The War With ISIS/ISIL

^ I did wonder whether someone would chime in with those theories.

My view - based primarily on my experience working for government - is that to credit this whole, sorry situation as a deliberate plan on the part of the military-industrial complex and the US government (or, to take it even further, some sort of shadowy "powers that be" behind the governments of the world) is to be too complimentary to government and to people's powers of foresight and organisation.

In my experience, it's much more believable that this situation was an unintended consequence. Of course, once things happen, it's inevitable that both military hardware and security companies, and large bureaucracies, would work to increase their profits and/or power - that's simply human nature.

However, when I look at the timeline of events - the Cold War, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Afghani war against the Soviets in the 1980s, where the US funded the mujahideen, some elements of the mujahideen becoming the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the 1990s, then Al Qaeda attacking US forces in various locations before finally targeting the US itself - it doesn't lend itself to a deliberate plan by the US or by other organisations.

So, in my view, it's entirely believable that the military-industrial complex and elements within the US administration took advantage of events to increase their profits and power, but I don't believe that they planned the events beforehand and made things happen. Reactive, rather than proactive.
 
War tactics ain't physics ffs !

I met a county sheriff deputy yesterday at the local sauna and naturally we got onto topic of fema camps, backscatter radiation, drones, etc and he told me in serious tone before he left to never let them implant an RFID chip in me. :laugh1:
 
LelandJ said:
War tactics ain't physics ffs !

I met a county sheriff deputy yesterday at the local sauna and naturally we got onto topic of fema camps, backscatter radiation, drones, etc and he told me in serious tone before he left to never let them implant an RFID chip in me. :laugh1:
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Can't you just have gay sex like a normal sauna goer?
 
^I thought the Israelis were supposed to be training IS, with "Caliph" Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi actually being a New York Jew and a Mossad agent. Laugh all you want, but consider: IS has scored several signal victories over the U.S.-trained Iraqi army, as at Mosul and Ramadi. So where are the Young Lions of the Islamic State getting their training? Who has the best and most efficient military in the Middle East?
Starting to connect the dots? Seriously, this theory of the IS-Israel alliance has considerable vogue in Iran and pro-government circles in Syria.
 
Democracy Now's pretty conservative overall and they've been talking about the U.S. backed Isil for awhile now.
 
Read an extremely synopsis in the New Yorker that detailed the recruitment of local citizens into becoming jihadists in Europe, specifically Belgium. The insight details of the process was extremely powerful and shocking. After reading it, I think the only way to fight this movement is all out war and no forgiveness., similarly like the way the Chinese treated the Uygurs when they try to separate.

The Europeans are suffering the consequences of their ignorace of the problem by allowing migration of Muslims and acceptance of Sharia related practices. America needs to watch and learn before we become the next victim.
 
Ultimately, I think we're going to have to go in. They will have to be defeated in the field.
We should never have gone in in the first place but what is done is done.
 
formby said:
Ultimately, I think we're going to have to go in.
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I'd be interested to know why you think that?

Is it because you're concerned that ISIS/ISIL/IS will be able to take control of a "failed state" and make their own state, like the Taliban? Then, if they do that, they'll be able to use it as a firm base from which to launch terrorist attacks?

I can understand that view, but I don't really agree with it. After all, the US didn't invade Iran, even though Iran was a "rogue state" and was known to be directly funding and supporting terrorism, including providing materiel, training and safe havens for terrorists and terrorist organisations.

Frankly, I tend to think that the importance of these organisations has been over-stated. The western world survived the terrorist attacks of the 1970s and 1980s and I don't see why the west won't survive in the current situation.

Is there something that I'm missing?
 
‘Moron’ terrorist takes selfie at ISIS headquarters, US military promptly bombs it | myfox8.com

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Journeyman said:
I'd be interested to know why you think that?

Is it because you're concerned that ISIS/ISIL/IS will be able to take control of a "failed state" and make their own state, like the Taliban? Then, if they do that, they'll be able to use it as a firm base from which to launch terrorist attacks?

I can understand that view, but I don't really agree with it. After all, the US didn't invade Iran, even though Iran was a "rogue state" and was known to be directly funding and supporting terrorism, including providing materiel, training and safe havens for terrorists and terrorist organisations.

Frankly, I tend to think that the importance of these organisations has been over-stated. The western world survived the terrorist attacks of the 1970s and 1980s and I don't see why the west won't survive in the current situation.

Is there something that I'm missing?
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Firstly, Islamism threatens to destroy the state system across the Middle East with enormous political and humanitarian implications. Secondly, Islamism reaches deep into what are now complex European societies. Thirdly, there is no doubt that IS would seek to gain, and use, mass destructive and disruptive weapons and technologies against open societies. And lastly, there is NO political accommodation with IS.
 
The US, UK and a "coalition of the willing" went into Afghanistan and then Iraq and it's been an absolute, utter disaster in strategic, political and economic terms.

The reality is that if the US, UK or other countries were to put boots on the ground in other countries in the ME, they would most likely to have go in as occupying forces, and be prepared to stay for a while. That would mean a repeat of Afghanistan and Iraq, with guerrilla war against the occupying forces and a disgruntled population.

In my opinion, a very convincing argument can be made that groups like ISIS/ISIL/IS exist largely because of the West's involvement in the ME. If the West involves itself more, it adds fuel to the fire and confirms people's prejudices.
 
Fwiffo said:
Palmyra's Baalshamin temple 'blown up by IS' - BBC News

How did these Roman ruins ever come to offend the prophet and the Qu'ran?

