threat by IS or ISIS

[Shelter]

Guys we have talked about Israel/Ghaza and the situation in Ukraine - but what is your opinion to the threat of the cruel gangs of IS or ISIS in Syria and/or Iraq?

 

[gb2000ie]

Guys we have talked about Israel/Ghaza and the situation in Ukraine - but what is your opinion to the threat of the cruel gangs of IS or ISIS in Syria and/or Iraq?

I'm not sure there is much room for varied opinions here - it's not like they make it easy to give them the benefit of the doubt! They're evil.

 

[brmstn69]

I think that as long as the UN is bound bound by rules of the Geneva Convention there is very little we can do. ISIL is not bound by rules of engagement. It's like playing poker against someone with 4 aces up their sleeve.

Let's face facts... America has always won wars by going to extremes and doing the unthinkable. From the very start in the Revolutionary war we did not follow the "rules" by standing in formation and shooting back and forth with the British. No, we hid behind trees and ambushed them. George Washington even massacred British troops as they celebrated Christmas. During the Civil war Union troops ran a "scorched earth" campaign through out the south. We used biological weapons in the Indian wars and chemical weapons in WWI. And the grand-daddy of them all, we used nukes in WWII...

Then we signed the Geneva Convention and haven't really had a decisive victory since...

No, the only way to defeat ISIL and extremist in general, is by doing the unthinkable. Taking actions so horrific that they don't dare continue their current path. They kill one of ours, we kill a thousand of them. They bomb a building, we level a city. To Hell with collateral damage...

Vlad Tepes understood the Islam mentality, having been held prisoner and tortured buy the Sultan for much of his youth. When the Ottoman Empire tried to expand into Wallachia they were greeted by the site of 20,000 of their fellow soldiers of Islam impaled on stakes...

That is how you defeat ISIL...

 

[topdog]

Well... that's certainly how ISIL would do it.

What ISIL can't grasp is that horrific violence doesn't get you a seat at the table. It makes you a pariah. Even Al Qaeda is stepping away from them.

 

[dargelos]

Gay Heaven members have something in common with the leaders of Islamic State military; we both have a never ending hunger for healthy young men. They need them to use as cannon fodder, we want to suck their cocks.
Myself, I've always prefered getting blown to getting blown up but that's just my opinion.
Pledging to kill a thousand of them for every one of us only works on an enemy that is afraid to die. With this enemy that pledge becomes a recruiting advertisment. There are many millions of Muslims all around the world. For most of them, seeing their religion disgraced by being used as an alibi for murder is more offensive than we non-muslims can imagine. Tragically there are too many who feel alienated from the world they are living in. They don't see a purpose in their lives. Not evil people, not yet at least, just vunerable, easy to be groomed for extremism. Fanatic groups exploit them. They need voluteers. They need cannon fodder. To get cannon fodder they will promise anything, not so much the 27 virgins in heaven stuff, more the give your life a meaning stuff. Who is going to tell them that Islamic State are going to abuse them and their faith. They're not going to listen to me , they're not going to listen to you, nor to Mr Obama, and nobody listens to Mr Cameron.
They will listen to their own religious leaders. Usualy I have no respect for anyone from a religious organisation. In this case these are the only voices that can save young Muslims from exploitation by extremists. Shooting lots of missiles at IS will stop them in the short term but a long term solution will only come from starving them of manpower.


Anyway the young imam in this is fairly hot.

 

[brmstn69]

And while you are trying to reason with them, their ranks grow stronger and more innocents die.

In this case diplomacy and reason will lead to many more deaths. Better ten thousand die now than hundreds of thousands or even millions die while we try to reason with them...

 

[Shelter]

And while you are trying to reason with them, their ranks grow stronger and more innocents die.

In this case diplomacy and reason will lead to many more deaths. Better ten thousand die now than hundreds of thousands or even millions die while we try to reason with them...

It is my strong conviction that you are right with your opinion. ISIS is the EVIL for itself - and fire has to be fight with fire! These people (and I don't mean ALL moslems!) are so inhuman that you cannot cope them with democratic rules of the game.

 

[starpipe]

I can't imagine that many of them are members of this board. A totally mediaeval mindset.

 

[dargelos]

I certainly do agree that it is a waste of time trying to talk peace with the leaders of IS when peace is the last thing they want. And I agree that you have to go in hard and fast with overwhelming firepower to prove to them that they can never win. Thats for the acute phase.
What I was thinking about was the chronic part of the problem. You can choke off their money but their kind of warfare can run cheaply. You can try choking off access to weapons but there is always somebody who will sell anything to anybody. What they can't do without are recruits. Once the men have been turned into IS fighters it's too late to talk to them, their minds have been owned, they can only die or become prisoners. What I was saying was for the long term, to catch them before they become radicalised, when it is still possible for them to understand right and wrong.

