US journalist beheaded by ISIS...

[Digga]

KareemK said:

Joined-up-thinking surely demands that you try to stop them getting out there in the first place before dropping ordnance on their heads and indeed this what they are doing.

Bullflap.

That's equivalent to saying it is the responsibility of the state, by means of education and policing, to prevent murder. Which, after all, is all they did - went overseas to murder.

One would hope that with suitable, general education, parenting and mentoring, these sort of things would go without saying.

[toppstuff]

durbster said:

toppstuff said:

Truly, if this was Europe or US homeland IS were threatening, this whole charade would be over in one day. The US and the West has the firepower. We have helicopter gunships and stuff. Hell, send a C130 Spector down there. That would tilt the balance of conflict in a nicely overwhelming way.

Why oh why does the West and US choose to adopt such weak-willed rules of engagement?

You mean like the huge successes that an overwhelming military force had in Vietnam? Or Afghanistan? Or Iraq?

Perhaps those at the top have realised that simply having the biggest guns isn't enough in this modern era of conflict.

I'm becoming increasingly convinced that the further from the front line our modern military technology has taken us, the less effective our forces have become.

You are confusing strategy with tactics.

The outcome of the wars in Vietnam and Iraq, etc, were the result of strategy. For example, the big problem with Iraq is that the US did not consider what to replace Saddam with after removing him. The carnage that followed was because of the power vacuum the US created. This was a strategic, political problem - not a military problem.

In fact, the Iraq war largely proves my point. Tactically, the west ( US ) was spot on correct - in a short period of time US ( and British ) forces dismantled and exterminated Saddam's war machine. It was a one-sided battle and tactically an overwhelming victory. It was the strategy imposed by politicians that screwed it all up.

Now lets look at IS. Tactically, the west has the means to exterminate IS and stop them from advancing their caliphate. In many respects - IS are a gift to tacticians. They are operating in a country with large, empty desert regions with towns nestled here and there. To take these towns and advance the caliphate, IS have to move large forces out into the country side and move them from place to place. This is a tacticians dream in terms of the simple objective of killing bad guys.

The problem is the strategy. In other words, if we kill all the bad guys ( and broadly speaking, in terms of the caliphate, we can ) then we need to know what happens next.

If I was in charge, President Toppstuff would do this:

1. Figure out the least objectionable and most realistic option in terms of who gets to be in charge. Commit all parties to this decision. This means an Arab-led government with teeth and an army to impose its will.

2. Having agreed the above, exterminate IS using ALL means available. This means we take the gloves off and rub them out.

3. Increase security at home. Intern all those war-tourists who fancied fighting with IS and want to come home. Build a bloody big wall.

4. Throw a lot of resources at shutting down the IS propaganda machine on the web. This means increasing the anti-IS / pro-moderate message from within Islam itself. Support the moderates and invest in education.

[Mermaid]

Lost soul said:

Magog said:

Channel 4 News reporting that Kabir Ahmed's family are asking why the security services didn't stop him travelling to Syria and joining IS and becoming a suicide bomber, as if it's somehow their responsibility!

With that lot its always someone else's fault

Muslim rape gangs were coerced to rape under age white girls, says so in their book.

[gpo746]

The poster who mentions about joined up thinking and stopping them going there makes a brilliant point.
My campaign to get the radical Islam guys who wanted to come home but are being stopped by radically radical Islam guys who are threatening them with all manner of nasty stuff has gained a lot of momentum in recent days.
I have been assured that a crack squad of UK Asian soldiers who can pull off a passable Yorkshire or inner London accent has been assembled and is about to be deployed to seek out and get those that want to come home, home.
Options are in place to assist the returning lads. These range from being given jobs on equality panels and Labour party memberships for those who are most able to reintegrate. And Scottish National Party memberships for those that can't.

