'No survivors' after Russian plane crash, officials say

[Channel72]

ISIS will be so very fucked if it is a bomb. Russia has been bombing Al-Nusra and Jaish Al-Fatah, one of the Gulf state jihadist "ISIS-lite" creatures, but if it really was ISIS, at least in Syria they will be routed.

The problem is that saying "ISIS did [X]" is almost entirely meaningless at this point, unless Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi explicitly announces that he ordered somebody to do this. There are so many ISIS wannabe groups and lone-actors, in Egypt and elsewhere, that claiming "ISIS did [X]" is almost as meaningless as claiming that Al-Qaeda did [X]. It's more like, some idiot, or group of idiots, somewhere in Cairo or whatever, decided that ISIS is awesome, and they want in on that shit, so they either got in touch with other people who supported ISIS via friends or friends of friends, and eventually organized a method of getting a bomb onto a Russian airline with shit security standards, perhaps with the blessing and/or assistance of some other affiliated ISIS members, either directly or indirectly via sending funding/resources.

Either way, neither of the world's major super-powers involved in Syria seem to actually care enough to do anything about actually eliminating ISIS. Probably because at this point there's not much that can be done via air strikes that doesn't involve massive civilian casualties. Russia is only bombing Al-Nusra and other ISIS knock-offs because they operate closer geographically to Assad's territory than ISIS does.

Anyway, the only way to actually get rid of ISIS in a humane way is commit to ground operations (specifically the US really needs to retake Mosul sometime before the Milky Way galaxy merges with Andromeda...)

[cosmicalstorm]

I'm not eager for him to bomb Sinai, I just wrote that short post from a smartphone. I spent the morning watching videos from the Douma bombings of the last few days, children, women, old people with their brains blown everywhere. I have no illusions of tons of innocent people not being there. Stop sticking words into my mouth.

Just wonder what Russia will do as a reaction, I could have written that a bit more in depth...

[Channel72]

Yeah, the glorious rebels are using Alawite prisoners as human shields (they put the prisoners, including children, in cages and drive around Damascus with the cages on the back of trucks...). But Assad doesn't seem to give a shit, he keeps bombing away...

What a mess.

[cosmicalstorm]

Russia will perform a mass-evacuatipn of Egypt using 40 jets.

[SpottedKitty]

Russia will perform a mass-evacuatipn of Egypt using 40 jets.

Will it work any more according to plan than the UK tourists' evacuation? I heard reports earlier that only a few UK flights had been allowed to take off — apparently the airport at Sharm-el-Sheikh is much too small to handle the number of planes that are suddenly needed all at once. And Egyptian bureauocracy, to the surprise of almost no-one, is still managing to drag its feet.

[Grumman]

Probably because at this point there's not much that can be done via air strikes that doesn't involve massive civilian casualties. Russia is only bombing Al-Nusra and other ISIS knock-offs because they operate closer geographically to Assad's territory than ISIS does.

Anyway, the only way to actually get rid of ISIS in a humane way is commit to ground operations (specifically the US really needs to retake Mosul sometime before the Milky Way galaxy merges with Andromeda...)

Is urban combat really going to be a humane alternative to airstrikes?

[Joun_Lord]

Is urban combat really going to be a humane alternative to airstrikes?

Well its easier to get eyes on targets to see what you are put rounds on thus making it easier to avoid civilian causalities. Even the best available optics on a forever a drone, autogyro, or aeroplane is inferior to the Mark 1 eyeball at close range at seeing whether something is a threat or not.

Putting boots on the ground can allow less indiscriminate killings by fuck-ups and also have people on hand to render aid should a fuck-up occur. Of course depending on how much the people on the ground care about collateral damage it might be just as inhumane as dropping bombs from the skies.

[Broomstick]

There's no way to get rid of ISIS without a lot of carnage and "collateral damage" i.e. dead civilians. An ISIS likes it that way.