Thankfully he has made all the right ones, including not re-invading Iraq, not invading Syria which he could've easily done after Assad's chemical weapons attack on his own population, not staying in Afghanistan in any large numbers, and closing down Gitmo which is likely to happen before he leaves office despite constant Republican efforts to keep it open. We could certainly be doing far worse if there was a more hawkish President than Obama in the White House.
ISIS in Iraq and Syria
- Thread starter Suli
- Start date
Thankfully he has made all the right ones, including not re-invading Iraq, not invading Syria which he could've easily done after Assad's chemical weapons attack on his own population, not staying in Afghanistan in any large numbers, and closing down Gitmo which is likely to happen before he leaves office despite constant Republican efforts to keep it open. We could certainly be doing far worse if there was a more hawkish President than Obama in the White House.
Well hello Mr. "They violated my space for 17 seconds!"...
Prime Minister's Media Office: The Iraqi government calls on Turkey to respect good neighbourly relations and to withdraw immediately from the Iraqi territory
May be it was foolish by Abadi not to accept Russia's offer to help after all.
@Raoul, what would be the right decision for Obama to take here?
1- Tell Erdogan to respect the international laws, withdraw immediately from Iraq and stop embarrassing the Nato.
2- Eat popcorn.
3- Join Erdogan in violating Iraq's sovereignty and send forces of his own without the government's permission.
Prime Minister's Media Office: The Iraqi government calls on Turkey to respect good neighbourly relations and to withdraw immediately from the Iraqi territory
http://pmo.iq/pme/press2015en/5-12-20151en.htm
May be it was foolish by Abadi not to accept Russia's offer to help after all.
@Raoul, what would be the right decision for Obama to take here?
1- Tell Erdogan to respect the international laws, withdraw immediately from Iraq and stop embarrassing the Nato.
2- Eat popcorn.
3- Join Erdogan in violating Iraq's sovereignty and send forces of his own without the government's permission.
I'd go with number one - which has likely already happened behind the scenes.
I agree with most of what he says.
http://www.theguardian.com/commenti...al-race-war-and-weve-decided-to-give-them-one
http://www.theguardian.com/commenti...al-race-war-and-weve-decided-to-give-them-one
Isis wants an insane, medieval race war – and we’ve decided to give them one
Frankie Boyle
The most effective way to defeat Isis is to lock them up in a cell and deny them martrydom and glory. No paradise, no virgins – just a guard wishing them a bland good morning, and a regular change of towels
An airstrike against Isis this week. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Friday 4 December 2015 16.35 GMT Last modified on Friday 4 December 2015 20.34 GMT
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So we decided to stop children drowning on the beaches by killing them in their beds. It’s hard to think of a more poetic metaphor for our utter lack of ideas than spending several years dropping high explosives on to a desert. Dropping something from a great height can never be precise – this is why Santa still parks up the sleigh. I have to admit that I was sort of disturbed by the palpable excitement in parliament, and couldn’t escape the feeling that our politicians like wars because they make them feel important.
The motion they voted on was a vague list of “necessary measures” and “requests for assistance”, with “specifically airstrikes” at the very bottom – as if someone had shouted it out of the front door as they were starting the car: “Oooh! Don’t forget eggs, milk – and airstrikes!!” One MP argued that IS need a lot of space to move and that airstrikes would limit their territory. The Paris shooters lived in one room with a mattress; we could bomb Syria to the average size of a London flat and they’d still find room to manoeuvre. Bombing Syria will achieve nothing. Let’s at least take a swing at China and have these dull winter skies replaced with a curtain of incendiary light.
Frankie Boyle on Paris attacks: ‘This is the worst time for society to go on psychopathic autopilot’
Read more
What is Cameron’s problem with IS? Ordinary people who in their spare time have formed a huge multinational oil trade and a workforce of thousands willing to be paid in rice and fear – that’s the Big Society right there. Cameron called them “Women-raping, Muslim-murdering, medieval monsters” – he carefully avoided saying “child molesters” in case one of the backbench shouted: “Present!” This is before we get to the fact that he used the word “medieval” to justify a military expedition into the Middle East. Of course bombing will cause delight in Islamic State, where it will form the only entertainment. There’s no music, no dancing, and we’re spending a couple of million quid a night providing the mise en scène for these sadists’ fantasy life.
