ISIS...Islamic State Victims

It's amazing that oil apart this area of the planet may as well be 2000 years ago for all the progress they've made.
 
Flaffing around and hand wringing will not save those under threat. No interest. Pointless. The french didnt hang around in mali and had a turkey shoot

euro. Bar one country with a highly developed mixed economy and genuine democracy but true.

Of course we know what the common factor is.
 
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clivex said:
Of course we know what the common factor is.
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Intolerance and hatred ?

The saddening thing is that it seems ISIS enjoys the tacit support of a lot of Sunni's in the region. Many Christian and Yazidi refugees from Mosul and Sirjat tell of living in peace with their Sunni neighbours for 40 years but yet who proceeded to drive them from their homes and rob all their belongings.
The only heartwarming aspect I read is that the Shia's in the south have opened their mosques and their homes to over 20,000 fleeing Christians giving them shelter and sustenance.

What is it with this Sunni thing; or at least with the extreme branches of it -- the Wahhabi's, the Salafists? All the murderous crews like ISIS, Boko Haram, Al Qaeda, are Sunni adherents. I don't pretend to know much about the issue, but I think a time is coming when civilisation will have to fight a war against these dark forces. Israel is in the front line at present; who knows will be next. I agree with Clive, the time for catfarting about "reasons" and "background" is over; these unfortunate innocent people on the mountain have to be protected and their ISIS persecutors eliminated.
To think that only a few short months there was a Western wish to arm this lot in Syria.
 
T.S., I never challenged Grey's point. :)

I'm not be any means a pro-interventionist myself -- I've posted on here before against involvement in Libya, Egypt and Syria.
But this is another level; human compassion alone would demand assistance be urgently given to these pitiful people.
 
Intervention in Syria was not a 'wish'. It was a realisation of just how bad the situation was there after some 3 years of civil war.

People on here talking about innocent lives lost in Gaza recently, or even Iraq.
You can bet the lives lost in Syria of the innocent would be 10 if not 100 times that.
 
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marble said:
Intervention in Syria was not a 'wish'. It was a realisation of just how bad the situation was there after some 3 years of civil war.
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Friend, I referred to the "wish" to arm the Sunni militants in Syria.
BTW, some analysts would not use the term "civil war", instead describing it as a rebel movement against the Syrian government of Assad.

(Anyway, talking about Syria is deflecting a bit from the subject matter of the thread, so I'll desist from further).
 
marble said:
Intervention in Syria was not a 'wish'. It was a realisation of just how bad the situation was there after some 3 years of civil war.

People on here talking about innocent lives lost in Gaza recently, or even Iraq.
You can bet the lives lost in Syria of the innocent would be 10 if not 100 times that.
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don't see why 100 is deemed less of a wrong than 1000 lives tbh..this comparison thing doesn't cut it with me...6 million+ Jews were murdered in the 2nd world war..does that make the 1000's anywhere else less relevant?
 
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The lives lost of innocent civilians in Syria would be a extremely large number.

No one is saying less people dying is less of a factor, you have brought the debate to that lowest denominator, what I was saying was quite simple and reasonable - (Syria was ISIS-Iraq) 10 times over in terms of civilian casualties...
 
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marble said:
The lives lost of innocent civilians in Syria would be a extremely large number.

No one is saying less people dying is less of a factor, you have brought the debate to that lowest denominator, what I was saying was quite simple and reasonable - (Syria was ISIS-Iraq) 10 times over in terms of civilian casualties...
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No i haven't brought it to anything old lad..its you quoting one number to try and demean another number thats brought it there...you did it again just there....i just pointed out numbers mean f""k all..except when used to try and make something look less of course

you are the one quoting numbers..not me..don't start that stupid game with me Marble
 
marble said:
The lives lost of innocent civilians in Syria would be a extremely large number.

No one is saying less people dying is less of a factor, you have brought the debate to that lowest denominator, what I was saying was quite simple and reasonable - (Syria was ISIS-Iraq) 10 times over in terms of civilian casualties...
Click to expand...

I agree
 
icebreaker said:
T.S., I never challenged Grey's point. :)

I'm not be any means a pro-interventionist myself -- I've posted on here before against involvement in Libya, Egypt and Syria.
But this is another level; human compassion alone would demand assistance be urgently given to these pitiful people.
Click to expand...

On another thread there were clear objections because it was the us that would be carrying out the operation (rather than Italy or Nigeria perhaps... :lol:)

That's rather like complaining the ambulance is a merc rather than a BMW. Sort of you know... Fck off please?

Should be grateful that the USA has the capability to smash into this scum and (belatedly) the will to do so. You can bet the sects under great of genocide are.

