IS crisis in Iraq and Syria

[Simon_Jester]

Well, it's a large region accustomed to having to deal with corrupt officials, so they probably can keep up a steady stream of revenue from things like sex slavery and protection rackets. But that's not going to be enough to let them keep up with national militaries, even fourth-rate ones like Iraq's, so they'll probably keep pushing the oil thing.

[General Brock]

Actually, by now cutting off supply to Syria would do little as ISIS secured enough additional and, most importantly, internal funding from banks in fallen cities.

Cutting it 1 year before would have been probably wise. But as people here convinced me, the US isn't known to behave wisely.

Maybe. Its too bad we'll never know for sure, since the reality is, they're never going to be cut off until the war against them picks up and its time for ISIS to lose. Like Al Qaida lost. And the Taliban.

I still beleive cutting them off now would reduce them to being a lucrative target with diminished means of defending their spoils from local rivals, and the offical armies of Syria and Iraq still want them dead, which means they probably would be in a couple of years.

Obama's war plan calls for three; presumably at some point in the campaign stopping the flow of Syrian rebel aid to ISIS must be a priority. After three years, whether peace is restored or not, the Americans will have re-established an official logistical base in Iraq, complete with a friendly SOFA agreement.

[General Brock]

... Would said neighbors have committed such murders, if it weren't for ISIL invading their lands and removing the rule of the government?

Well, it seems I've stumbled into a quagmire. Oh well.

Law and order from the central government was already tenuous but its interesting to note - the Yazidis had survived until now. Most of North and West Iraq south of Kurdish territory are Sunni dominated, led by such groups as the General Military Council of Iraqi Revolutionaries and Supreme Command for Liberation and Jihad - led by the king of clubs, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri. This mix of religious and secular and more importantly - moderate- Iraqis have been focused on the removal of the American Occupation and a Shia regime they considered illegitimate at worst, sectarian at best. Syrian aid enabled ISIS - partly composed of the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), a disgraced Iraqi resistance group, to challenge Iraqi Sunni control, enticing a loose alliance with GMCIR. Whatever protection GMCIR offered to minority communities trying to be neutral in a Sunni-Shia civil war, was naturally endangered since ISI was initially forced out for being sectarian hyper-violent loose cannons in the first place.

You're still dodging the argument that had substance and focusing on the admittedly more interesting and dramatic ISIS/Isis-as-code-word one. Its an easy mark, that I had already said, can't yet be proven. One can't help but notice, the rest of your position isn't quite as certain of itself the more it has to stray from that.

The question of why ISIS still comes up; why the Western media takes this Caliphate so seriously. What is certain, its that it has enabled the Shia regime and the U.S. to demonize all Sunni Iraqi territory, and under this blanket threat, ignore that a real Iraqi resistance to the American installed regime exists.

The U.S. is apparently trying to see which Sunnis can then be intimidated into working with them, as if the Shia wouldn't notice Americans are rather fickle and would just as easily swap a Shia regime for a Sunni one, and of course the Sunni know what happened to Saddam and the Baathists. A dog will suffer nearly any abuse and still lick the hand of its master; Iraqi's aren't dogs but that doesn't stop the American government from trying to get someone to lick the hand that beats them. Seeing Malaki grovel for American airstrikes must have been very gratifying.

In any case, would it not be more efficient to cut off the Syrian rebels/ISIS than stage another armed intervention just to get ISIS?

Still waiting for a real rebuttal...

In this case, the actual soldiers are local and only the airstrikes are foreign, so your argument is irrelevant. ONLY YOU seriously seem to think that ISIL is at all likely to get the US to deploy in the Middle East again.

Myself and every other far more serious antiwar observer. The latest addition of troops raises the official count to 1600, and the Pentagon warning of a long and difficult fight. Obama's term ends before the completion of his three-year war plan, but one can expect over 2000+ troops and climbing by the time he leaves office.

So, the U.S. is in fact redeploying to the Middle East. Tens of thousands of U.S. troops remain in Europe and Japan long after any realistic prospect for hot war ended. Regardless of the situation on the ground, the U.S. government wants its logistical base in the Middle East.

As I've been trying to tell you for about two weeks, your belief that ceasing to supply the Syrian rebels would automatically destroy ISIL is a farce based entirely on your own conspiracy theory.

Still relying on the conspiracy theory meme? It seems your warmongering faction is the only side allowed to indulge in applied conspiracy theory, as in, ISIS can only be dealt with by armed intervention. The same way Al Qaida could be dealt with by invading Afghanistan and Iraq, even though the 911 terrorists were Saudis. Warmongering has been proven wrong at a material level, and is already wrong at a moral level.

The antiwar formula is not unproven; Islamic extremism did not exist in Iraq before the overthrow of Saddam's secular regime, nor was it a force in Syria until the Syrian rebels received Western support. Western interventions stoke extremism which is used to justify more intervention which stokes more extremism. The absence of western interventions allows locals to retake control of their lives and better assert more peaceful local priorities. Its a very observable and reliable constant.

Its been a week and I'd be sure you'd have done much better. Are you aware the Syrian rebels won't be joining in the fight against ISIS? Yet, they expect open and official armed support now.

General Military Council of Iraqi Revolutionaries stated via an unnamed source: "We plan to avoid them [ISIS] until we are settled and operations are finished; then we will kick them out".[11]

The presence of MCIR fighters on the ground has been noted by observers, who argued that United States airstrikes would "inflame" the situation in Iraq by not taking into account the diversity of the opposition to the al-Maliki regime."

ISIS is only a fraction of the fighters on the ground. The situation is much more complex than airstrikes can resolve.

Wait.