Hilary Benn, the product of his father’s tempestuous affair with Lembit Opik, showed a fighting spirit that was direct proof of Johnny Cash’s A Boy Named Sue. I think it’s worth remembering that if you say something and Tories start cheering, then you have said something awful. Yes, Hilary, we bombed Hitler, but we were being attacked here by German planes that were leaving from Germany – not by a teenager in west London who had been assembling a Doodlebug in the garage. Benn’s whole speech was played in celebratory fashion the next night on Radio 4, feeding into my theory that George Orwell was so prescient about our society that he moved to Jura to deliberately encourage his TB.
We learned little from the debate, except for the fact that the word caliphate sounds hilarious in a Northern Irish accent, and so do a bunch of other words. Perhaps we’ll soon be so used to the Middle East being in permanent conflict that retaking a Syrian Village from IS will become one of the tasks on The Apprentice. Perhaps destruction is simply easier than kindness. We find it easier to tell a stranger on WhatsApp we want to have sex with their face than hold hands with someone we might be falling in love with. It’s ridiculous really. Charles Manson or Anders Breivik murder people to try to start a race war and it’s laughably insane, but when IS do it we decide to give them one.
Islamic State practise a brand of Islamic law so strict that apparently Raqqa only has two Irish Pubs. For some reason the BBC website keeps reporting opposing moderate rebel groups, but never names them. I know the names of all the cat-hybrid-vegetable-marine-biologist Octonauts, but the differences between the groups fighting Assad are deemed too complex for me. Moderate seems to be a very fluid term when it comes to offshoots of al-Qaida and whatnot, and moderate groups vary from outfits such as Nuclear Allahcaust, who despise the west, and more reasonable elements such as the Al-Jihadi Infidel Soul Harvest, who despise the east, because if you travel east for long enough, you reach the west.
I wonder if the Commons really understands or cares that they are making Britain a target. How affected will MPs be by terrorism? In their high-security lives, the only fear they have of an attack on a bus is that the waiters will be late for a drinks reception. I think we live in a country that sometimes forgets how effective the rule of law is, perhaps because our governments have often found it inconvenient. We invest a vast amount of money in intelligence and terrorists have to, by their nature, take risks: cross borders, move weapons. I think the most effective place for those guys to end up is not in a martyr video, but in a small but comfortable jail cell. Somewhere in Kent, perhaps. No paradise, no virgins, no meaning leant by us to their stupidity, no glory, no attention. Just a guard wishing them a bland good morning, and a regular change of towels. And if you think that’s insufficient punishment, give them a television that only gets terrestrial, and all our newspapers everyday.
Frankie Boyle
The most effective way to defeat Isis is to lock them up in a cell and deny them martrydom and glory. No paradise, no virgins – just a guard wishing them a bland good morning, and a regular change of towels
An airstrike against Isis this week. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Friday 4 December 2015 16.35 GMT Last modified on Friday 4 December 2015 20.34 GMT
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So we decided to stop children drowning on the beaches by killing them in their beds. It’s hard to think of a more poetic metaphor for our utter lack of ideas than spending several years dropping high explosives on to a desert. Dropping something from a great height can never be precise – this is why Santa still parks up the sleigh. I have to admit that I was sort of disturbed by the palpable excitement in parliament, and couldn’t escape the feeling that our politicians like wars because they make them feel important.
The motion they voted on was a vague list of “necessary measures” and “requests for assistance”, with “specifically airstrikes” at the very bottom – as if someone had shouted it out of the front door as they were starting the car: “Oooh! Don’t forget eggs, milk – and airstrikes!!” One MP argued that IS need a lot of space to move and that airstrikes would limit their territory. The Paris shooters lived in one room with a mattress; we could bomb Syria to the average size of a London flat and they’d still find room to manoeuvre. Bombing Syria will achieve nothing. Let’s at least take a swing at China and have these dull winter skies replaced with a curtain of incendiary light.
