Re: ISIS and the Middle East
« Reply #400 on: August 28, 2014, 02:35:23 PM »
Indeed. Why can't we just finish a war properly and pound the enemy into dust or surrender? Although I will admit doing so in the middle east isn't as easy as dealing with equally industrialized nations. Kinda hard to eliminate an enemy you have trouble distinguishing from the local population. Our efforts in stabilizing the middle east are completely in vain if the leaders aren't competent enough to squash out there own problems.

Thork

Re: ISIS and the Middle East
« Reply #401 on: August 28, 2014, 02:41:46 PM »
Indeed. Why can't we just finish a war properly and pound the enemy into dust or surrender? Although I will admit doing so in the middle east isn't as easy as dealing with equally industrialized nations. Kinda hard to eliminate an enemy you have trouble distinguishing from the local population. Our efforts in stabilizing the middle east are completely in vain if the leaders aren't competent enough to squash out there own problems.
Their leaders are brilliant at it. The problem is the US keeps removing their leaders. Deliberately. To create instability and sell arms. 'Regime change' they call it or 'Arab Spring'.

Yaakov ben Avraham

Re: ISIS and the Middle East
« Reply #402 on: August 28, 2014, 02:47:30 PM »
Except, Thork, that Israel is the only friend, reliable one, at least, that we have in the Middle East, as well as being the only truly democratic state there. Your stupidity at failing to realise that is just that, YOUR STUPIDITY, not Israel's fault, or that of the USA. Mountain, I am inclined to agree. The US would simply have to declare entire groups, like Hamas, ISIL, and, in another part of the world (Africa), Boko Haram, to be red lines. If you belonged to those groups in in any capacity, you would be reduced to slag. We would have to do that all over the world, declare some groups on the "Most Wanted for Destruction" and go after the bastards. The USA would have to be on a permanent war footing, as would the entire Western World, including Israel, Britain, France, etc.

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Offline Shane

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Re: ISIS and the Middle East
« Reply #403 on: August 28, 2014, 02:51:34 PM »
The US could decimate them send in all the troops wegot got afull on ground war DDay style
 
Quote from: Rushy
How do you know you weren't literally given metaphorical wings?

Thork

Re: ISIS and the Middle East
« Reply #404 on: August 28, 2014, 02:52:20 PM »
Except, Thork, that Israel is the only friend, reliable one, at least, that we have in the Middle East, as well as being the only truly democratic state there.
We don't need Israel as a friend. It doesn't do anything for us. It just has its greedy Jewish hand out asking for more money to defend against its neighbours.

Re: ISIS and the Middle East
« Reply #405 on: August 28, 2014, 02:53:13 PM »
Isn't the IS opposed to other terrorist groups like Hamas anyway? Just let them fight it out and mop up the survivors.

Yaakov ben Avraham

Re: ISIS and the Middle East
« Reply #406 on: August 28, 2014, 02:59:31 PM »
THORK, grow up. Sean, its not QUITE that easy. These groups, as shitty as they may be, are not just the kind that you can send troops in after. it will take more than that. Mountain is right. It is hard to tell the difference between them and the locals. Frankly, on a personal level, I don't care how many Arabs we kill. The more the merrier. But that is not generally how the world thinks today. I would say you would have to fight at least like WWII, though, where you don't target civilians deliberately, but you are aware that you are going to lose quite a few.

Thork, if it weren't for Israel, we would have to have a SIGNIFICANT military presence there, one that would cost a huge amount of money (more than it does to assist Israel), and likely a huge amount of lives lost each year. Remember the Marine compound in Lebanon? Imagine that every year times about 4. Schmuck. Just looking at it from a pragmatic point of view, it pays to keep Israel secure. The fact that you can't see that makes you an idiot.

Re: ISIS and the Middle East
« Reply #407 on: August 28, 2014, 03:01:22 PM »
Isn't the IS opposed to other terrorist groups like Hamas anyway? Just let them fight it out and mop up the survivors.

Waiting to do that could take decades. With entire populaces to recruit it would never end. It's like having five different civil wars going on at once in the same area. We need to put an end to the terrorist ideal once and for all. No more pussyfooting around.

Except, Thork, that Israel is the only friend, reliable one, at least, that we have in the Middle East, as well as being the only truly democratic state there. Your stupidity at failing to realise that is just that, YOUR STUPIDITY, not Israel's fault, or that of the USA. Mountain, I am inclined to agree. The US would simply have to declare entire groups, like Hamas, ISIL, and, in another part of the world (Africa), Boko Haram, to be red lines. If you belonged to those groups in in any capacity, you would be reduced to slag. We would have to do that all over the world, declare some groups on the "Most Wanted for Destruction" and go after the bastards. The USA would have to be on a permanent war footing, as would the entire Western World, including Israel, Britain, France, etc.