So... they're destroying captured heavy equipment they can't use.

And yet you're saying that the only reason they're powerful is because of captured heavy equipment. Do you not see the contradiction here? How can they be using weapons seized in Syria but unable to use weapons seized in Iraq that ultimately originate from the same country?[/url]

It should be self evident that M1 Abrams, helicopters, and some types of artillery pieces, are heavy equipment a little out of their league. The skills base just isn't there...

Whatever armoured vehicles ISIS captured from Syria could in theory be operated by Syrian Army deserters and use captured parts and munitions, but they don't seem to figure prominently in ISIS campaigns. Airstrikes against ISIS hit mainly technicals, very low value targets.

ISIS is a highly mobile heavy infantry force using technicals, but lack the armour and expertise of true heavy infantry. The use of technicals and mobility was proven by Chad during the Toyota War, against the late Col. Gadaffi's expeditionary invasion force in 1987. However, Gaddafi was not the military genius he thought he was and incompetence and the defection of a key general probably factored heavily in those losses. Chad did not presume to march on Tripoli with technicals. ISIS will not move on Baghdad with technicals. Technicals fare badly against conventional armour and protected positions, augmented by sincere local support, ready to receive an attack. Gaddafi held out for months against technicals even with NATO airstrikes against him.

Its Sunnis like the GMCIR, not ISIS, that Shia sectarians and American warmongers fear most. They may retain the ability to put Iraq back together again, and are not wild Jihadis but a more disciplined and civilized force.

In any case, without Syrian rebel aid, ISIS would not long be able to support fleets of technicals being driven into the ground jumping from the outskirts of Baghdad to northern Syria and back again.

What makes you think they are chiefly reliant on weapons they cannot scrounge or purchase supplies for locally?

Well, first of all they would have already had those along with everyone else.

Its the foreign aid that made the difference. You seem to underestimate how little it takes to give a postmodern infantry force an edge over a Soviet-era Third World army. Night vison goggles probably fit under the category of 'non-lethal' aid, and owning the night is a huge advantage itself. Being able to afford a constant supply of technicals is another advantage local populations do not enjoy. Ditto military rations and medical supplies.

You have not proven that this will work.

There you go again demanding proof of the efficacy of non-intervention when its armed interventions that caused this whole situation in the first place. Non-intervention is proven by history. Assad's Syria and Saddam's Iraq were not model societies, but peaceful and prosperous compared to post-intervention Syria and Iraq.

Al Qaida is still around, as is the Taliban. Common sense suggests that without Syrian rebel aid, ISIS is just another pack of extremists locals would happily put down, as Assad's army nearly did the Syrian rebels and Iraq's GMCIR, the ISI.

You have not established that they are in any way linked to ISIL. Or, for that matter, that they ARE doing anything, as opposed to MAY BE doing things.

Uncovering what COG protocols are in effect and what the COG has actually done to aid and guide warmongers in Congress and the Senate is nonetheless important. Otherwise, even if antiwar activists win the occasional battle, the war party would only be set back, not defeated. You don't seem at all concerned about the principle of government transparency and accountability. You could say it never truly existed, but neither has it ever been so far from the ideal.

What about me? I have repeatedly punctured your arguments as being full of hot air, of irrelevant tangents and vague speculations about the possible motives of people who show no concrete sign of even being connected to the matter of which you speak.

Mostly you've been relying on Channel32 to double-dumb down and resume personal attacks.

I'm surprised you haven't picked on actual factual errors, like my erroneous claim that the U.S. wasn't as old as the 1880s. A strange mistake on my part. Or that it was the Danes, not the Dutch who confirmed MH17's black boxes were recovered intact, and not, as the story was beginning to spin, tampered with by pro-Russian rebels. Or that freemasons in charge of society being irrelevant was a lazy, incomplete response.

Since you won't, I'll just acknowledge some of that now. The U.S. was founded in 1776. In the 1880's, the United States was concluding the Indian Wars. Although American Independence was in many ways a triumph of the Enlightenment, there was a darker side. While the British preferred to respect treaties made with Aboriginal nations, this did not sit will with American Colonials.

From the highest office to the middle classes, they only saw only the profits to be made from land speculation on westward expansionism. Then as now, imperialists claimed a moral right to do evil for a greater good. Then it was to establish a society free of the humanitarian mistakes of Europe, now its humanitarian interventionism. At what point are genuine humanitarian ideals honestly realized?

While the Aboriginals did try to remain neutral during the Revolutionary War, constant infiltrations by settlers into their territories made siding with the British a logical temptation to some leaders, the last chance to stop Colonial expansionism. The Aboriginals lost. A new nation was founded - for white males only, confirming a pattern of attitudes and behaviors later known as 'whiteness theory'.

To their credit, the Colonials who won America did not expressly preclude non-white males from ever being recognized as persons. They left it to better generations to do the good they could not, and so it was, albeit reluctantly.

So, perhaps its no surprise America is where it is today, treating some parts of the world like 'Injun territory', because it can. Even the E.U. only count as friendly Injuns, to be bribed, used and discarded like the powerful Aboriginal nations were. The same blind spot for the rights and responsibilities of human beings plays out today across class lines, whether elitists in Washington and elitist-minded common folk. There is still that sense of overglorified bullyhood, what came to be known as 'Manifest Destiny', a version of the 'promised land' mythos with a little of the Roman 'terra nova' thrown in for good measure. The attitude problem behind everything PNAC.

Karma's back with a vengeance and demanding payment for the culture of rot in the pillar of the Constitution.

What about me? I am not pro-war. I just think you're full of crap.