Who wants to hear about what ifs in that situation?
 
Where will the ISIS train be derailed?
Its taken over a huge area where there was a vacuum of power. Syria still hasnt been overthrown, Saudi, Iran, Israel, Turkey?
These will prove much harder to get into with trucks and rifles and nails to crucify people with as, unlike the Iraqis, they will not roll over with fear?
 
What you need to stop ISIS is a strong leader in Iraq, with a loyal and reasonably well resourced army that's prepared to fight, and a well organised secret police force to stop them getting a foothold. If only the west could find someone to fulfil that role? They'd also act as a bullwark against the ambitions of Iran. It would be particularly useful if such a leader wasn't particularly religious and soaked in Islamic orthodoxy too, as its much easier to cut deals with politicians who are more practical on issues like self-preservation

Would also be helfpful if you had a similar person in Libya too. Strange how the right leaning BBC have stopped reporting what's going on there isn't it? Because right now its a much bigger mess than it ever used to be.

I blame Syria of course, they should have stopped beating ISIS and then they wouldn't have overspilled into Iraq and exploited the weakness of the western trained army and western appointed corrupt government. If Assad had, had the decency to lose to the so-called moderates :lol:, we wouldn't have had an ISIS right? Because there is no way that the radicals would have overthrown the moderates is there? like they didn't in Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, or Libya (your only hope then is the army)

And that always assumes of course you could identify the moderates (which is very difficult to do when you rely on distant academics in the London School for African and Oriental Studies) most of whom have their own agendas, which is why they're there in the first place

There is a plausible scenario though that allows us to get involved by a signatory invoking a treaty which removes at a stroke any need to recall parliament or go to the UN or anything. Dare we trigger it, might we even covertly work towards it? Because get involed we have to
 
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Warbler said:
What you need to stop ISIS is a strong leader in Iraq, with a loyal and reasonably well resourced army that's prepared to fight, and a well organised secret police force to stop them getting a foothold. If only the west could find someone to fulfil that role? They'd also act as a bullwark against the ambitions of Iran. It would be particularly useful if such a leader wasn't particularly religious and soaked in Islamic orthodoxy too, as its much easier to cut deals with politicians who are more practical on issues like self-preservation

Would also be helfpful if you had a similar person in Libya too. Strange how the right leaning BBC have stopped reporting what's going on there isn't it? Because right now its a much bigger mess than it ever used to be.

I blame Syria of course, they should have stopped beating ISIS and then they wouldn't have overspilled into Iraq and exploited the weakness of the western trained army and western appointed corrupt government. If Assad had, had the decency to lose to the so-called moderates :lol:, we wouldn't have had an ISIS right? Because there is no way that the radicals would have overthrown the moderates is there? like they didn't in Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, or Libya (your only hope then is the army)

And that always assumes of course you could identify the moderates (which is very difficult to do when you rely on distant academics in the London School for African and Oriental Studies) most of whom have their own agendas, which is why they're there in the first place

There is a plausible scenario though that allows us to get involved by a signatory invoking a treaty which removes at a stroke any need to recall parliament or go to the UN or anything. Dare we trigger it, might we even covertly work towards it? Because get involed we have to
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Welcome back warbler

Iraq has had a similar leader to the one you suggest of course. And there is another angle of course. The Kurds would nt be an issue. Or some other sects too such as the marsh Arabs

Because he would have murdered each and every one of them

But is backward dictatorship all the Arab world can aspire to?

I would say Middle East but that would include a true long established democracy with a fine developed economy which encompasses many fields, most especially IT and pharma.

Also in fairness Tunisia is moving in the right direction.
 
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This just seems like the definition of a no-win situation.

You have a deeply sectarian (Shiite) prime minister refusing to stand down (to a member of his own party) and threatening an apparently military-backed coup d'etat, which would in normal circumstances lead to the potential withdrawal of aid.

Which in this situation could potentially lead to these hatchet-mad lunatics in ISIS running rampant in large swaths of the country.
 
clivex said:
Welcome back warbler
The Kurds wouldn't be an issue. Or some other sects too such as the marsh Arabs

Because he would have murdered each and every one of them

But is backward dictatorship all the Arab world can aspire to?

I would say Middle East but that would include a true long established democracy with a fine developed economy which encompasses many fields, most especially IT and pharma.

Also in fairness Tunisia is moving in the right direction.
Click to expand...

Saddam was a pragmatist Clive, whose primary raison d'etre was to retain power at any cost. The hand he'd been dealt of course was an unmanageable contrived cocktail designed with the paramount needs of Anglo/ French diplomatic imperatives first and foremost.