Indeed.  More ground support from allied nations would definitely help. Just it them from different fronts.

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Offline markjo

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Re: ISIS and the Middle East
« Reply #408 on: August 28, 2014, 04:00:29 PM »
Mountain, I am inclined to agree. America hasn't known how to fight a real war since 1945. In WWII, you kicked some ass and took some names. We were not apologetic to Germany or Japan for the number of people we had to kill to get the bastards to surrender. We did what we had to do. If that meant bombing whole cities until they were willing to submit, that is what it meant. Now, we fight wars like they are kiddie fights on the play field, and God forbid the teacher finds out. We need to go to Iraq and turn, AT LEAST the part where ISIL is active, into melted slag. The same thing goes for Syria. And frankly, the entire Middle East. If you challenge the USA in any way, you should be reduced to the Stone Age.
Incorrect.  America fights wars like collateral damage is a bad thing.  How will bombing innocent civilians get ISIS to surrender?
Abandon hope all ye who press enter here.

Science is what happens when preconception meets verification.

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge. -- Charles Darwin

If you can't demonstrate it, then you shouldn't believe it.

Yaakov ben Avraham

Re: ISIS and the Middle East
« Reply #409 on: August 28, 2014, 04:09:24 PM »
Read further for clarification. I'm not suggesting we DELIBERATELY bomb civilians. I am suggesting we take away ISIL's ability to make war. If that means knowing that some civilians are going to turn into dogmeat, so be it.

Re: ISIS and the Middle East
« Reply #410 on: August 29, 2014, 12:53:16 AM »
Was rereading some Tolstoy.  This quote seems particularly apropos:

Quote from: The Kingdom of God is Within You
"But even it be so," say the champions of the existing order of things, "still the suppression of government violence can only be possible and desirable when all men have become Christians. So long as among people nominally Christians there are unchristian wicked men, who for the gratification of their own lusts are ready to do harm to others, the suppression of government authority, far from being a blessing to others, would only increase their miseries. The suppression of the governmental type of society is not only undesirable so long as there is only a minority of true Christians; it would not even be desirable if the whole of a nation were Christians, but among and around them were still unchristian men of other nations. For these unchristian men would rob, outrage, and kill the Christians with impunity and would make their lives miserable. All that would result would be that the bad would oppress and outrage the good with impunity. And therefore the authority of government must not be suppressed until all the wicked and rapacious people in the world are extinct. And since this will either never be, or at least cannot be for a long time to come, in spite of the efforts of individual Christians to be independent of government authority, it ought to be maintained in the interests of the majority. The champions of government assert that without it the wicked will oppress and outrage the good, and that the power of the government enables the good to resist the wicked."

But in this assertion the champions of the existing order of things take for granted the proposition they want to prove. When they say that except for the government the bad would oppress the good, they take it for granted that the good are those who at the present time are in possession of power, and the bad are those who are in subjection to it. But this is just what wants proving.

[...]

"If the power of government is suppressed the more wicked will oppress the less wicked," say the champions of state authority. But when the Egyptians conquered the Jews, the Romans conquered the Greeks, and the Barbarians conquered the Romans, is it possible that all the conquerors were always better than those they conquered? And the same with the transitions of power within a state from one personage to another: Has the power always passed from a worse person to a better one? When Louis XVI was removed and Robespierre came to power, and afterward Napoleon - who ruled then, a better man or a worse? And when were better men in power, when the Versaillist party or when the Commune was in power? When Charles I was ruler, or when Cromwell? And when Peter III was Czar, or when he was killed and Catherine was Czarina in one-half of Russia and Pougachef ruled the other? Which was bad then, and which was good? All men who happen to be in authority assert that their authority is necessary to keep the bad from oppressing the good, assuming that they themselves are the good par excellence, who protect other good people from the bad.

But ruling means using force, and using force means doing to him to whom force is used, what he does not like, and what he who uses the force would certainly not like done to himself. Consequently, ruling means doing to others what we would not want them to do to us, that is, doing wrong.

To submit means to prefer suffering to using force. And to prefer suffering to using force means to be good, or at least less wicked than those who do to others what they would not like themselves.

It's important to note that when Tolstoy here describes someone as Christian, he isn't talking about a spiritual affiliation, but a moral philosophy.  Replace every instance 'Christian' with 'nonviolent person' or 'good person' or 'person who doesn't harm others' and you've got his meaning.
I have visited from prestigious research institutions of the highest caliber, to which only our administrator holds with confidence.

Yaakov ben Avraham

Re: ISIS and the Middle East
« Reply #411 on: August 29, 2014, 01:17:21 AM »
I think his meaning is beside the point. The fact is that ISIL is a threat to international peace. So is every terrorist organisation. Any person who belongs to such a group forfeits their life, at least in my book, and so does anyone who tries to help them remain alive. So it is up to Western Civilisation once again to keep the world safe and kill off animals like ISIL, Boko Haram, Al Quaeda, Hamas, and so-forth. If they exist, they are to be completely eliminated. Not just silenced. Smashed.