What about you? Explain to me how its not warmongery to advocate armed intervention, over simply cutting off the Syrian rebels/ISIS and letting their rivals drill out their kneecaps for them if they don't stand down over beheading folks?

You've never explained how armed intervention is going to work any better than before, and when, not if, it doesn't, why repeating the pattern of disaster from the recent past is better than just walking away. The academic merits in arguing the prowar side are cancelled out by the problem that you're not really arguing it so much as repeating a propaganda message with no substance to back it up. Its now your turn to explain yourself; asking me to explain myself over and over isn't an argument.

You've got it in your head we need to go in and fight ISIS, when ISIS is not our fight at all, for all that they are our pet monster via the Syrian rebels. The locals can handle it, given half a chance. Sunni extremism was well under control in Assad's Syria and Saddam's Iraq, less because these men were strategic geniuses, but because the locals wanted it that way. Authoritarian leaders didn't have absolute power; they make deals with other powerful factions over the spoils of power, and this networking works on down by tribe and clan.

If one were to smash Norwegian society then fund and arm every Anders Behring Breivik-styled lunatic that could be found, then import even more, Norway would likely fare no better than Afghanistan, which transited from an upwardly-mobile developing country in the 1970s to the hole it is today thanks to the American-supported Mujahadeen.

So yes, you are pro-war, and its a measure of your whiteness that you do not see any problem with the white man's burden to beat designated non-whites into civility, never knowing when it time to deal or simply back off because 'the other' aren't worthy of that consideration.

That's part of my point. Brock's so caught up in "wow, ISIL captured weapons from other Syrian rebel groups! That must be how they started! IT MUST HAVE BEEN A US PLOT DESIGNED TO HAPPEN THIS WAY!" that he's lost track of basic philosophical and logical concepts.

Something tells me, my grasp of these concepts is sounder than yours will ever be, at least as far as this thread is concerned.

Even without PNAC, its observed by reliable news services that Syrian rebel aid flows to ISIS despite a supposed CIA vetting process. If they can fool the CIA, its ridiculous to keep supporting Syrian rebels if one wants to stop ISIS. Since the Obama administration now wants to openly support the Syrian rebels, but with no apparent way to prevent aid from continuing to reach ISIS, and Syrian rebels openly refusing to fight ISIS, one has to assume Obama and the CIA are either incompetent, or Western support of ISIS is a tolerable outcome for some reason.

In this case, he's making a common mistake found in fiction, especially badly plotted fiction, by assuming ISIL has no ontological inertia. In other words, he thinks that if X helped bring Y into existence, then once you remove X, Y will vanish in a puff of smoke.

It doesn't work that way, anymore than you can make someone magically regenerate from a gunshot wound by pulling the bullet out.

Ontological inertia is a TV trope; eh, what's up with that doc?

The Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) was already on the outs with the Sunni Iraqi resistance for essentially fighting badly for the cause with excessive violence and stoking sectarian conflict. ISI then entered Syria and emerged with a breakaway faction from Al Nusra and an 'S' for Syria to form ISIS, which then turned against those Syrian rebels not with them.

With all the Syrian rebel aid they have recieved, Syrian rebel resistance to ISIS does not appear heartfelt. However, the Syrian national army wants them all destroyed. Iraqi Sunni are similarly unimpressed. So yes, it is reasonable to assume that ISIS would fold, having signficant enemies in the regions they occupy. Without Syrian rebel aid, they would be destroyed or downgraded to insignificance by everyone they've ticked off or otherwise made suspicious or envious of their success. The aid itself is possibly no small factor in being able to barter influence with other groups who otherwise would have no access to such materiale.

All my positions are internally coherent, with external evidence of a circumstantial or direct nature to support them. Even the ISIS/Isis codeword link is based on circumstantial evidence, that could easily be mere coincidence, but is still coherent. Yours are founded on the precondition that armed intervention by the U.S. must happen, a completely, demonstrably, moral and materially unsound and incoherent position. You just don't make any sense faced with the facts.

Yet another decent journalist died chronicling the latest war, this time because the American government won't pay ransom to terrorists. Yet they will spend millions on helfire missiles to what? Avenge him? The Middle East has always been violent, but starting with Afghanistan, American interventions have all led to chaos, cultural collapse, and humanitarian disaster where before local entities could enforce stability and keep extremism to the fringes of society.

Explain why armed intervention is better than none at all. Even the fiction of limiting the war to airstrikes only, is ridiculous given that Yemen gets droned on regularly but no victory against Jihadis there is in sight. Explain why arming the Syrian rebels despite that support finding its way to ISIS is so logical when it clearly is not. All you've done in response is demand that I explain myself and cast insults; ISIS is bad and we need to attack it to the exclusion of any other more sane and economical solution than wasting helfire missiles; why? Explain why.

[Edit: muffed the quotes somehow; it keeps adding an extra quote and I can't delete it. Srry.]

[General Brock]

...

No, you're trying to weasel out of your bullshit argument about ISIS as a code name. Basically, you look like at a total idiot who doesn't know what he's talking about, and now you're trying to change the subject.

Why would I need to weasel out of something I already admitted I couldn't prove in the first place? What was the first thing I posted? Oh, right,

"... have the CIA/Saudi/GCC pull the plug on funding, arming, and otherwise overtly and covertly supporting the Syrian insurgency. Cut off, ISIS would then collapse within a couple of years if not sooner. There may still be violence, but not on this scale and not with Western treasure and blood."

You're dishonestly trying to weasel out of explaining your position.

Your link from antiwar.com is misleading bullshit. (You sure love can't get enough of these "alternative media" outlets...) The attack on the Yazidis was not fake. The fact that a lot of the Yazidi's neighbors sided with ISIS doesn't mean ISIS wasn't trying to kill them.

You do realize, you just repeated what the link said even though you called it bullshit? ISIS attacked some Yazidis, their non-ISIS neighbors followed up on the whole community.

So, yeah, there are a lot of bad guys there; but ISIS uses western aid meant for Syrian rebels. If aid had been cut, there would be no moral responsibility, but it wasn't, and so we are essentially aiding provocateurs of ethnic cleansing. That's as warm and fuzzy as mold in a corpse.

You are now blatantly engaging in "wall-of-ignorance", repeat yourself ad nauseum tactics. This argument has been dealt with numerous times. For the last time, cutting off supplies to ISIS now will do nothing. They took weapons from the Iraqi army and the towns they've conquered. They have numerous ways of obtaining weapons aside from those they steal from the Syrian rebels.

I'm sure you get it; you just don't care. Therefore, I will continue to point out the obvious - cut off the Syrian rebels, and one logistical support line is cut, the one reported to have made ISIS possible in the first place. No American armed intervention is needed to deal with ISIS. As for other ways ISIS is receiving Western aid, so what? One has to start somewhere and its not been reported extensively that significant direct Western support for ISIS is happening outside the pretext of supporting Syrian rebels, though obviously if this was happening, it is as irrational as supporting ISIS via Syrian rebels.

As for local weapons, reducing ISIS to parity with local militias was already the assumed default should aid to the Syrian rebels stop flowing to them. So far, you seem to be just nitpicking the wording of my position rather than substantiating your own.

Seriously? That's your response. "Weapons break down" so therefore ISIS has no way of obtaining weapons except via stealing from the Syrian rebels. Please provide evidence for this immediately. Demonstrate that ISIS has no way of obtaining weapons aside from stealing from Syrian rebels. Since when has any Jihadist group in the Middle East had difficulty obtaining weapons?

Your response is essentially "let's bomb ISIS". At least we know for sure weapons do need to be maintained. We also know bombing militants elsewhere doesn't seem to really stop them from appearing.

Its common sense that vehicles and weaponry need maintenance and a steady supply of spare parts and ammo to keep functioning.

I never said ISIS had 'no way' of obtaining weapons. At one point, the Syrian Army itself was selling them munitions. I did say, if the goal were to stop ISIS, woudn't it be easier to cut off the Syrian rebels from whom ISIS has gotten so many supplies? You keep asking for proof but having rejected my proof, at this point its your job to start backing your assertions.

How is armed intervention supposed to quell ISIS? The Taliban, a group with no Western support but much indigenous support continues to operate effectively under Occupation conditions, but ISIS is supposed to fold under airstrikes even when it continues to receive Western support via the Syrian Rebels? Yemen is completely defenseless against drone attacks, but there is not end in sight to that campaign.

LOL. Oh my god, "COG"... you realize that the neocons who initiated COG on 9/11 are out of power now. Do you think Cheney/Rumsfeld have any fucking influence on the Obama administration?

You're restating my words wildly out of context. At least my wildest assertions had an internal logic and circumstantial evidence. Your reasoning chain only works if formenting unending war was the plan all along, and not stopping terrorism. Yet you dismiss this as so much 'conspiracy theory'.

To continue to supply the Syrian rebels and empower the COG without question is to abet a kind of moral hazzard and be complicit in the crimes of ISIS. This is also true if ISIS is partly living off the land, as it were, since they are also still receiving aid meant for the Syrian rebels.

Although, I will have to concede that America does apparently support more war; it may be conditional on airstrikes only, but that's not the real deal.

At this point there is no evidence that Obama intends to do anything more than provide air support and help out the native ground forces.

What a lame duck president intends isn't worth very much. Helping out indigenous forces is a rather open-ended limitation.

So far, 4-6 trillion dollars have been spent on countries incapable of ever returning that value to the American people for decades. Its like a transfer from the American treasury to the defense industry.

As posted to Simon_Jester, 1600 troops are already on the ground; indigenous forces will need a lot of 'help' if the U.S. continues to supply the Syrian rebels/ISIS. The Syrian government and Shiite leaders such as al Sadr, have already indicated, American interventions are not welcome even against ISIS.

...

So? That's the practical reality. Everyone knows the US is likely to be bombing Jihadists via air-strikes for the next 10-20 years.

Eh, concession accepted, unless you can explain how this decades long airstrike campaign is easier than simply cutting off the Syrian rebels/ISIS. Oh, wait, you didn't say you were talking about ISIS; you just assumed you didn't have to give me a straight answer because the war was going to happen anyway, even though its time you started explaining your position.

So far the closest you've come to a rebuttal is bringing up ISIS' control of a few marginal oil wells and smuggling networks - which they are unlikely to be able to defend for very long, without the same edge of Western aid that empowered them in the first place.

The Syrian and Iraqi governments want their oil fields back. Other local, rival militias have been living off oil smuggling for some time; ISIS can't muscle in on that action and not have made a few enemies. Once cut off from outside support, rival factions within ISIS might start feuding for control, since ISIS was once two separate entities, Al Nusra in Syria and the Islamic State of Iraq, in Iraq.

The practical reality is, as far as this thread goes, stop aiding the Syrian Rebels, and ISIS folds. Without foreign aid, ISIS is highly unlikely to be able to compete with local militias, equivalently armed and with home turf advantage. Unless Americans return, and they find common cause not in killing each other but Americans.

Your entire position boils down to, now that ISIS has been built up by American intervention, it has to be brought down by even more American intervention. This is the same moral hazzard argument from the Occupation; 'we broke it, so we have to stay and fix it', inviting the question, what's stopping the American government from breaking nations on falsified pretexts so it can fix them on a regular basis?