Saddam would therefore set about irradicating anything that threatened his hegonomy (to a large extent he almost had to). He was facing something of a kill or be killed siutation, as that had been the history of post ww1 Iraq. His position is not difficult to understand nor take a read on.

He was amongst the first to recognise the true nature of the Islamic revolution in neighbouring Iran. This let us not forget started life as a moderate pro democratic liberal movement in 1977/78 before the radicals got hold of it (which might help answer your question about arab aspirations and democracy). By 1979 the Khomeni had returned and the first country to react aggresively against this was Iraq, purely because Saddam correctly diagnosed what an islamic revolution would mean for him. Not only did he invade Iran, he started to systematically flush out those in Iraq who would be symapthetic including the early years Sadr army who would later re-emerge.

By the time the first gulf war came around there was no radical islamic elements anywhere in Iraq. Strategically, he was your natural ally in the region.

After the first gulf war the Marsh arabs were of course encouraged by the American's to rise up and fight the Republican Guard. Well the American's had over-estimated the damage they'd done to Saddam, and he duly set about irradicating this threat to his power base. It's hardly a response without precedent is it?. I don't see it being significantly different to parts of British history to be honest, notably the Jacobite uprising. The American's are reasonably culpable here though in egging the opposition on, and then abandoning them. Why did they do this?

Well they had a rethink, and realised what would happen to Iraq if Saddam was toppled and the power vacuum opened up. They betrayed the marsh arabs, and they were quite cold and callous really. They led a group of people into a war they couldn't win, and encouraged them with offers of assistance that never arrived, because somebody in the State Department produced a risk assessment report that suddenly rang alarm bells about what the region might look like with an empowered Iran on centre stage and a Shia government in Iraq. The damaged devil you knew suddenly looks a lot more palatable than a radical islamic alternative (ironically what we have today)

He always had to tread a little bit more carefully with the Kurds, albeit I suppose you'll get completely hung up now on one famous incident, but he did of course have a quite powerful military and big population over the border there who could invoke their NATO membership if attacked (and might be asked to do so with a Gulf of Tonkin type of contrived incident yet in this case). Same thing again though in principle. The Kurds were encouraged to rise up and then abandoned. Its not dissimilar to the way the Soviets asked the residents of Warsaw to rise up against the Nazis

It should be noted though that radical Islam re-established it's first toe hold in Iraq during this period, and largely because of John Major and his no fly zones. A group called ansar-al-islam sought sanctuary in these no fly zones under NATO's protection and started to prosper

Fast forward to second Iraq war (which let us not forget Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11) not a single 9/11 bomber came from Iraq, nor had they a single Iraqi connection. Not a single dinar that anyone has every traced to AQ came from Saddam either until this point. The best they produced by way of evidence, was an artists impression of what a mobile germ warfare factory might look like. If ever they could find one.

We actually went to war on that would you believe. Even more unbelievable in their blood lust, were people like yourself endorsing it.

Oh look someone's drawn a picture - what more evidence do we need - to war!!! I should say as well that the American's produced a satellite photograph of a factory that had, had a roof put back on it as well. Incidentally, if you look at the UN figures and the 'Iraq bodycount' monitor, then divide that by the number of years the American's were there, you'll discover that more people have been killed during this period than under Saddam.

Clearly even you can now see what the result of the second Iraq war has been and the contribution that it has made to fuelling radical islam. You were wrong back in the early part of the last decade. In fact you were catastrophically wrong. You were fooled by the lies about WMD, (heaven knows how, they were obviously flakey at best) but more importantly, you were guilty of enemy misidentification, and strategic wally mindedness the legacy of which we're now looking at

Do I believe that this is the best that that this part of the world can hope for? Well in a lot of cases yes.

I think you can very easily over-rate democracy. Indeed, Libya had a Soviet structure which had many more democratic traits about it than that which we've left it today. They seriously have regressed and constitute an even bigger medium term threat than Iraq

The simple fact is, the only two pillars in these societies capable of filling the vacuum that turmoil and upheaval always creates are the army or religion. Take your pick

I'd be a little bit more convinced by your consistancy about democracy when you start calling for the over throw of dynastic rulers in Saudi Arabia and client naval bases in Bahrain too
 
Warbler. The marsh Arabs were a tiny sect and hardly likely to take control of the whole country. It's about as realistic as the gypsies taking control of the uk

That justified his genocide?

And the Kurds? Gassing them?

If it was such a coherent wonderful state then they wouldn't have "risen up" . It was repressive violent and frankly evil

No excuses
 
Warbler said:
Saddam was a pragmatist Clive, whose primary raison d'etre was to retain power at any cost. The hand he'd been dealt of course was an unmanageable contrived cocktail designed with the paramount needs of Anglo/ French diplomatic imperatives first and foremost.

