they covered ISIS?
They're more bats
t crazy than some of the women stumbled across in the Match.com thread.
ISIS overran a town in Iraq and then went about beheading anyone they didn't like the look of, infidel or not. They beheaded one muslim man because they caught him smoking. Admittedly he's quit now...
Bomb the lot of them and send them to hell.
They're more bats
t crazy than some of the women stumbled across in the Match.com thread.ISIS overran a town in Iraq and then went about beheading anyone they didn't like the look of, infidel or not. They beheaded one muslim man because they caught him smoking. Admittedly he's quit now...
Bomb the lot of them and send them to hell.
After all the disastrous military interventions in the recent past which have done so much to make things worse, not better, in the middle-east, I really hope the USA gets it right this time.
ISIS are extremist fanatics who cannot be reasoned with, so they have to somehow be stopped. Are air-strikes the best way to do this? I don’t claim to know the answer to that, but I hope people who are better informed than me have thought through the consequences properly this time.
I’m glad it’s President Obama, and not me who has to make these horrendous decisions.
ISIS are extremist fanatics who cannot be reasoned with, so they have to somehow be stopped. Are air-strikes the best way to do this? I don’t claim to know the answer to that, but I hope people who are better informed than me have thought through the consequences properly this time.
I’m glad it’s President Obama, and not me who has to make these horrendous decisions.
TheJimi said:
For once, and without irony, I can happily say -
'merica, f*ck yeah!
Hope they blow those f*ckers to kingdom come.
+1'merica, f*ck yeah!
Hope they blow those f*ckers to kingdom come.
Why is it the Western world was straining at the leash to get involved in Syria; now on the brink of what could be a humanitarian disaster and slaughter at the hands of savages, Dave et al are turning a blind eye.... after all i thought our involvement in the region was to 'protect the UK's streets from terror' - surely this represents the most real threat to importing terror we have seen since our middle eastern adventure....?
s1962a said:
One thing that will change things this time around, is the recognition these nutters represent a very tiny minority of muslims. If that happens and you get all the rest of the muslims on board then it should make it easier to wipe out ISIS.
how is very tiny minority of muslims able to conquer roughly one quarter of middle east? Something doesn't add up.The thing is that poor people become radical, the thing is that there are very many poor people and many of them become radical, I don't blame Islam itself as they would find another ideology to become radical but the truth is they aren't challenged enough from normal muslim world.
JezzaV8 said:
TheJimi said:
For once, and without irony, I can happily say -
'merica, f*ck yeah!
Hope they blow those f*ckers to kingdom come.
+1'merica, f*ck yeah!
Hope they blow those f*ckers to kingdom come.
Why is it the Western world was straining at the leash to get involved in Syria; now on the brink of what could be a humanitarian disaster and slaughter at the hands of savages, Dave et al are turning a blind eye.... after all i thought our involvement in the region was to 'protect the UK's streets from terror' - surely this represents the most real threat to importing terror we have seen since our middle eastern adventure....?
In real terms, ISIS is a bigger threat than Saddam ever was.
Team 17 said:
Please don't bring that BS over here.Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff