The Evil that is ISIS

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#1244933 23-Feb-2015 15:31

Except they will end up controlling a lot of oil, and that will eventually become a problem.

BTR: My thoughts are leave them to it on the condition they leave western countries alone but make very clear that if a western country is attacked all hell will break loose and we will carpet bomb until there is nothing but craters and ash.

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#1244937 23-Feb-2015 15:36

MikeAqua: Except they will end up controlling a lot of oil, and that will eventually become a problem.

Yep, they're slippery bastards.

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#1244953 23-Feb-2015 15:56

networkn:
BTR: My thoughts are leave them to it on the condition they leave western countries alone but make very clear that if a western country is attacked all hell will break loose and we will carpet bomb until there is nothing but craters and ash.

Not much of a global citizen are you?

How can you be when no one gives a damn about Slavery, global warming, poaching of endangered animals, Boko Haram just to name a few. At the end of the day its humans who cause all of the misery on the planet. murder, torture and genocide have been going on since mankind existed. Dealing with one group of horrible people won't make the world a better place.

Good and bad can't exist without the other.

networkn

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#1244983 23-Feb-2015 16:24

BTR:
networkn:
BTR: My thoughts are leave them to it on the condition they leave western countries alone but make very clear that if a western country is attacked all hell will break loose and we will carpet bomb until there is nothing but craters and ash.

Not much of a global citizen are you?

How can you be when no one gives a damn about Slavery, global warming, poaching of endangered animals, Boko Haram just to name a few. At the end of the day its humans who cause all of the misery on the planet. murder, torture and genocide have been going on since mankind existed. Dealing with one group of horrible people won't make the world a better place.

Good and bad can't exist without the other.

Well that is a very strange question, how can you care about one thing and not care about another? Who said I don't care about all those other topics? It wasn't that long ago I started a thread on a particularly horrifying attack on a school full of kids re B.H. I have always been sympathetic to slavery, animal cruelty (I donate where I can) etc.

What you are saying is something different. You are saying, massacre all the people you like unless they are from specific regions, but touch those areas and expect death.

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#1245019 23-Feb-2015 17:37

The world is a complex place with no black and white. In fact 50 Shades of Grey is no where near enough. The Fretilin sought East Timor independence from Indonesia and were seen as Freedom Fighters. Heros. The IRA sought independence from British rule in Northern Ireland and were seen as terrorists. Murderers. Che Guevara has been idolized by Western Socialists for his revolutionary ideals, but he executed 100's without trial in prison camps. Isis have filled a power vacuum in Sunni territories where the Iraq government has shown no interest in helping the people with basic necessities. Many in Mosul praise ISIS who see themselves as revolutionary. But the West, as indicated by this thread see them as evil. The only constant in any of this is that all these groups are guilty of atrocities and in the absence of size or firepower, use brutality to get their message across.

As another poster said, murder, torture and genocide have been going on since mankind existed. It's in our nature and generally arises from imbalances caused by power shifts and lack of compromise. We can dream that maybe one day the world will be utopia...but it won't. Whatever is solved today will pop up just as bad somewhere else tomorrow. But that doesn't mean we give up trying to resolve the issues that cause these imbalances. In the Iraq/Syria case, poor leadership needs to be removed, international engagement needs to occur and a Sunni/Shiite balance needs to be restored. Neither sect naturally wants all this bloodshed but the centric for ISIS is that they are winning the hearts and minds campaign of the isolated and disenfranchised Sunni, while the West is winning the bombing campaign. The trouble is, the West doesn't have a Plan B. We need to work on some way of giving Sunni some relief, then they might not be so keen to support the ISIS cause. You can bomb them all you like but it will be the breakdown of their Sunni support base which causes ISIS to fold, not death from above. Remember the Brits during the bombing of London? They were resolute. The blitz only gave them more reason to fight, not to surrender. We should learn from history but we never do.

I am appalled at the ISIS brutality. It is sickening in every way. All of my instincts ( I am ex military) say bomb the crap out of them but then, I have never been in situation so desperate that I am prepared to die for my cause. I have never been a Fretilin, an IRA, a Che G. or for that matter an ISIS. You have to put yourself in the ISIS mind. Then attack what makes them tick rather than carpet bomb the hell out of them.

As Sun Tse once said: The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.

Keep the tactical bombing going to frustrate ISIS advance but let's hope someone is working on a Plan B for everyones sake!!

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#1245063 23-Feb-2015 18:26

as i said in page 2 / 3 the key lies in the Sunni Arabs. if they unite they can wipe out ISIS. if not, then it will go on for a few decades yet.

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#1245084 23-Feb-2015 19:01

joker97: as i said in page 2 / 3 the key lies in the Sunni Arabs. if they unite they can wipe out ISIS. if not, then it will go on for a few decades yet.

A few decades? These guys (Sunni & Shiite) have been fighting each other for 1400 years, because of this...?!?