Saddam would therefore set about irradicating anything that threatened his hegonomy (to a large extent he almost had to). He was facing something of a kill or be killed siutation, as that had been the history of post ww1 Iraq. His position is not difficult to understand nor take a read on.

He was amongst the first to recognise the true nature of the Islamic revolution in neighbouring Iran. This let us not forget started life as a moderate pro democratic liberal movement in 1977/78 before the radicals got hold of it (which might help answer your question about arab aspirations and democracy). By 1979 the Khomeni had returned and the first country to react aggresively against this was Iraq, purely because Saddam correctly diagnosed what an islamic revolution would mean for him. Not only did he invade Iran, he started to systematically flush out those in Iraq who would be symapthetic including the early years Sadr army who would later re-emerge.

By the time the first gulf war came around there was no radical islamic elements anywhere in Iraq. Strategically, he was your natural ally in the region.

After the first gulf war the Marsh arabs were of course encouraged by the American's to rise up and fight the Republican Guard. Well the American's had over-estimated the damage they'd done to Saddam, and he duly set about irradicating this threat to his power base. It's hardly a response without precedent is it?. I don't see it being significantly different to parts of British history to be honest, notably the Jacobite uprising. The American's are reasonably culpable here though in egging the opposition on, and then abandoning them. Why did they do this?

Well they had a rethink, and realised what would happen to Iraq if Saddam was toppled and the power vacuum opened up. They betrayed the marsh arabs, and they were quite cold and callous really. They led a group of people into a war they couldn't win, and encouraged them with offers of assistance that never arrived, because somebody in the State Department produced a risk assessment report that suddenly rang alarm bells about what the region might look like with an empowered Iran on centre stage and a Shia government in Iraq. The damaged devil you knew suddenly looks a lot more palatable than a radical islamic alternative (ironically what we have today)

He always had to tread a little bit more carefully with the Kurds, albeit I suppose you'll get completely hung up now on one famous incident, but he did of course have a quite powerful military and big population over the border there who could invoke their NATO membership if attacked (and might be asked to do so with a Gulf of Tonkin type of contrived incident yet in this case). Same thing again though in principle. The Kurds were encouraged to rise up and then abandoned. Its not dissimilar to the way the Soviets asked the residents of Warsaw to rise up against the Nazis

It should be noted though that radical Islam re-established it's first toe hold in Iraq during this period, and largely because of John Major and his no fly zones. A group called ansar-al-islam sought sanctuary in these no fly zones under NATO's protection and started to prosper

Fast forward to second Iraq war (which let us not forget Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11) not a single 9/11 bomber came from Iraq, nor had they a single Iraqi connection. Not a single dinar that anyone has every traced to AQ came from Saddam either until this point. The best they produced by way of evidence, was an artists impression of what a mobile germ warfare factory might look like. If ever they could find one.

We actually went to war on that would you believe. Even more unbelievable in their blood lust, were people like yourself endorsing it.

Oh look someone's drawn a picture - what more evidence do we need - to war!!! I should say as well that the American's produced a satellite photograph of a factory that had, had a roof put back on it as well. Incidentally, if you look at the UN figures and the 'Iraq bodycount' monitor, then divide that by the number of years the American's were there, you'll discover that more people have been killed during this period than under Saddam.

Clearly even you can now see what the result of the second Iraq war has been and the contribution that it has made to fuelling radical islam. You were wrong back in the early part of the last decade. In fact you were catastrophically wrong. You were fooled by the lies about WMD, (heaven knows how, they were obviously flakey at best) but more importantly, you were guilty of enemy misidentification, and strategic wally mindedness the legacy of which we're now looking at

Do I believe that this is the best that that this part of the world can hope for? Well in a lot of cases yes.

I think you can very easily over-rate democracy. Indeed, Libya had a Soviet structure which had many more democratic traits about it than that which we've left it today. They seriously have regressed and constitute an even bigger medium term threat than Iraq

The simple fact is, the only two pillars in these societies capable of filling the vacuum that turmoil and upheaval always creates are the army or religion. Take your pick

I'd be a little bit more convinced by your consistancy about democracy when you start calling for the over throw of dynastic rulers in Saudi Arabia and client naval bases in Bahrain too
Click to expand...

You've given a detailed historical perspective of previous western interventions in Iraq ............................. and a passionate evaluation of the negative consequences of same.
But, in a previous post you said: "Because get involved we have to".

Just to be clear, can I ask your present position on the matter; Is intervention ( in your opinion) admissible in the current circumstances ? And if so, to what degree
 
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