Frankie Boyle on Paris attacks: ‘This is the worst time for society to go on psychopathic autopilot’
Read more
What is Cameron’s problem with IS? Ordinary people who in their spare time have formed a huge multinational oil trade and a workforce of thousands willing to be paid in rice and fear – that’s the Big Society right there. Cameron called them “Women-raping, Muslim-murdering, medieval monsters” – he carefully avoided saying “child molesters” in case one of the backbench shouted: “Present!” This is before we get to the fact that he used the word “medieval” to justify a military expedition into the Middle East. Of course bombing will cause delight in Islamic State, where it will form the only entertainment. There’s no music, no dancing, and we’re spending a couple of million quid a night providing the mise en scène for these sadists’ fantasy life.
Hilary Benn, the product of his father’s tempestuous affair with Lembit Opik, showed a fighting spirit that was direct proof of Johnny Cash’s A Boy Named Sue. I think it’s worth remembering that if you say something and Tories start cheering, then you have said something awful. Yes, Hilary, we bombed Hitler, but we were being attacked here by German planes that were leaving from Germany – not by a teenager in west London who had been assembling a Doodlebug in the garage. Benn’s whole speech was played in celebratory fashion the next night on Radio 4, feeding into my theory that George Orwell was so prescient about our society that he moved to Jura to deliberately encourage his TB.
We learned little from the debate, except for the fact that the word caliphate sounds hilarious in a Northern Irish accent, and so do a bunch of other words. Perhaps we’ll soon be so used to the Middle East being in permanent conflict that retaking a Syrian Village from IS will become one of the tasks on The Apprentice. Perhaps destruction is simply easier than kindness. We find it easier to tell a stranger on WhatsApp we want to have sex with their face than hold hands with someone we might be falling in love with. It’s ridiculous really. Charles Manson or Anders Breivik murder people to try to start a race war and it’s laughably insane, but when IS do it we decide to give them one.
Islamic State practise a brand of Islamic law so strict that apparently Raqqa only has two Irish Pubs. For some reason the BBC website keeps reporting opposing moderate rebel groups, but never names them. I know the names of all the cat-hybrid-vegetable-marine-biologist Octonauts, but the differences between the groups fighting Assad are deemed too complex for me. Moderate seems to be a very fluid term when it comes to offshoots of al-Qaida and whatnot, and moderate groups vary from outfits such as Nuclear Allahcaust, who despise the west, and more reasonable elements such as the Al-Jihadi Infidel Soul Harvest, who despise the east, because if you travel east for long enough, you reach the west.
I wonder if the Commons really understands or cares that they are making Britain a target. How affected will MPs be by terrorism? In their high-security lives, the only fear they have of an attack on a bus is that the waiters will be late for a drinks reception. I think we live in a country that sometimes forgets how effective the rule of law is, perhaps because our governments have often found it inconvenient. We invest a vast amount of money in intelligence and terrorists have to, by their nature, take risks: cross borders, move weapons. I think the most effective place for those guys to end up is not in a martyr video, but in a small but comfortable jail cell. Somewhere in Kent, perhaps. No paradise, no virgins, no meaning leant by us to their stupidity, no glory, no attention. Just a guard wishing them a bland good morning, and a regular change of towels. And if you think that’s insufficient punishment, give them a television that only gets terrestrial, and all our newspapers everyday.
I agree with most of what he says.
http://www.theguardian.com/commenti...al-race-war-and-weve-decided-to-give-them-one
Isis wants an insane, medieval race war – and we’ve decided to give them one
Frankie Boyle
The most effective way to defeat Isis is to lock them up in a cell and deny them martrydom and glory. No paradise, no virgins – just a guard wishing them a bland good morning, and a regular change of towels
An airstrike against Isis this week. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Friday 4 December 2015 16.35 GMT Last modified on Friday 4 December 2015 20.34 GMT
Shares
24,653
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1,111
Save for later
So we decided to stop children drowning on the beaches by killing them in their beds. It’s hard to think of a more poetic metaphor for our utter lack of ideas than spending several years dropping high explosives on to a desert. Dropping something from a great height can never be precise – this is why Santa still parks up the sleigh. I have to admit that I was sort of disturbed by the palpable excitement in parliament, and couldn’t escape the feeling that our politicians like wars because they make them feel important.
The motion they voted on was a vague list of “necessary measures” and “requests for assistance”, with “specifically airstrikes” at the very bottom – as if someone had shouted it out of the front door as they were starting the car: “Oooh! Don’t forget eggs, milk – and airstrikes!!” One MP argued that IS need a lot of space to move and that airstrikes would limit their territory. The Paris shooters lived in one room with a mattress; we could bomb Syria to the average size of a London flat and they’d still find room to manoeuvre. Bombing Syria will achieve nothing. Let’s at least take a swing at China and have these dull winter skies replaced with a curtain of incendiary light.