Animals, the lot of them
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You have to understand the thinking - or lack of it - Pauly.

Once upon a time in the Middle East I was talking to a local contact (later friend) about a graveyard in the desert that was something like 4,000 years old. I asked my friend what the religion of the people was there before Islam and he was genuinely puzzled by the question.

"There was no religion before Islam - the Prophet brought religion here".

Right, so the locals buried their dead and carefully placed stones to mark their graves for 3,500 years before they imported a belief system from further north?

Many Muslims are taught that there was simply nothing before Islam. Just the same way that in Medieval Europe there was nothing before Christianity, and those lewd naked statues they kept finding everywhere had to be made by a race of giants, or the Devil himself. Taken to it's extreme that means destroying everything that does not support your own narrow world view - just like the Nazis burning books, or the Taliban blowing up statues of Buddha.
 
Russian boots are now officially on the ground in Syria.

They are supporting their man in the ISIS fight. Might even convince him to stop using chemical weapons.

But they will also be fighting the U.S.-backed forces. Just wait till a Russian APC full of marines is taken out by a U.S. TOW rocket.

Also adding to the fun, preliminary evidence suggests ISIS just used mustard gas for the first time. Maybe Sadam's leftovers or maybe they can now make it.
 
I can only hope thhe russians are using the TOS-1 and the schmel over there
 
prince nez said:
"There was no religion before Islam - the Prophet brought religion here".
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I didn't read the text in the original language but I'm pretty sure Muhammad "the Prophet" referred to Jesus. By that reference, he must also recognise the progenitor to Jesus, who was just a funny Jew to Judaism.

It's okay - it's like people who embrace Buddhism but chow down on a hunk of freshly cut veal.
 
Ok, it's a crap song. But it's also a brave 'up yours' to ISIS, filmed in Iraqi Kurdistan:

 
prince nez said:
Many Muslims are taught that there was simply nothing before Islam. Just the same way that in Medieval Europe there was nothing before Christianity, and those lewd naked statues they kept finding everywhere had to be made by a race of giants, or the Devil himself.
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This is so wrong on so many levels. Okay, it may be argued that the Muslim point of view is that true religion, i.e., Islam, existed for millennia before the Prophet, and that the patriarchs and prophets of the Old Testament, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Solomon et al., were true Muslims because they submitted to the will of Allah, as was Jesus, who plays an extremely important part in Islamic eschatology. The forces of the Islamic State are hoping that Jesus will come soon, kill the Antichrist and ensure final victory for the Caliphate. The Prophet was certainly aware of the existence of pagan religions. He sympathized with the Christian Romans in their struggle against the Zoroastrian Persian Empire and prophesied the victory of the Romans. A few years after his death, his followers conquered the entire Persian Empire and much of the Eastern Roman Empire.

As for the business about there being "nothing before Christianity," that's simply ridiculous! The Latin classics (many of them) were eagerly studied in the Middle Ages. Every person with a modicum of education was well aware of the Greek and Roman civilizations that preceded their era, and Medieval Latin poetry is simply chock-full of allusions to the pagan gods and goddesses.
 
Jan - I'm not arguing the toss about the Koran or what Muhammad said about whom. Merely sharing my observation of how it is understood in some parts of the ME I have been to. Call it naïveté or what you will but it seemed to me that study of pre-Islamic history in Arabia was roundly discouraged if not totally ignored. There are several famous Islamic centres of learning with distinguished histories in the arts, mathematics etc. but history starts in 622 as far as they - and the Islamic calendar - are concerned.

As for medieval Europe, you're probably right about those "with a modicum of education" - few though they were in those days.
 
As to there having been "Christians" before the Incarnation, it was the theology of the early Church (and I believe all traditional Christian bodies today) that the Church was the continuation of the true Israel of God and hence the heritor of the Covenant of Abraham, not those Jews who rejected the Messiahship of Jesus. Thus, much as Muslims claim the patriarchs, prophets and other holy men of the Old Testament to have been Muslims before the day of the Prophet, so the Church claims them their own. The Orthodox Church venerates a number of Old Testament figures as saints. I believe this may also be the practice of the other Eastern churches. I believe that the Maccabean Martyrs are commemorated in the Roman Catholic Church but no other O.T. figures. (On checking up on this, I discovered that the Roman Church has bumped the Maccabean Martyrs from an official spot in the Calendar although they may still be venerated as saints.)

I do not know if this somewhat subtle bit of theology was what the lady on the "The View" was trying to express or whether she was merely being ignorant. I suspect the latter.
 
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I said after Kobani that Rojava is this generation's Catalonia. Sadly prophetic, it looks like we will see a Moscow-backed counter-revolution from Damascus soon. Even if the YPG-YPJ are the only effective force fighting the the so-called ISIS.
 
The stupidity of western government really has no limits, I'm surprised none of this shit has hit us back yet, but then again it took Osama 10 years to do his thing in American Soil.
 
The three or four remaining US-trained rebels already in Syria need the reinforcement convoy so they aren't inadvertently re-enacting the Lone Survivor movie.
 
Fwiffo said:
The three or four remaining US-trained rebels already in Syria need the reinforcement convoy so they aren't inadvertently re-enacting the Lone Survivor movie.
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Endless rolling down a mounta8in?
 
So they bribed one extremist group off with American weapons, so as not to be turned over to the ISIL/Daesh extremists- only to be captured by AQ?

Can't we just give Iraq and Syria to the Kurds as fair turnaround and be done with this??
 
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