OK so you're not going to walk into that one having correctly recognised I had a nice long list of democratic countries, presidents, and prime ministers lined up who have funded a whole list of questionable activities. Also of course you start to enter the realms of one mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter. The most obvious paralell I see with this is the international brigade volunteers who went to Spain to fight Franco and fascism in the 1930's. What exactly are the British Jihadists doing differently? It's all about picking your side really and from that comes the value judgement. Had German and Italian ambitions been checked in Spain WWII might never have happened. So yes, I do think this is a dangerous and fluid situation, but in the 1930's the UK and to a lesser extent French government's kept out of the fray, relying on funding disorganised and disorientated proxies instead. The nationalists were the lesser in number, but ultimately won.
It's also pleasing to see a little bit of a movement on the issue of funding too. You simply can't blindly keep granting a selective pass out to every state America happens to temporarily be allied with if you hope to strike at this problem. You need to develop some critical faculties, and similarly the western world needs to look beyond the interests of some its corporations. Carving off the hydras head in one country is of little value if the likes of Saudi Arabia or Qatar are funding it reappearance elsewhere. Ironically, we are seemingly prepared to make this sacrifice against Russia (who country whose assistance we might well need in X number of years) over a relatively smaller issue like Ukraine. It's a shame we aren't brave enough to stand up to the behmoth of Qatar
I read David Cameron's narrative on the subject today (narrative is all I could call it) with a mixture sadness and despair. All it served to underline is just how impotent the UK is in all this, and that it isn't necessarily learning the lessons of the little old lady who swallowed the fly
I tend to agree with Grasshopper that at some point in the future we are on a collision albeit I think his timescales are wrong. I suspect the organised caliphate will wait until they have many more radicalised sleepers in western Europe. Indeed, this has been the tactics that ISIS has adopted which they then dovetail with a blitzkreig type advance. It basically involves opening two fronts simultaneously
It's reasonably obvious to me that we're going to have to go back in and fight this if we're to put this down. ISIS can hold station as they are the moment, and foreign fighters from Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, the Caucasus will make their way to this new state (that's what it is). With their numbers flushed they'll push again. As they gain ground others will flock to them, and they'll gather up support as they go. Dispossed people with little to lose can start to support extreme solutions and especially those that look successful. Withness the collapse of the Weimar Republic
We either have to sort this ourselves through NATO and Turkey, or we have to do dangerous deals with Assad and the Iranians. In the meantimes we should tell the Qatari royal family to abdicate. I suspect a US threat could achieve if the sixth fleet turned up on their doorstep.
I've just got a dismal feeling about the whole thing.