The brilliant point about it being our responsibility to stop them going is simply an extension of this.
I will be lobbying hard for a team of "don't go bro" volunteers to be implemented at airports. Their brief would be to identify those at risk of going and to persuade them to stay. This persuasion would be by winning hearts and minds and if necessary handing over cash to show them its better to stay. The details are sketchy at this stage but I think that by asking them to think why are they going, what would their mothers think etc, they could be persuaded to stay. We could show them pictures of what they would be missing, the countryside, the national heritage and if all that failed a gallery of local girls in care or foster homes should clinch it.
Once the benefits have been explained (and I don't just mean Income Support ) I feel a great many wouldn't go.

[toppstuff]

gpo746 said:

"don't go bro"

This should be on a T Shirt and a special edition printed hijab.

[smegmore]

gpo746 said:

The poster who mentions about joined up thinking and stopping them going there makes a brilliant point.
My campaign to get the radical Islam guys who wanted to come home but are being stopped by radically radical Islam guys who are threatening them with all manner of nasty stuff has gained a lot of momentum in recent days.
I have been assured that a crack squad of UK Asian soldiers who can pull off a passable Yorkshire or inner London accent has been assembled and is about to be deployed to seek out and get those that want to come home, home.
Options are in place to assist the returning lads. These range from being given jobs on equality panels and Labour party memberships for those who are most able to reintegrate. And Scottish National Party memberships for those that can't.

The brilliant point about it being our responsibility to stop them going is simply an extension of this.
I will be lobbying hard for a team of "don't go bro" volunteers to be implemented at airports. Their brief would be to identify those at risk of going and to persuade them to stay. This persuasion would be by winning hearts and minds and if necessary handing over cash to show them its better to stay. The details are sketchy at this stage but I think that by asking them to think why are they going, what would their mothers think etc, they could be persuaded to stay. We could show them pictures of what they would be missing, the countryside, the national heritage and if all that failed a gallery of local girls in care or foster homes should clinch it.
Once the benefits have been explained (and I don't just mean Income Support ) I feel a great many wouldn't go.

You're wasted here.

[TheRealFingers99]

toppstuff said:

If I was in charge, President Toppstuff would do this:

1. Figure out the least objectionable and most realistic option in terms of who gets to be in charge. Commit all parties to this decision. This means an Arab-led government with teeth and an army to impose its will.

I think only a fool would advocate one government, and a bigger fool would advocate having Kurds led by an Arab.

President Topstuff should recognise that Syria and Iraq are both Franco-British illusions. They can only stand as states when there's a brutal dictator in charge.

[toppstuff]

TheRealFingers99 said:

toppstuff said:

If I was in charge, President Toppstuff would do this:

1. Figure out the least objectionable and most realistic option in terms of who gets to be in charge. Commit all parties to this decision. This means an Arab-led government with teeth and an army to impose its will.

I think only a fool would advocate one government, and a bigger fool would advocate having Kurds led by an Arab.

President Topstuff should recognise that Syria and Iraq are both Franco-British illusions. They can only stand as states when there's a brutal dictator in charge.

Divide and partition on ethnic lines then. Does not have to be one government.

Democracy is overrated - especially for those regions that never had it in the first place and don't know what to do with it.

[TheRealFingers99]

toppstuff said:

Divide and partition on ethnic lines then. Does not have to be one government.

Democracy is overrated - especially for those regions that never had it in the first place and don't know what to do with it.

See, for example The Constitution of the Rojava Cantons.

[KareemK]

smegmore said:

gpo746 said:

The poster who mentions about joined up thinking and stopping them going there makes a brilliant point.
My campaign to get the radical Islam guys who wanted to come home but are being stopped by radically radical Islam guys who are threatening them with all manner of nasty stuff has gained a lot of momentum in recent days.
I have been assured that a crack squad of UK Asian soldiers who can pull off a passable Yorkshire or inner London accent has been assembled and is about to be deployed to seek out and get those that want to come home, home.
Options are in place to assist the returning lads. These range from being given jobs on equality panels and Labour party memberships for those who are most able to reintegrate. And Scottish National Party memberships for those that can't.