Frankie Boyle on Paris attacks: ‘This is the worst time for society to go on psychopathic autopilot’
Read more
What is Cameron’s problem with IS? Ordinary people who in their spare time have formed a huge multinational oil trade and a workforce of thousands willing to be paid in rice and fear – that’s the Big Society right there. Cameron called them “Women-raping, Muslim-murdering, medieval monsters” – he carefully avoided saying “child molesters” in case one of the backbench shouted: “Present!” This is before we get to the fact that he used the word “medieval” to justify a military expedition into the Middle East. Of course bombing will cause delight in Islamic State, where it will form the only entertainment. There’s no music, no dancing, and we’re spending a couple of million quid a night providing the mise en scène for these sadists’ fantasy life.
Hilary Benn, the product of his father’s tempestuous affair with Lembit Opik, showed a fighting spirit that was direct proof of Johnny Cash’s A Boy Named Sue. I think it’s worth remembering that if you say something and Tories start cheering, then you have said something awful. Yes, Hilary, we bombed Hitler, but we were being attacked here by German planes that were leaving from Germany – not by a teenager in west London who had been assembling a Doodlebug in the garage. Benn’s whole speech was played in celebratory fashion the next night on Radio 4, feeding into my theory that George Orwell was so prescient about our society that he moved to Jura to deliberately encourage his TB.
We learned little from the debate, except for the fact that the word caliphate sounds hilarious in a Northern Irish accent, and so do a bunch of other words. Perhaps we’ll soon be so used to the Middle East being in permanent conflict that retaking a Syrian Village from IS will become one of the tasks on The Apprentice. Perhaps destruction is simply easier than kindness. We find it easier to tell a stranger on WhatsApp we want to have sex with their face than hold hands with someone we might be falling in love with. It’s ridiculous really. Charles Manson or Anders Breivik murder people to try to start a race war and it’s laughably insane, but when IS do it we decide to give them one.
Islamic State practise a brand of Islamic law so strict that apparently Raqqa only has two Irish Pubs. For some reason the BBC website keeps reporting opposing moderate rebel groups, but never names them. I know the names of all the cat-hybrid-vegetable-marine-biologist Octonauts, but the differences between the groups fighting Assad are deemed too complex for me. Moderate seems to be a very fluid term when it comes to offshoots of al-Qaida and whatnot, and moderate groups vary from outfits such as Nuclear Allahcaust, who despise the west, and more reasonable elements such as the Al-Jihadi Infidel Soul Harvest, who despise the east, because if you travel east for long enough, you reach the west.
I wonder if the Commons really understands or cares that they are making Britain a target. How affected will MPs be by terrorism? In their high-security lives, the only fear they have of an attack on a bus is that the waiters will be late for a drinks reception. I think we live in a country that sometimes forgets how effective the rule of law is, perhaps because our governments have often found it inconvenient. We invest a vast amount of money in intelligence and terrorists have to, by their nature, take risks: cross borders, move weapons. I think the most effective place for those guys to end up is not in a martyr video, but in a small but comfortable jail cell. Somewhere in Kent, perhaps. No paradise, no virgins, no meaning leant by us to their stupidity, no glory, no attention. Just a guard wishing them a bland good morning, and a regular change of towels. And if you think that’s insufficient punishment, give them a television that only gets terrestrial, and all our newspapers everyday.
I was going to post this earlier, equally hilarious yet depressing piece from Boyle. Nail on the head.
It makes me weep, when a glaswegian comedian can hit the nail on the head, yet the powers that be can't comprehend the same.
Really? He could have easily invaded another country? By what right?
Stopping genocide by way of Responsibility to Protect for one. He could've easily gone in and removed Assad back in 2013 after he used chemical weapons on his own citizens.
So you agree with Boyle that British political figures are not vulnerable to attack? Or that this one decision signals the UK's entry onto the IS most wanted list?