Sunnis supported Abu Bakr, the prophet's friend; Shiite Muslims felt the rightful successor was the prophet's son-in-law and cousin, Ali ibn Abi Talib. Ali became the fourth caliph, or spiritual leader of Muslims, but he was murdered and his son was killed in battle, effectively ending the direct line from Mohammed. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/02/21/sunni-shiite-muslim-explainer/23677711/

Madness!

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#1245099 23-Feb-2015 19:27

ISIS hasn't existed for more than a few years, I doubt it will survive for 1400 years, but if it does, then natural selection will mean all yous in NZ will be the insects in a world of dinosaurs

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#1246024 25-Feb-2015 00:48

joker97: as i said in page 2 / 3 the key lies in the Sunni Arabs. if they unite they can wipe out ISIS. if not, then it will go on for a few decades yet.

There is plenty of military firepower in the region to deal with ISIS several times over.
http://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-listing-middle-east.asp

The problem is a lack of political will.

ISIS is mostly strong where there are Sunni Muslims under control of Shia (Iraq) or other groups (Bashar al-Assad in Syria is Alawite). I'm not sure how keen the Sunni countries are to fight ISIS, if it means supporting the Shia led government in Iraq or the regime in Syria.

But have you noticed how quiet the media has been about the evils of Iran and the Syrian regime over the last few months?

Just a year or two ago it seemed that every second news story was about Iran and it's secret nuclear program with thousands of centrifuges getting closer to making a bomb with each passing minute. Then there were the details of the brutal Syrian regime killing it's own people with chemical weapons.

Now all of a sudden it seems that these guys really they aren't so bad after all.

So it seems to be confirmed that we are now sending troops to Iraq (which we've known all along). Do we even have a clearly defined goal where we can say we've achieved all our objectives and we can bring the troops home?

Or do we just wait until the US announce that they are going home and we follow along so that we don't look silly being the only ones left?

#include <standard.disclaimer>

Kingfisher

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#1246110 25-Feb-2015 08:51

alexx

I agree with everything you say especially about the quietness of the media on Syria, but there may be a good reason for that:

"Few charities now operate in Syria and even fewer journalists, many of them brave and experienced, are willing to make the journey into rebel-held Syria. The reason is obvious: no one wants to appear in the next IS video" Islamic State: What the Kassig murder video tells us; Shiraz Maher 17 November 2014.

Where they can, BBC World, Reuters, APN etc are still reporting on the Syrian issue but we can forget about hearing about it on TVNZ!! Unless Mike McRoberts is there dressed up in his perfectly clean body armour making a name for himself, then the media in NZ are just useless.

I can attest to the bravery of some of the foreign media, many of them women, who I worked alongside when I was on active service in Afghanistan. Importantly, they took calculated risks to bring in-depth, meaningful, up to date, insightful and knowledgeable reporting of the issues on the ground. They were experienced war correspondents who knew how to get close to both sides of the conflict without compromising themselves and who had a deep knowledge of the history of the conflict to support their assertions about current issues (and no doubt to help get the trust of the combatants on both sides).

Now bring on Mike McRoberts, dressed in body armour and standing on a hotel balcony in Israel, far away from the misery that is Gaza that he is pointing to, using the knowledge he gained reading a Gaza Conflict Wiki on his first class flight, while introducing a real war correspondent to tell us what is actually happening on the ground! Why the hell was McRoberts even there!!!!

One thing we can be sure of. If the professional and seasoned war correspondents see Syria as too risky to report on, then you can bet Mike McRoberts will be reporting on Mrs Jones cat stuck up a tree in the leafy suburbs of Remuera somewhere. That is the level of NZ media.

There are some brave foreign journo's out there that are still getting snippets out of Syria but you certainly wont here about it on NZ media, unless, God forbid, they end up in a starring role in the next IS video.

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#1246115 25-Feb-2015 08:55

For times like this this Unit grows in number .......

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#1246117 25-Feb-2015 08:57

This volatility and savageness in the Middle East is nothing new. Since the beginning of civilization. BC as documented in the Torah & other ?Greek/Persian/etc texts and AD in even more texts

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#1246197 25-Feb-2015 10:19

Yes, because writing was invented there and that is where civilisation began.

I do not like your charactisation of the 'middle east' as volatile and savage. People have been living in peace there in many if not most places for a long time.

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#1246206 25-Feb-2015 10:28

fair enough

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#1246215 25-Feb-2015 10:44

joker97: This volatility and savageness in the Middle East is nothing new. Since the beginning of civilization. BC as documented in the Torah & other ?Greek/Persian/etc texts and AD in even more texts

War and violence are what people do.

Everywhere has suffered a lot of it.

However, I don't think the Middle East has seen as much violence as Europe.

Europe has been the focus of two world wars and almost constant fighting before that.

I think if you did a death count, then Europe would come out far ahead of anywhere else.

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