[Simon_Jester]

Brock, you're still wall-of-ignorancing some very important parts of your opponents positions.

For one, you are inviting the question: why do you think cutting off weapons to Syrian rebels will cause ISIL to 'fold?' They have, as has been documented already, a daily budget somewhere north of three million a day; what makes you think they can't simply buy whatever weapons they need? You have no evidence at all that the majority of the weapons ISIL now has came from US aid to Syrian rebels. You have never done more than assert that "some" of those weapons came by that channel.

And yet you persist in magnifying the "US aid to rebels captured by ISIL" part of this complex situation, as if it was the only thing that matters. As if it is the secret key to unlocking all wisdom.

As if it tells you the secrets of the shadowy conspiracy in charge of US foreign policy, the one that secretly is doing the exact opposite of what it is in fact openly doing, despite the lack of, y'know, people actually doing what you say it's doing.

As if it was the magic spell that brought ISIL into existence, so that when you break the spell the group just... vanishes and ceases to become a problem apparently.

It's totally irrational, it does NOT have any internal logic outside your own head. It doesn't even begin to hang together in a convincing fashion.
_______________________________

Now, all this is totally separate from the question of whether armed intervention will work.

If all you can do in response to me is ramble drunkenly about how armed intervention is wrong because fighting is bad or moral hazards or whatever, I am going to take that as you specifically conceding on the specific claim that cutting off aid to Syrian rebels would seriously impact ISIL operations.

[jwl]

Didn't ISIL get more weapons for the US aid to the Iraqi government than from the other syrian rebels, anyway?

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah.

See, this is what I mean about 'ontological inertia.' It's a TVTropes term but the idea is significant. In real life, once a thing has been caused to happen, it "stays happened." The thing cannot be undone by removing the cause of the thing. If the house collapses because of heavy rain, the rain stopping won't uncollapse the house. Removing a bullet from a dead man won't unkill him. Locking the barn door after the horse has been stolen won't retroactively prevent the thief's escape.

But in Brockland, it seems to be the other way around. If, at any time, ISIL made significant gains thanks to weapons some of which were captured from other Syrian rebels, an unspecified fraction of which were supplied by the US...

Therefore, Brock 'reasons,' if the US stops supplying the Syrian rebels, ISIL will lose all its strength and fearsomeness and wither away in short order, with no further US intervention.

[Channel72]

Why would I need to weasel out of something I already admitted I couldn't prove in the first place? What was the first thing I posted?

You tried continuously to argue that ISIS was some sort of code name, and only after that argument was thoroughly thrashed did you kinda, sorta concede (but not really concede - you just claimed you were never really "serious"... )

The fact that you even made this argument in the first place pretty much shows that you have no fucking clue what you're talking about - which makes me feel pretty stupid for even bothering to respond. Thanks, asshole.

So, yeah, there are a lot of bad guys there; but ISIS uses western aid meant for Syrian rebels. If aid had been cut, there would be no moral responsibility, but it wasn't, and so we are essentially aiding provocateurs of ethnic cleansing. That's as warm and fuzzy as mold in a corpse.

Some fraction of ISIS' initial resources came from Western aid... so what? At best that fact somewhat justifies armed intervention.

I'm sure you get it; you just don't care. Therefore, I will continue to point out the obvious - cut off the Syrian rebels, and one logistical support line is cut, the one reported to have made ISIS possible in the first place. No American armed intervention is needed to deal with ISIS.

Shut the fuck up already. You are seriously nothing but a broken-record spambot at this point. Since you so miserably fail the Turing Test, rather than responding to you I am going to just write a Python script that links to my post above demonstrating that ISIS makes 3 million a day, and therefore doesn't give a flying fuck about American aid.

Jesus fucking Christ...

[Channel72]

So... more airstrikes have begun. But not from the US this time.

Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29277630

French jets have carried out their first strikes against Islamic State (IS) militants in Iraq, the office of President Francois Hollande says.

A statement said planes had attacked an IS depot in north-east Iraq, and there would be more raids in the coming days.

The US has carried out more than 170 air strikes against the jihadist group in Iraq since mid-August.

IS remains in control of dozens of cities and towns in Iraq and Syria, where it has declared a caliphate. French jets have been flying reconnaissance missions over Iraq from a base in the United Arab Emirates

France is the first of Washington's allies to strike at IS targets. The mission underscores the perhaps surprising military activism of the socialist French president.

He has committed his country to military interventions in Mali, Central Africa and now Iraq. The French government has made it clear that its air strikes will be restricted to IS targets in Iraq and that there will be no French troops involved in fighting on the ground.

This geographical restriction of French air operations underscores the complexity of President Obama's stated aim of degrading and disrupting IS activities in Syria too.

That is a mission that US air power may have to take on alone and, despite the fact that Congress is moving to back a "train and equip" programme for the "moderate" Syrian opposition, there are still many questions about how effectively the counter-IS struggle can be extended to Syrian territory as well.

Friday's air strike comes a day after President Hollande said he had agreed to an Iraqi request for air support, but it would only target IS in Iraq and not in neighbouring Syria.

He also insisted that he would not send ground troops.

France had already been carrying out reconnaissance flights over Iraq and providing weapons to Kurdish fighters in the north.

Mr Hollande's office said Rafale planes had carried out the attack and "the objective was hit and completely destroyed"..

Compared to the amount of US airstrikes so far, French airstrikes are pretty minimal - but evidentally will increase substantially. France is the first country other than the US to actually carry out airstrikes, even though both the UK and Germany have suggested they would contribute as well. Still, none of the NATO countries have authorized airstrikes within Syrian territory yet. All airstrikes are limited to ISIS territory in Iraq.