We'll just ignore the beheadings then, as well as the gunning down of tourists on Mediterranean beaches and the seven alleged plot foiled by the security services. There also appears to be this quite baffling assumption that a year's worth of sorties over Iraq doesn't count with IS (which wrongly implies that we weren't there already), neither presumably have the RAF's drone strikes.
So when Boyle describes Da'esh as "Ordinary people who in their spare time have formed a huge multinational oil trade and a workforce of thousands..." and he then solves the whole conflict by suggesting we "lock them up in a cell" that's hitting the nail on the head?! 
@Neutral Yeah the syrian mess is very funny, you can't believe how much laughter it brings us.
It's a figure of speech...sheesh. I'm not actually laughing.
It's a bad figure of speech to use with such situations, I'm sorry maybe I'm over sensitive concerning the Syrian situation.
That's not what I'm agreeing with Nick. What I agree is that bombing the desert is going to achieve a big fat 0, while at the same time denying the refugees who will be effected the chance to leave.
You can't bomb an ideology out of existence Nick, in fact like @LeChuck Said, in 8 years time we will be discussing the same thing about Egypt.
Well bombing them will stop any plans to expand and now with the Russians closing the oil route to our great nato member they would run out of supplies soon or later.
The apocalyptic ideology ain't going anywhere though barros, the physical expansion of the group might be curtailed but there is a dearth of land around the world that they can move to, as I said before, we'll be discussing the same thing about Egypt in 8 years.
Not Egypt, the army is too strong and not at war against any superpower
So when Boyle describes Da'esh as "Ordinary people who in their spare time have formed a huge multinational oil trade and a workforce of thousands..." and he then solves the whole conflict by suggesting we "lock them up in a cell" that's hitting the nail on the head?!
How about we grant Corbyn and Boyle the status of special constables, we can drop them off at the border with a truncheon and orders to implement their nonsense.
They have what amounts to a standing army in the region, as well as returnees and radicalised elements in other countries, the responses required involve both hard and soft power. As matters stand there is not the political will to deploy western forces on the ground, ought we do nothing then? Unless the naysayers prepared to put forward a practicable alternative approach, i confess that my respect for their position is somewhat limited.
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So when Boyle describes Da'esh as "Ordinary people who in their spare time have formed a huge multinational oil trade and a workforce of thousands..." and he then solves the whole conflict by suggesting we "lock them up in a cell" that's hitting the nail on the head?!
The 1st line was obviously satire. If you quoted the rest of the line that would be clear.
The 2nd line is referring to police, intelligence, border police, etc doing their job well and catching would-be ISIS attackers before they start rampaging through cities.
It says that the international community has a responsibility in such cases. The US and its allies don't represent the whole world and have no right to get involved in other country's affairs just because it suits their geopolitical interests. I'm not even going to bother with the whole genocide thing. Americans supported and continue to support some of the worst regimes out there in terms of the human rights violations so spare me this righteous All-American bullshit.
Oh satire, just what we need in such a serious debate and please don't make me go through the pointless ramble from someone who is obviously trying to further his comedy career!
Is this REALLY needed in such a serious situation?
Cameron called them “Women-raping, Muslim-murdering, medieval monsters” – he carefully avoided saying “child molesters” in case one of the backbench shouted: “Present!”
or this...
We learned little from the debate, except for the fact that the word caliphate sounds hilarious in a Northern Irish accent.
Can we add berbatrick too?
On Friday Irag government requested all Turkish soldiers leave and they were taking the case to the UN. I didn't know the Turks were in Iraq. Seems strange of them invading Iraq sovereignty when they have been complaining about Russia.
Oh satire, just what we need in such a serious debate and please don't make me go through the pointless ramble from someone who is obviously trying to further his comedy career!
Is this REALLY needed in such a serious situation?
Cameron called them “Women-raping, Muslim-murdering, medieval monsters” – he carefully avoided saying “child molesters” in case one of the backbench shouted: “Present!”
or this...
We learned little from the debate, except for the fact that the word caliphate sounds hilarious in a Northern Irish accent.
Can we add berbatrick too?