Tolstoy was an idealist. There is no room for idealism in war. When you are fighting a just war, you do what you have to do. You kill until you get a surrender, and you keep killing until you force the enemy to do exactly what they are told. Until the point comes that you say "Jump!" and they only ask "How high?" and then jump, you kill them, and you keep killing them. I don't care how many of them you have to eliminate. They crucify dead bodies. They execute Seventh Graders (or maybe you missed that CNN story a few weeks back). Therefore, they do not deserve to live. Until they learn to be ground under  boot heels and be silent and obedient, they die, and should continue to die.

Other Muslims, if they wish to be left alone and secure in their persons and effects, should simply shut up, and learn from the experience of these animals. But I expect that most Muslim civilians would probably end up appreciating it. If they don't, and start any shit with us later, we go back, and do the same thing to them later. If that means we keep a permanent military presence in that part of the world, and about every ten years we just pound the shit out of the place, then so be it. Good way to ensure full employment. Reintroduce the draft, so you have a steady supply of soldiers, so there are plenty of positions back home in the factories and other workplaces, thus bringing down unemployment. It would maintain the military-industrial complex by which the economy is greased, which would maintain stability, as long as it did not get out of control.

So many benefits could be had from it. Grant it, we would lose lives, that is fundamental to the military, but welcome to real world. Shit happens.

Re: ISIS and the Middle East
« Reply #412 on: August 29, 2014, 03:43:27 AM »
There's actually quite a few muslims fighting ISIS.

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Offline markjo

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Re: ISIS and the Middle East
« Reply #413 on: August 29, 2014, 04:07:30 AM »
Kill 'em all.  Let God/Allah sort them out.
Abandon hope all ye who press enter here.

Science is what happens when preconception meets verification.

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge. -- Charles Darwin

If you can't demonstrate it, then you shouldn't believe it.

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Offline Ghost Spaghetti

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Re: ISIS and the Middle East
« Reply #414 on: August 29, 2014, 07:52:56 AM »
These guys are bad because they kill innocent people. The only way to fight a just war is o kill them, who cares if a few innocent people are killed in the process?

Re: ISIS and the Middle East
« Reply #415 on: August 29, 2014, 10:13:40 AM »
Is it possible that people are overestimating the threat of IS? They are surrounded by enemies and unwilling to work with other Muslim terrorist groups because they seen them as apostates. They use their western recruits as cannon fodder which will presumably cause the flow of recruits to dry up eventually.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/08/28/western-jihadists-are-being-used-as-cannon-fodder-for-the-isis-leadership_n_5730510.html?utm_hp_ref=uk

Maybe it's best to just support the Syrians, Kurds and Iraqi army with airstrikes and guns.

Yaakov ben Avraham

Re: ISIS and the Middle East
« Reply #416 on: August 29, 2014, 11:38:46 AM »
Essentially, GHOST, that is what I mean. TERROR, you might have a point.

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Offline Ghost Spaghetti

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Re: ISIS and the Middle East
« Reply #417 on: August 29, 2014, 12:09:22 PM »
Congratulations, as a self-declared terrorist I consider it perfectly justifiable to have you killed. If anyone else wants to keep riding to violence cycle, PM me and I'll send you an address.

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Offline Rushy

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Re: ISIS and the Middle East
« Reply #418 on: August 29, 2014, 02:03:31 PM »
"It is better that 1000 innocent men die before 1 guilty man lives."


This sort of philosophy never backfires.



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Offline markjo

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Re: ISIS and the Middle East
« Reply #419 on: August 29, 2014, 02:12:34 PM »
Genesis 18:16-33
New International Version (NIV)
Abraham Pleads for Sodom

    Abraham remained standing before the Lord. Then Abraham came near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will you then sweep away the place and not forgive it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?”

    And the Lord said, “If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will forgive the whole place for their sake.”

    Abraham answered, “Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?”

    And he said, “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.”

    Again he spoke to him, “Suppose forty are found there.”

    He answered, “For the sake of forty I will not do it.”

    Then he said, “Oh do not let the Lord be angry if I speak. Suppose thirty are found there.”

    He answered, “I will not do it, if I find thirty there.”

    He said, “Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord. Suppose twenty are found there.”

    He answered, “For the sake of twenty I will not destroy it.”

    Then he said, “Oh do not let the Lord be angry if I speak just once more. Suppose ten are found there.”

    He answered, “For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.”

    And the Lord went his way, when he had finished speaking to Abraham; and Abraham returned to his place.
Abandon hope all ye who press enter here.

Science is what happens when preconception meets verification.

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge. -- Charles Darwin

If you can't demonstrate it, then you shouldn't believe it.