[Raw Shark]

So... more airstrikes have begun. But not from the US this time.

[snip]

Compared to the amount of US airstrikes so far, French airstrikes are pretty minimal - but evidentally will increase substantially. France is the first country other than the US to actually carry out airstrikes, even though both the UK and Germany have suggested they would contribute as well. Still, none of the NATO countries have authorized airstrikes within Syrian territory yet. All airstrikes are limited to ISIS territory in Iraq.

Speaking as a taxpayer in the USA, I'll take what I can get when it comes to other people blowing up people that the USA wants blow'd up. Mr. Hollande should completely destroy that shit, fuck his newest mistress, eat some cheese, and have a nap for his to-do list today.

[Gandalf]

Islamic State recruitment soaring in wake of U.S. bombing

The Islamic State jihadist organization has recruited more than 6,000 new fighters since America began targeting the group with air strikes last month, according to the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

At least 1,300 of the new recruits are said to be foreigners, who have joined IS from outside the swathes of Syria and Iraq that it controls.

The United States has launched some 165 air strikes on IS targets since early August. Other strikes have been carried out by the U.K and France, the latest a French attack on a logistics depot in Iraq on Friday.

A number of rebel commanders who oppose IS while continuing to fight the regime of Syrian president Bashar Assad have warned that the strikes are increasing local support for the jihadists.

IS runs aggressive social media-led recruitment campaigns in the Middle East and targets young Muslims in the West with slick English-language propaganda videos and digital magazines.

The bulk of the foreign fighters who have signed up in the past six weeks are aged between 15 and 20-years-old and have never been involved in a conflict before, according to Abdurrahman Saleh, a spokesman for the Islam Army, part of the Islamic Front rebel group.

The Islamic State receives approximately 20 new recruits a day in the town of north-west Syrian town al-Bab alone, Saleh told The Times newspaper. There are "hundreds" of other towns in Syria seeing a similar level of arrival, he added.

Many of the jihadists are believed to enter Syria across the porous border with Turkey after arriving at the popular tourist airport Antalya on budget airline flights.

Experienced fighters from areas like North Africa and Chechnya receive a monthly wage of up to $980 (3,570 shekels) a month, according to Hussam al-Marie, a spokesman for the Free Syrian Army. Professionals, such as doctors and surgeons, receive even more.

Maybe more airstrikes are the answer?

[Broomstick]

Well, yeah, the Big Meanies attack the people who slaughter unarmed/surrendered men, pass the women around as sex slaves/housekeepers/"wives", enslave and/or slaughter children and of course the supporters of such activity are going to rally around the "victims" whose rampage of death and torture is being impeded.



A conflict generally does have at least two sides. As the argument escalates people polarize. This is a surprise?

The age and lack of experience of the recruits is also telling, in my opinion. At least some of these young men are caught up in the romance of supporting a cause, but the reality is they will be pawns and cannon fodder.

[Grumman]

Maybe more airstrikes are the answer?

...Yes? It would be different if the airstrikes were hitting non-ISIS targets and that was causing problems, but ISIS is a bunch of genocidal slavers. If attacking them is making other supporters of genocide and slavery drop the pretense and show their true colours, that's a good thing.

[Broomstick]

It would be convenient if all the genocidal slavers self-identified then congregated into compact groups for easier targeting.

[Dartzap]

Eh? When did the UK start dropping missiles? Far as I know Cameron hasn't put the issue to Parliament yet. Last I heard they were asking around the backbenches for support to become directly involved.

Also GQ Man of The Year Says We Should Invade Again

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair has said that sending in combat troops to fight Islamic State militants on the ground should not be ruled out.

Mr Blair said in a BBC interview: "Unless you're prepared to fight these people on the ground, you may contain them but you won't defeat them."

He said there was "no appetite for ground engagement in the West" and that local forces could take on the role.
The jihadists claim to have established a caliphate in Syria and northern Iraq.

Previously known as ISIS, the group has been condemned by the West for its brutal tactics, including on-camera beheadings.

Well, he would know.....

[mr friendly guy]

Well, yeah, the Big Meanies attack the people who slaughter unarmed/surrendered men, pass the women around as sex slaves/housekeepers/"wives", enslave and/or slaughter children and of course the supporters of such activity are going to rally around the "victims" whose rampage of death and torture is being impeded.



A conflict generally does have at least two sides. As the argument escalates people polarize. This is a surprise?

The age and lack of experience of the recruits is also telling, in my opinion. At least some of these young men are caught up in the romance of supporting a cause, but the reality is they will be pawns and cannon fodder.

If ISIL's support increases with US air strikes, the better questions to ask are

a. Can we kill more of them faster than their propaganda can recruit
b. Will less overt support lead to their weakening without being a recruiting tool, and if yes what groups are willing to fight them.

The answer to the first one is hell if I know, but given how hard its been to root out terrorist organisations (when one like AQ in Iraq weakens, another like ISIL rises in its place), I wouldn't be willing to place bets either way.

The answer to the second question is probably. They can't use the West as a bogey man if say Arab armies were the ones crushing them. The second part of the question has plenty of groups in that region willing to fight. Unfortunately a lot of them are most probably not strong enough to win, aside from people we don't want to deal with, Assad and Iran spring to mind.

[Grumman]

b. Will less overt support lead to their weakening without being a recruiting tool, and if yes what groups are willing to fight them.
...
The answer to the second question is probably. They can't use the West as a bogey man if say Arab armies were the ones crushing them. The second part of the question has plenty of groups in that region willing to fight. Unfortunately a lot of them are most probably not strong enough to win, aside from people we don't want to deal with, Assad and Iran spring to mind.