Nothing wrong with satarising Parliaments behaviour on Wednesday, the debate itself was a farce
The entire purpose behind R2P is for an outside intervention to take place when there is a potential genocide within a civil war and the government is either unable or complicit and can't/won't stop it. If authoritarian states like Russia and China block UNSCRs then individual powerful states or multilateral bodies are completely justified in intervening if there is a genocide taking place because "Sovereignty no longer exclusively protects States from foreign interference". Thus if the most powerful state on the planet wanted to remove Assad after he Sarin gassed his own people in 2013, it would've happened in a matter of days, and Assad knows it because he instantly began playing nice by quickly handing over his chemical weapons to inspectors. Fortunately Obama made the right call not to not get rid of him, which would've made the situation inside Syria even worse.
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I find this kind of attitude quite frustrating if I'm honest. It comes about from a belief that doing something, what ever that something is, is always better than inaction. It is vital after all to save people from the barbarian, often by bombing both the barbarian and those we are trying to save from the 'barbarian'.
The same argument was used for Libya. As Gaddafi's forces rolled onto the outskirts of Benghazi, we feared massacre of the residents, the brave fighters who had launched the uprising against this most anti western of tyrants. What could possibly be worse than ghadaffi? Nothing. So we bombed. We rolled him back and rejoiced as his forces were diminished and then extinguished. We grimaced slightly as they caught him, gutted him and dragged him through the streets but put it to anger at what he'd done. Those who were against the strikes were shouted down, asked what their solution was? Yiu want him to just massacre the residents like that? Having finished our airstrikes, we wiped our hands of the situation and walked off satisfied and smug.And now the country is doing excellently. Two rival governments. Militias across the country. A genuine isis affiliate, rather than just a local, group which has declared to isis for publicity. Action has been beneficial there certainly.
And what if Iraq? The beautiful mess we've made in Iraq? First the brutal sanctions we imposed on the country in the 90s which did little on Saddam's grip on power but caused so much damage to the Iraqi people. And then our war in 2003. How could we not act? What kind of corbynite hippy must you have had to be to not want to act? This is a horrible man, a sociopath, a genocidal leader. Nothing could be worse right?
Except our 'noble' action has done exactly that. We have split Iraq into three. Caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. Helped forment sectarianism on the country and oversaw the rise of first AQ and then ISIS in the country. How well our action went then.
It is very easy to mock people like Corbyn because the prevailing opinion, especially after traumatic events like Paris, where feeling is at its most fervent and the desire for action is strong, is to act. It is however much harder to look back once the dust has settled and acknowledge that certain actions were not justified, that the wrong decision was made. Which has often been the case for this particular region.
It also is quite reprehensible that after the attacks on Beirut (suicide bombing in a 'hezbollah stronghold') or on the Russian airliner (this is what Putin gets for bombing), we look at the consequences of our own actions in a completely different light. In fact, many of the same people saying the first two phrases were shouting anybody down who dared suggest it for the Paris attack.
Oh well. I hope that the airstrikes go excellently, we wipe out ISIS quickly with minimal to no civilian casualties and that they're replaced by something much better once they're gone. And we don't feel any blowback here in Europe from our actions.
I really don't see that happening though unfortunately. And I imagine that after we make a mess of this, we'll be having the next discussion in 5-10 years time having failed yet again to learn from history and be deliberating on whether to bomb the next middle eastern country.
Excellent post.
Unfortunately, our memories seem to grow increasingly shorter.
Though I should add that Corbyn and his allies have not suggested inaction. They have included various proposals involving the cut off of supplies from Turkey and Saudi Arabia, but the powers that be don't even seem remotely interested in exhausting these options since no bombing is involved.
fantastic post. All those trigger happy people should think about that.
@africanspur I agree with your post. But I still struggle with how to deal with ISIS and similar groups and their sympathisers. How do we just remove them without killing ordinary people?
You can't, which is why these moral obfuscations do little to address the issue going forward. The war in Syria will continue indefinitely until there is a unified foreign intervention to stop it.
A rather odd post if anything. @africanspur obviously wanted to have a rant of sorts about air strikes, whether it was applicable to my post or not. A reply stating that there should be both a sustainable diplomatic and military strategy, is greeted with an accusation of being "trigger happy".
It is by no means unreasonable (after nearly five years of war i might add) to expect a well thought out alternative from people like Corbyn and Boyle, something which they are either unwilling or unable to provide.
It is by no means unreasonable (after nearly five years of war i might add) to expect a well thought out alternative from people like Corbyn and Boyle, something which they are either unwilling or unable to provide.
airstrikes by themselves do not solve the long term problems. Unless the major powers, surrounding governments and the UN are involved we will continue to have complete anarchy over there.
