ISIS - Stronger than Anticipated?
Discussion
ISIS are useful to the USA, European nations and Israel. They are keeping Iran and Hezbollah busy, while they are focused on Sunni ISIS, they are not lobbing rockets etc. into Israel and they are weakening Shia power in the Middle East.
They are also useful to Turkey as they are keeping the Kurds busy, and not focused on internal Turkish issues and making Turkey a serious regional player, although Erdogan may have miscalculated this in the last election.
ISIS are also devotees of Wahhabism, which means the friendly neighbourhood Saudis quite like them, as long as they do not create problems in Saudi of course. When Saudi likes you, all sorts of monetary benefits come your way, like weapons and training for moderate Islamists. I suspect our definition of a moderate my differ somewhat from a Saudi definition.
All in all, a huge mess.
They are also useful to Turkey as they are keeping the Kurds busy, and not focused on internal Turkish issues and making Turkey a serious regional player, although Erdogan may have miscalculated this in the last election.
ISIS are also devotees of Wahhabism, which means the friendly neighbourhood Saudis quite like them, as long as they do not create problems in Saudi of course. When Saudi likes you, all sorts of monetary benefits come your way, like weapons and training for moderate Islamists. I suspect our definition of a moderate my differ somewhat from a Saudi definition.
All in all, a huge mess.
QuantumTokoloshi said:
ISIS are useful to the USA, European nations and Israel. They are keeping Iran and Hezbollah busy, while they are focused on Sunni ISIS, they are not lobbing rockets etc. into Israel and they are weakening Shia power in the Middle East.
They are also useful to Turkey as they are keeping the Kurds busy, and not focused on internal Turkish issues and making Turkey a serious regional player, although Erdogan may have miscalculated this in the last election.
ISIS are also devotees of Wahhabism, which means the friendly neighbourhood Saudis quite like them, as long as they do not create problems in Saudi of course. When Saudi likes you, all sorts of monetary benefits come your way, like weapons and training for moderate Islamists. I suspect our definition of a moderate my differ somewhat from a Saudi definition.
All in all, a huge mess.
I think that's all true. And to be brutal, knowing how the US think, lets face it the civilian casualty list of US citizens for ISIS related attacks is pretty much zero.They are also useful to Turkey as they are keeping the Kurds busy, and not focused on internal Turkish issues and making Turkey a serious regional player, although Erdogan may have miscalculated this in the last election.
ISIS are also devotees of Wahhabism, which means the friendly neighbourhood Saudis quite like them, as long as they do not create problems in Saudi of course. When Saudi likes you, all sorts of monetary benefits come your way, like weapons and training for moderate Islamists. I suspect our definition of a moderate my differ somewhat from a Saudi definition.
All in all, a huge mess.
From what I understand ISIS itself is/has suffered very heavy casualties, so to some extent the idiots are euthanizing themselves at quite a pace into the bargain. Saving the Western security agencies the bloody work of doing the job quietly at home.
Atmospheric said:
Whether ISIS is "faked" or not.
There is a massive government lack of responsibility. Surely the people who believe ISIS are real or even those who view it as a distraction must see this.
I think it's more that it's presented as being a 'proper' organised army or group with a single command structure and chief, whereas I've heard it described as more like a federation of street gangs with a religious obsession. There is a massive government lack of responsibility. Surely the people who believe ISIS are real or even those who view it as a distraction must see this.
Timmy40 said:
Atmospheric said:
Whether ISIS is "faked" or not.
There is a massive government lack of responsibility. Surely the people who believe ISIS are real or even those who view it as a distraction must see this.
I think it's more that it's presented as being a 'proper' organised army or group with a single command structure and chief, whereas I've heard it described as more like a federation of street gangs with a religious obsession. There is a massive government lack of responsibility. Surely the people who believe ISIS are real or even those who view it as a distraction must see this.
Meanwhile it keeps that smokescreen as to what's really going on.
Classic politics of fear.
If there is anything that can be learned from recent history, the West cannot wage 'conventional' war against ISIS.
That would require ISIS to identify itself outside of civilians clearly (attire would help), thereby permitting the 'rules of war' to be considered.
Which it will not - and for obvious reasons.
A 'conventional' war can be fought no better against ISIS than the UK managed against the IRA (there may be similarities)
That would require ISIS to identify itself outside of civilians clearly (attire would help), thereby permitting the 'rules of war' to be considered.
Which it will not - and for obvious reasons.
A 'conventional' war can be fought no better against ISIS than the UK managed against the IRA (there may be similarities)
We had the war in Iraq to destroy their weapons of mass destruction.Afghanistan followed.Lybia's leader Gaddafi was killed off.Syria was next on the list but it looks the Russians are stopping that adventure.
Then ISIS appears out of nowhere causing mayhem and destruction in countries which are already a mess.They are not short of funds and weapons who are this group suppliers?
And so it goes on the hatred is being stoked against muslims.Refugees by the thousands on the move to escape terror.Who is holding the cards in all this and are we all being conned the human race.
Then ISIS appears out of nowhere causing mayhem and destruction in countries which are already a mess.They are not short of funds and weapons who are this group suppliers?
And so it goes on the hatred is being stoked against muslims.Refugees by the thousands on the move to escape terror.Who is holding the cards in all this and are we all being conned the human race.
I think people are forgetting the second bit of the name of ISIS referring to "In Syria", ISIS came out of a Western backed insurgency aimed at unseating Assad, who ( with some help from Russia ) proved to be more resilient than expected so they started going in the other direction. Ironic that we blame everyone ( Saudi mainly ) for ISIS but actually it was the West who armed and equipped them.
thetapeworm said:
So do the decent thing and enlighten us please.
Michael,My thoughts.
The leaders of IS have military experience. You do not take over half a country (Syria) in a matter of months without such experience and a clever strategy.
After Sadaam was overthrown and a Shia (read that as an Iranian puppet) government was put in charge of Iraq you suddenly have a 'very' experienced military machine AND police force predominantly, if not completely of Sunni Arab makeup, out of a job.
There are various theories as to who is financing IS, Saudi, Qatar, Kuwait Turkey, America, Israel, UK, the Daily Mail, I think I've read them all, however it's generally acknowledged that while this may not of started as a sectarian conflict it has nevertheless morphed into one.
The 'current' Syrian conflict, which kicked off in 2011 is a whole different story.
Syria has become a proxy war. Iran, Russia, Hizbollah (an Iranian proxy)in Lebanon + paid foreign Shia mercenaries and what remains of Assad's military machine on one side and a whole bunch of mainly Sunni Arab opposition groups + foreign supporters on the other with IS in the middle and the Kurds in the north doing their best to carve out there own state.
A mistake I read all too often, mainly by the pro-Assad supporters groups is in categorizing all the many opposition groups together as one. They are not. Excluding IS, you have non-Syrian extremes such as Al-Nusra, an AQ affiliate through to disaffected Syrians both former military operatives through to the local butcher with an AK. To make it all the more confusing and in effect helping Assad is that in the past there has been poor communications and coordination between the different more moderate' opposition groups. This has sometime limited their effectiveness. AN (Al-Nusra) has fought both with and against various opposition groups in different parts of Syria. They have their own ideological reasons for getting shot of Assad and for that reason are happy, for now, to fight alongside various free Syrian army groups.
There are a limited number of moderate Syrian FSA groups as well as foreign fighters assisting the Kurds fighting IS.
Just in on the wire: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/06/28/i...
My thoughts above are but only 1% of the story.
Phil
Edited by Transmitter Man on Tuesday 30th June 10:34
Edited by Transmitter Man on Tuesday 30th June 10:36
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