Iran isn't Arab, and it isn't Sunni. I don't necessarily oppose burying the hatchet with Iran, but doing so isn't going to make ISIS's sympathisers stop joining their cause. If trying to kill Shiites was a deal breaker for these guys, they wouldn't be joining the We Hate Shiites club.

[K. A. Pital]

Maybe more airstrikes are the answer?

...Yes? It would be different if the airstrikes were hitting non-ISIS targets and that was causing problems, but ISIS is a bunch of genocidal slavers. If attacking them is making other supporters of genocide and slavery drop the pretense and show their true colours, that's a good thing.

That must be the dumbest comment I've read in years.

So again, if ISIS are just a bunch of genocidal slavers and anyone supporting them deserves to die automatically because he has shown his 'true colors' (whatever the hell this is supposed to mean), why did you not suggest to slaughter the Japanese down to the very last child? They (many of them willingly, as it was a part of their religion and tradition) supported a regime guilty of things much worse than the ISIS, and they could enforce it on a greater scale.

[PKRudeBoy]

Maybe more airstrikes are the answer?

...Yes? It would be different if the airstrikes were hitting non-ISIS targets and that was causing problems, but ISIS is a bunch of genocidal slavers. If attacking them is making other supporters of genocide and slavery drop the pretense and show their true colours, that's a good thing.

That must be the dumbest comment I've read in years.

So again, if ISIS are just a bunch of genocidal slavers and anyone supporting them deserves to die automatically because he has shown his 'true colors' (whatever the hell this is supposed to mean), why did you not suggest to slaughter the Japanese down to the very last child? They (many of them willingly, as it was a part of their religion and tradition) supported a regime guilty of things much worse than the ISIS, and they could enforce it on a greater scale.

Information access. The average person in WWII was being spoon fed propaganda on a daily basis, especially in the Axis powers. Foreign fighters joining ISIS can see exactly what they are doing, and I would rather have people who support ISIS, it's goals, and it's methods enough to take up arms in one convenient grid square then spread out in major population centers.

[Grumman]

So again, if ISIS are just a bunch of genocidal slavers and anyone supporting them deserves to die automatically because he has shown his 'true colors' (whatever the hell this is supposed to mean), why did you not suggest to slaughter the Japanese down to the very last child?

I used the phrase "show their true colours" because ISIS can only recruit people who are already assholes. Anyone who is not already an asshole looks at them murdering religious minorities and selling their children as sex slaves, sees them eat an airstrike and thinks to themselves "Good riddance", because people who are not assholes do not like people who murder religious minorities and sell their children as sex slaves, and do not take up arms to help them just because they start losing. This is not equivalent to saying we should have killed the Japanese down to the very last child, because not every Japanese person down to the last child was taking up arms to advance the cause of murdering and raping Chinese civilians.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, yeah, the Big Meanies attack the people who slaughter unarmed/surrendered men, pass the women around as sex slaves/housekeepers/"wives", enslave and/or slaughter children and of course the supporters of such activity are going to rally around the "victims" whose rampage of death and torture is being impeded.



A conflict generally does have at least two sides. As the argument escalates people polarize. This is a surprise?

The age and lack of experience of the recruits is also telling, in my opinion. At least some of these young men are caught up in the romance of supporting a cause, but the reality is they will be pawns and cannon fodder.

If ISIL's support increases with US air strikes, the better questions to ask are

a. Can we kill more of them faster than their propaganda can recruit
b. Will less overt support lead to their weakening without being a recruiting tool, and if yes what groups are willing to fight them.

One catch is that this may be an initial upsurge of support that is not followed by an endless stream of recruitment. ISIL is not a normal terrorist organization; it's an army that happens to use terror tactics and organized crime to support its operations.

Armies often see a huge upsurge of idealistic young recruits in the opening phase of a conflict, because eighteen-year-olds like to feel badass by joining an army. That doesn't mean that said army will always and automatically gain more manpower from being shot at.

For that matter- sure, ISIL's gained six thousand recruits in the past month. How many recruits have the forces opposing them gained? How many new troops are being trained by the Kurds and the southern Iraqis to oppose ISIL? Maybe the logic of "shooting at them only makes them stronger" cuts both ways, and ISIL's massacres of random innocent people can also cause people to join their enemies.

Maybe more airstrikes are the answer?

...Yes? It would be different if the airstrikes were hitting non-ISIS targets and that was causing problems, but ISIS is a bunch of genocidal slavers. If attacking them is making other supporters of genocide and slavery drop the pretense and show their true colours, that's a good thing.

That must be the dumbest comment I've read in years.

So again, if ISIS are just a bunch of genocidal slavers and anyone supporting them deserves to die automatically because he has shown his 'true colors' (whatever the hell this is supposed to mean), why did you not suggest to slaughter the Japanese down to the very last child? They (many of them willingly, as it was a part of their religion and tradition) supported a regime guilty of things much worse than the ISIS, and they could enforce it on a greater scale.

If you sign up for the armed forces of ISIL, you have made yourself a target.

The analogy is not between the people who join ISIL and the set of all Japanese people. It's between ISIL and, say, the set of all Imperial Japanese Army personnel.

If you signed up for the IJA, knowing that they routinely massacred and tortured prisoners and knowing they grabbed foreign women for sex slaves and so on... frankly, yes, you have basically signed away your right to continue living. If your nation's victorious enemies happen to deign to not kill you, very well, but you have no moral right to say "don't kill me" after affiliating yourself with the armed vanguard of a brutal and tyrannical organization, knowing full well what atrocities they were committing.