The brilliant point about it being our responsibility to stop them going is simply an extension of this.
I will be lobbying hard for a team of "don't go bro" volunteers to be implemented at airports. Their brief would be to identify those at risk of going and to persuade them to stay. This persuasion would be by winning hearts and minds and if necessary handing over cash to show them its better to stay. The details are sketchy at this stage but I think that by asking them to think why are they going, what would their mothers think etc, they could be persuaded to stay. We could show them pictures of what they would be missing, the countryside, the national heritage and if all that failed a gallery of local girls in care or foster homes should clinch it.
Once the benefits have been explained (and I don't just mean Income Support ) I feel a great many wouldn't go.

You're wasted here.

I agree - he's wasted.

[durbster]

toppstuff said:

You are confusing strategy with tactics.

The outcome of the wars in Vietnam and Iraq, etc, were the result of strategy. For example, the big problem with Iraq is that the US did not consider what to replace Saddam with after removing him. The carnage that followed was because of the power vacuum the US created. This was a strategic, political problem - not a military problem.

The US tried a huge range of increasingly brutal military tactics in Vietnam and it still failed. Short of a nuclear solution, there wasn't much they didn't try.

toppstuff said:

In fact, the Iraq war largely proves my point. Tactically, the west ( US ) was spot on correct - in a short period of time US ( and British ) forces dismantled and exterminated Saddam's war machine. It was a one-sided battle and tactically an overwhelming victory. It was the strategy imposed by politicians that screwed it all up.

Considering Iraq's "war machine" in 2003 could have been wiped out by a small boy waving a pointy stick, hailing it as a tactical masterstroke is a overselling it a little. Pretty much all the enemy soldiers just thought, "sod that," and went home.

toppstuff said:

Now lets look at IS. Tactically, the west has the means to exterminate IS and stop them from advancing their caliphate. In many respects - IS are a gift to tacticians. They are operating in a country with large, empty desert regions with towns nestled here and there. To take these towns and advance the caliphate, IS have to move large forces out into the country side and move them from place to place. This is a tacticians dream in terms of the simple objective of killing bad guys.

If IS was a military problem it could be solved by a military solution, but it's not. It's politics, power, education, territory, culture, religion, fear. Drop a bomb, kill ten blokes and another twenty others turn up to replace them, with more reason to fight than the last. We've seen it happen time and time again.

We have to stop thinking of these people as baddies from a film. They're human beings with families, friends, and a belief they have a cause to fight for. I'm not saying we can sit down and sort it out over a cup of tea - some of them really do need to be taken out - but the idea that throwing enough bombs at them will solve the problem has proven to be an expensive folly time and time again, going right back to WW2.

Bush and Blair treated Al Qaeda as a military problem and threw a few hundred billion dollars worth of munitions in their general direction. It achieved nothing. They're still lurking and we now have some new brands of nutter to deal with for our efforts.

[KareemK]

Digga said:

KareemK said:

Joined-up-thinking surely demands that you try to stop them getting out there in the first place before dropping ordnance on their heads and indeed this what they are doing.

Bullflap.

That's equivalent to saying it is the responsibility of the state, by means of education and policing, to prevent murder. Which, after all, is all they did - went overseas to murder.

One would hope that with suitable, general education, parenting and mentoring, these sort of things would go without saying.

Thankfully the power-that-be are actually seeing things logically and trying to stop them going out there.

As an aside I reckon IS could do worse than point potential followers at this thread. Some of the posts would produce almost instant radicalisation on their own.

[toppstuff]

durbster said:

If IS was a military problem it could be solved by a military solution, but it's not. It's politics, power, education, territory, culture, religion, fear. Drop a bomb, kill ten blokes and another twenty others turn up to replace them, with more reason to fight than the last. We've seen it happen time and time again.

We have to stop thinking of these people as baddies from a film. They're human beings with families, friends, and a belief they have a cause to fight for. I'm not saying we can sit down and sort it out over a cup of tea - some of them really do need to be taken out - but the idea that throwing enough bombs at them will solve the problem has proven to be an expensive folly time and time again, going right back to WW2.

Bush and Blair treated Al Qaeda as a military problem and threw a few hundred billion dollars worth of munitions in their general direction. It achieved nothing. They're still lurking and we now have some new brands of nutter to deal with for our efforts.