 

[gb2000ie]

I think everyone's emotional reaction to videos of gruesome be-headings is the same - an instant desire to lash out and punish. That is not a bug, that is a feature - that is what IS WANT! IS are trying to make the west act emotionally rather than rationally, because that is how they have the advantage.

IS want to cause a situation where it is Islam on one side, and the west on the other. That allows them to use religion to recruit. It reinforces a narrative that works really well for them.

That last thing IS want is for someone to take the time to construct a broad coalition that includes Muslim nations.

For the peace to win, it can't be Christian nations on one side, and Islamic fighters on the other. That is why the first step here needs to be diplomatic. That's what Bush senior did in Gulf War 1, and that is what Obama has to do now. This needs to be moderates of all faiths against extremists, not one faith against another.

If you feel the urge to lash out rashly, remember, that would be falling into IS's well laid emotional trap. We have to be adult enough to realise we are being played, and side-step the trap.

B.

 

[dargelos]

What I am desperate to understand is what makes polite law abiding young men walk away from their family and friends, to leave behind their job and their car, knowing that they are likely to die in a foreign land, for a cause they don't properly understand.
Many IS fighters come from Britain. They leave this country as civilised humans. After 30 days training they become bloodthirsty monsters.
What is it that makes good men turn bad?
The Stanford Prison Experiment 1971 was a famous attempt to answer this question. It was a bit like TV's Big Brother. They set up a fake prison with students acting as guards and inmates. The experiment had to be halted early because the "guards" became dangerously abusive toward the "inmates".
Similar was The Milgram Experiment, 1961 onward, where volunteers had to adminster electric shocks to another volunteer who was actually an actor. The actor wasn't really in pain but he screamed as if he was in agony. The conclusion was that it is easy to fool normal people into being abnormaly cruel.
The Nazi party would not have got very far without being able to make decent citizens perform atrocious acts.
Whatever it is that turns good men bad, it is tragically easy to do.

 

[trencherman]

Then we signed the Geneva Convention and haven't really had a decisive victory since...

You think Americans were abiding by the Geneva Convention when water boarding? ...and decisive victory was attained by just announcing Mission Accomplished?

 

[Shelter]

I would be so very happy if the muslim communities in our countries would take up more position against these hordes. And why our governments didn't do more agasinst salafists or how these gys call themselves. It beats everything that now in these days in the German city of Wuppertal a Salafist Group (led by a German convert!) surmises a so called Sharia-Police and patroled through the inner-city where they botherd young people which where going to a disco or a bar or a cinema because that is against the rules of Allah or Mohammed or what! And that didn't h appen in Saudi Arabia or Qatar or wherever in an muslimic country but in the middle of a German city! German politicans are "shocked" and they will consider to prohibit these "sharia-police"! They will consider......

 

[bigsal]

Do we not forget that these terrorists are making raids and massacres by many time, in total indifference. Now that their are near the oil wells and water, they start to get up their big voices.

But let's see who is the leader of ISIS.

According to the records of the Department of Defense, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was detained in Camp Bucca as "civilian internee" US-Iraqi forces from early February 2004 until 2009, when he was freed thanks to the indication of a committee, called "Combined Review and Release Board", which recommended the "unconditional release". The liberation aroused the astonishment of Colonel Kenneth King, between the commanding officers at Camp Bucca during the period of detention of al-Baghdadi.

These bandits are the same funding to help topple Assad, and supplied with modern weapons and technology.
Yes gentlemen, let's talk about Assad, President of Syria, recently considered by the Nobel Peace Prize Obama a fierce and dangerous dictator, and now in a very short time became a defender of freedom.

The system is always the same, first are funded without hesitation and then you have to defend themselves from those that have been funded.

Obviously the cost of all these operations shall be borne by the citizens who pay taxes, that's us.

Complicit in what is happening are also most of the media, have always been at the service of the fittest (which is what provides the biggest benefits).

The same protocol was used to Libya, Syria and Ukraine, not to mention Iraq and Afghanistan. But looking a little 'recent history is nothing new under the sun.

In practice it was invented a diabolical mechanism. First are created the conditions so that these conflicts arise, then promote or consolidate groups of fanatical fundamentalists by selling weapons and encouraging them with "the intelligence" and then, once they grow up enough to be a serious danger, voila! fight them standing up as champions of freedom, but in reality pursuing a single goal: the growth of own GDP thanks at the war industry.