Do not conflate actual members of an armed and dangerous organization with innocent random people in the country the organization occupies.

[Broomstick]

That analogy falls down in that I don't think joining the military was in any way optional in Imperial Japan in WWII.

The people joining ISIL right now, outside of ISIL controlled area, ARE choosing to join. I have no sympathy for them throwing in their lot with the likes of ISIL.

[mr friendly guy]

b. Will less overt support lead to their weakening without being a recruiting tool, and if yes what groups are willing to fight them.
...
The answer to the second question is probably. They can't use the West as a bogey man if say Arab armies were the ones crushing them. The second part of the question has plenty of groups in that region willing to fight. Unfortunately a lot of them are most probably not strong enough to win, aside from people we don't want to deal with, Assad and Iran spring to mind.

Iran isn't Arab, and it isn't Sunni. I don't necessarily oppose burying the hatchet with Iran, but doing so isn't going to make ISIS's sympathisers stop joining their cause. If trying to kill Shiites was a deal breaker for these guys, they wouldn't be joining the We Hate Shiites club.

I know. That's why I said "if say Arab armies are the ones crushing them." I don't know how you interpret "if say" in this context, but its pretty much meant as synonymous with "for example", and not limited to that example.

[mr friendly guy]

that is not followed by an endless stream of recruitment. ISIL is not a normal terrorist organization; it's an army that happens to use terror tactics and organized crime to support its operations.

Armies often see a huge upsurge of idealistic young recruits in the opening phase of a conflict, because eighteen-year-olds like to feel badass by joining an army. That doesn't mean that said army will always and automatically gain more manpower from being shot at.

This is hard to say either way. I will note that if they can get a a strip club worker, drug using, party going Australian to become sympathetic to their cause and plan terrorist attacks, something is
a. going "right" with their propaganda that they can get people you wouldn't normally pin as a genocidal slaver to join them
b. The people they target are fucked up in the first place, albeit not in an obvious way and "easy" to manipulate to become supportive of genocidal slavers

In other words, the people might not necessarily be genocidal slavers merely too afraid to show their colours, but people who wouldn't have thought such actions were acceptable beforehand. I mean how many times have we seen Christian apologists say slavery and genocide is ok when God does it?

For that matter- sure, ISIL's gained six thousand recruits in the past month. How many recruits have the forces opposing them gained? How many new troops are being trained by the Kurds and the southern Iraqis to oppose ISIL? Maybe the logic of "shooting at them only makes them stronger" cuts both ways, and ISIL's massacres of random innocent people can also cause people to join their enemies.

Correct. That's why some people have suggested leaving them to strew in their own shit for a short period, build up resentment and then go in.

I am not an advocate of either option, I am undecided. I am just posting to see other opinions and get more information to see what is the best way to deal with ISIL.

BTW I am not sure if you got the point, about the US being a particular bogeyman. Its not that ISIL can't get recruits from the actions of its enemies, but it seems to do better in recruiting when the US enters the fray. Because of the US history in the ME. In fact I am leaning towards the TYT interpretation that they want the US to go in because they are gambling that they can get more recruits than the US can kill.

[Simon_Jester]

That analogy falls down in that I don't think joining the military was in any way optional in Imperial Japan in WWII.

They had conscripts, but they also had quite willing volunteers. Conscription doesn't mean literally everyone gets called up on their eighteenth birthday or whatever.

This is hard to say either way. I will note that if they can get a a strip club worker, drug using, party going Australian to become sympathetic to their cause and plan terrorist attacks, something is

a. going "right" with their propaganda that they can get people you wouldn't normally pin as a genocidal slaver to join them
b. The people they target are fucked up in the first place, albeit not in an obvious way and "easy" to manipulate to become supportive of genocidal slavers

Well, honestly, you can nearly always find isolated individuals who are nuts enough to get sucked into things like this. What's far more relevant is ISIL's recruitment from people who actually live in the area they control, or in other nearby regions of the Middle East.

John Walker Lindh was not a representative sample of the Taliban, and you couldn't learn much about them just from the fact that he joined them.

For that matter- sure, ISIL's gained six thousand recruits in the past month. How many recruits have the forces opposing them gained? How many new troops are being trained by the Kurds and the southern Iraqis to oppose ISIL? Maybe the logic of "shooting at them only makes them stronger" cuts both ways, and ISIL's massacres of random innocent people can also cause people to join their enemies.

Correct. That's why some people have suggested leaving them to strew in their own shit for a short period, build up resentment and then go in.

I am not an advocate of either option, I am undecided. I am just posting to see other opinions and get more information to see what is the best way to deal with ISIL.

I feel that the current strategy is more or less right- arm and support the local armies ringing ISIL in, then close the ring when the local forces have had time to reorganize, and become better prepared for fighting.

BTW I am not sure if you got the point, about the US being a particular bogeyman. Its not that ISIL can't get recruits from the actions of its enemies, but it seems to do better in recruiting when the US enters the fray. Because of the US history in the ME. In fact I am leaning towards the TYT interpretation that they want the US to go in because they are gambling that they can get more recruits than the US can kill.

The tricky bit is that there's a fine line between "lots of recruits" and "no logistics means we can't win a pitched battle against, say, the Iranian Army." ISIL made the choice months if not years ago to fight in open battle like a real army, and they've done pretty well that way so far. However, the US has a lot of hardware and experience for kicking apart real armies, so that can backfire on them.

ISIL can always go back to being a terrorist or guerilla army, but frankly I think we've reached the point where that's just going to result in a bloody situation in central Iraq- and with ISIL no longer having the power to do anything other than commit terrorism on its own land.