Actually, I think IS is one of those rare situations where a military, tactical solution actually DOES make sense. IS is not an insurgent army. IS is not a guerrilla army inserted inside large populations ( yet !). They are, in terms of expanding the caliphate, quite literally a marauding army wandering across deserts from town to town, pillaging and murdering as they do so.

Unilke any of the recent conflicts, this IS a situation where the enemy can be bombed into effective extinction, or, at the least, neutralised in terms of their capacity to expand the Caliphate.

Tactically, we can prevent the caliphate expanding by killing as many of them as possible. This makes sense and should be done.

Strategically and politically, we need to stop their supporters.

The challenge of IS is much simpler than the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. IS is a marauding army trying to expand by invasion into other lands. They make a much cleaner and easier target than previous middle east conflicts.

[knitware]

Hands up if you think it's time for Jesus to make his return!

[toppstuff]

knitware said:

Hands up if you think it's time for Jesus to make his return!

IS would probably behead him.

[irocfan]

more people like this fella needed...

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/11/04/asim-ha...

[flyingvisit]

TheRealFingers99 said:

...

If you equate Zionism with Judaism with being Jewish, then you're just a muddle headed simpleton.

Edited by TheRealFingers99 on Tuesday 11th November 09:02

Thanks for the insult. Your response was entirely predictable, but how convincing is it when someone tries to disguise their feelings by saying Zionists instead of Jews?

I'm not getting into an argument with someone who has kept the anti-Israel thread going almost single-handed, so I'm out.

[TheRealFingers99]

flyingvisit said:

Thanks for the insult. Your response was entirely predictable, but how convincing is it when someone tries to disguise their feelings by saying Zionists instead of Jews?

I'm not getting into an argument with someone who has kept the anti-Israel thread going almost single-handed, so I'm out.

So, run and put your head in the sand. It's utterly typical of you.

You know nothing of my feelings, my background. I have lived with, slept with, worked with and worked for many Jews. Most of them were opposed to either the State of Israel or to its actions. A few had a sentimental attachment to it. These included people who had lost very close relatives in the Shoah, people who received at least part of their education in Kibbutz and people who had experienced anti-Semitism in their place of birth.

Zionism is the philosophy -- a nationalist philosophy -- behind the idea of a homeland for the Jews. The idea isn't that bad except that its implementation involved the (attempted, but largely successful) ethnic cleansing of Palestine. See, for example Ilan Pappé's The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. Incidentally, some of the fiercest opponents of the State of Israel are religious Jews.

Judaism is the religious practice (or practices, or belief) of Jews. Practices differ, and not all Jews are religious.

A Jew is someone who is born to a Jewish mother or has gone through (a formal and rather strict) conversion to Judaism.

Only a fool hates someone because of the accident of birth. This is, surely, why racism is the ultimate evil.

A few (famous) Jews I like: Ilan Pappe (historian), Hillel Cohen (historian), Emma Goldman (political activist), Alexander Berkman (political activist), Karl Marx (political philosopher), Leonard Cohen (musician), Murray Bookchin (political activist, the inspiration for the Kurdish Rojava), Lou Reed (musician), Ernst Gombrich (art historian), Max Beckmann (artist, writer), the Bielski brothers (partisans). By no means a comprehensive list.

Now, put up or shut up.

[irocfan]

TheRealFingers99 said:

A few (famous) Jews I like: Ilan Pappe (historian), Hillel Cohen (historian), Emma Goldman (political activist), Alexander Berkman (political activist), Karl Marx (political philosopher), Leonard Cohen (musician), Murray Bookchin (political activist, the inspiration for the Kurdish Rojava), Lou Reed (musician), Ernst Gombrich (art historian), Max Beckmann (artist, writer), the Bielski brothers (partisans). By no means a comprehensive list.

Now, put up or shut up.

Dare I comment quite a left leaning list there....

[TheRealFingers99]

irocfan said:

Dare I comment quite a left leaning list there....

I think Gombrich and (maybe) the Bielskis would beg to differ, BWTH. Yep, libertarian leftist I am, I am.