Also as far as the US is concerned, we need to seperate ourselves from this dependence on foreign oil (Saudi Arabia).
The cancer of terrorism is here. We are going to have to spend an awful lot of money and lives to weed it out.
Also as far as the US is concerned, we need to seperate ourselves from this dependence on foreign oil (Saudi Arabia).
The cancer of terrorism is here. We are going to have to spend an awful lot of money and lives to weed it out.
@africanspur - top post.
What was odd about it? You did state that but then continued to state that as is there is no will currently to put Western boots on the ground, 'ought we do nothing then?' How is a post outlining two occasions when the west has done something, when doing nothing was deemed to be both illogical and immoral, only to find that we've made the situation worse, odd?
How then is my post not applicable to yours? You outline how there must also be a hard response, whether airstrikes or western boots and my response is completely appropriate to that. I have given two examples from the past 15 years where our hard power, combined with our soft, has made what seemed like a situation which could not get worse,....worse. And it is the same arguments used then as is used now.
Even assuming that the airstrikes help in rolling back isis in areas where they border the Kurds, what of the areas in which the Kurds have no realistic chance of accessing? Do we just carry on bombing indefinitely? And even if it does remove them, who comes in to replace them? What groups are we backing to come in after we've eradicated them from their cities?
As for what Corbyn has said, I'm not sure if he's given an alternative opinion or not. Kaos is saying that he's given opinion on how we need the remove the root cause of these ideologies. If that is what he has said, then it's a very wise thing to say. Saudi is the cancer of the region and we cannot hope to possibly destroy these ideologies, which are mere branches, when the roots of the tree are not only strong but supported so strongly by those apparently working to remove these groups and their ideologies.
I'm really not too sure tbh. I wish I had the magic answer for it!
However, I just do not think violence, certainly not without a concerted long term plan based on winning hearts and minds (or at least aimed at stopping these hearts and minds from turning to violence) we will not get anywhere and wherever we hit, another head will pop up.
My personal belief is that these groups won't disappear as significant groups until a) Saudi runs out of money b) we cut them off as an ally and c) despotism of whatever type stops being the dominant political ideology in the middle east.
You are right. But I will add, I think Muslims who misinterpret the writings of the Holy books will see the West as infedels and continue to do things like happened in San Berdanino. Inevitably many innocent people will suffer persecution.
In the (very) long run those groups will struggle, when they are forced to govern. They are terrible at i; that is why war is existential for most of them.
Oh satire, just what we need in such a serious debate and please don't make me go through the pointless ramble from someone who is obviously trying to further his comedy career!
Is this REALLY needed in such a serious situation?
Cameron called them “Women-raping, Muslim-murdering, medieval monsters” – he carefully avoided saying “child molesters” in case one of the backbench shouted: “Present!”
or this...
We learned little from the debate, except for the fact that the word caliphate sounds hilarious in a Northern Irish accent.
Can we add berbatrick too?
So your method is to
Read the article
Cherry pick sentences out of context
When you get called out on it, say you don't want to waste your time by... reading the article
Attack the style of the article and its author and specific statements while somehow not actually reading the article
Attack the person who called you out
Ignore the substantial parts of the article by, essentially, a single line mocking border controls.
Well done for clarifying things, I thought I was debating with someone reasonable.
It's an impossible situation, humanity is a piece of shit. We need a world with only feet and horses carrying us around to feel safe. Sick fecks can get from A to Z in no time, and they can also use the almighty cesspool called internet for communication. Why the feck can't people just be nice to eachother?? We need an alien intervention, I'd take a probing for humanity. Would you?
Of course I read the article which I how I came to the conclusion that it was a pointless ramble by someone who's better suited to comedy.
I quoted 3 examples of what was pointless and I'd be interested if you could point out any point I missed in them.
You may have found the article useful but I didn't.
I think people too often forget this simple fact. While the majority of people can live happily in a kaleidoscope of culture, some are inherently ignorant and cannot and feel the need to change the world to something they find more comfortable.
It's a lovely thought that "human nature" is good but when in history has this been proven? We're animals that do our territorial pissing in an incredibly sophisticated way but we're still animals and we're still pissing for territory.