Had explained everything Bob Kennedy, in the distant March 18 '68:



for some reason, he was assassinated on June 6 following.

Yeah ... I wonder why? ....

In all cases we have to stop these murderers, but we also need to reflect on why these things happen.

 

[Shelter]

I have heard today a very good tagline: NO CIVIL LIBERTY FOR THE ENEMIES OF CIVIL LIBERTY!

 

[dargelos]

Sorry Shelter, if only it were that simple. That's a catchy slogan you found but it does no justice to the reality. The intelligent points that bigsal is making are complex, they need a lot of thought to follow, theres a lot there to think about.
Trencherman, you mention waterboarding, today the Telegraph (a very conservative paper) has revealtions about how bad that was. This was no ice bucket challenge. The suspect were held underwater until they were about to die. This was not simulated drowning this was real drowning then resusitation. If IS fighters cut your head off it's horrific but at least you die so they can only make you suffer once. One man was forced to endure the drowning experience on 83 instances. The worst case had to experience 183 instances.
These actions can only have the effect of encouraging more terrorism.

 

[james1981]

I think everyone's emotional reaction to videos of gruesome be-headings is the same - an instant desire to lash out and punish. That is not a bug, that is a feature - that is what IS WANT! IS are trying to make the west act emotionally rather than rationally, because that is how they have the advantage.

IS want to cause a situation where it is Islam on one side, and the west on the other. That allows them to use religion to recruit. It reinforces a narrative that works really well for them.

That last thing IS want is for someone to take the time to construct a broad coalition that includes Muslim nations.

For the peace to win, it can't be Christian nations on one side, and Islamic fighters on the other. That is why the first step here needs to be diplomatic. That's what Bush senior did in Gulf War 1, and that is what Obama has to do now. This needs to be moderates of all faiths against extremists, not one faith against another.

If you feel the urge to lash out rashly, remember, that would be falling into IS's well laid emotional trap. We have to be adult enough to realise we are being played, and side-step the trap.

B.

Thanks for the level-headed response gb2000ie. I came across this CBC article, which corroborates your point as it states:

"While ISIS has claimed that they released the beheading videos as a deterrent against further U.S. airstrikes, Bokhari believes the group is actually taunting the U.S. and its allies into more attacks.

By painting the West as the aggressors, ISIS gains greater legitimacy, not only among its ardent followers, but more moderate Muslims who may be on the fence about joining them.

'My view of [the beheading videos] is that they are trying to bait the U.S. in order to rally more people to their cause.'"

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I think this concept is even more interesting when juxtaposed against another article - Why ISIS may not be as powerful as we think - because if the thesis of this story is correct, ISIS could very well be in a fairly precarious situation. The following graphic of their allies and enemies is particularly revealing.

​

One non-military solution that has been proposed is helping to establish more inclusive, stable government in Iraq. The story states, "Bokhari says that the Baathists 'are not committed ideologically and might be willing to throw [ISIS] under the bus' if a new government led by Haider al-Abadi is seen as more inclusive."

Sure, easier said than done, but is the military option much better?

 

[brmstn69]

You think Americans were abiding by the Geneva Convention when water boarding? ...and decisive victory was attained by just announcing Mission Accomplished?

I see you missed my point entirely...

Water boarding is amateurish, I say get medieval on their asses. Fuck the Geneva convention, break out the pear of anguish, the Judas chair, and please remember when hooking a car battery up to the bastards testicles, red is positive, black is negative and make sure the little fuckers balls are wet...

And no, saying "mission accomplished" is not a decisive victory, which was the point I was making.

What became of Japan under our occupation after WWII was a victory...

As long as we allow governments based on Islamic ideology and law to exist, there will never be peace in the middle east. There will always be some group that thinks there version of Islam is "right" and will rebel. They must be forced to accept a government with no religious influence and a constitution that protects all the various minorities. Bringing them democracy will not work because those minorities will most certainly be oppressed the the majority.

Which leaves the only option being an occupying force and military presence governing the region.

Which is what we did in Japan...

 

[trencherman]

I see you missed my point entirely...


Which is what we did in Japan...

Write clearly, accurately and concisely then, so your points do not get lost in the thicket.

 

[dargelos]

Waterboarding is a euphemism designed to make it sound like an exteme sport. Call it drowning with resuscitation. Choose any torture method you like, they're all illegal, (apart from the Justin Beiber records) My question is what to you acheive by using torture?.
The enemy are not detered by the possibility of torture, they think god will keep them safe.
They may be in for an unpleasant disappointment but by then it's too late, you've created a martyr.
The martyr is a powerful marketing tool for the extremist brand.