IS

Tigranes

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A video released by ISIS shows the beheading of U.S. journalist James Foley and threatens the life of another American if President Barack Obama doesn't end military operations in Iraq.

I am getting tired of lightweight threads when things are getting uglier day by day. So please let's get a little serious here.

I know for a fact these forums have some Iraq war veterans and I would enormously appreciate their take on current situation.

My main take is that IS cannot be even compared to Taliban or Al Qaeda. Former never aspired to created Caliphate, while latter never managed to capture a state of their own.

Arab Spring ended with IS Winter.
 
Foley grew up in New Hampshire and graduated from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism in 2008. Like other young journalists who came of age after the September 11 terror attacks and American wars overseas, Foley was drawn to Iraq, Afghanistan and other areas of conflict.

Friends described Foley as fair, curious and impressively even-tempered.
"Everybody, everywhere, takes a liking to Jim as soon as they meet him," journalist Clare Morgana Gillis wrote in a blog post about him in May 2013, six months after he disappeared in Syria.

"Men like him for his good humor and tendency to address everyone as 'bro' or 'homie' or 'dude' after the first handshake. Women like him for his broad smile, broad shoulders, and because, well, women just like him."

RIP
 
UK is a president of UN's Security Council for the month of August.

One would assume if any topic could draw a wide consensus -- it has to be IS. I am not very good with UN webpages but this one reveals no activity on Iraq. No use of force is authorised in Iraq. No Emergency Council meeting was called on IS lately.
 
Arab Spring ended with IS Winter.

Those two things have nothing much to do with each other, but make a catchy slogan. If you want serious discussion I would avoid sloganeering.

That said...

The US is still operating under the same nebulous lack of moral authority they started in Iraq with, but have been doing so for so long that the current air mission is just another piece in the puzzle and can be maintained as long as necessary...and no doubt will be.

Since it can and will continue there is no particular reason for anyone in Europe to dirty their hands, so they likely won't, and won't lead the UN to ask them to.

Sending ground troops into Iraq, or anywhere else in the middle east, was mind bogglingly stupid in theory and proved even worse in practice, so I don't expect anyone to do that any time soon. The bombing will constantly erode this particularly mad group of politicos and they will get chewed to bits by other groups.

Eventually some strongman of Saddam-esque proportion will arise and take charge while mouthing the right platitudes at the US and Europe to be appreciated for 'bringing peace to the region' instead of demonized, and Iraq, or Iraq-Syria, or whatever, will be armed to fight Iran.
 
Those two things have nothing much to do with each other, but make a catchy slogan. If you want serious discussion I would avoid sloganeering.

How much is "enough much" to be serious for your liking? Did IS come from ISIS? ISIS grew significantly as an organization owing to its participation in the Syrian Civil War. Did Syrian Civil War started as civil uprisings? In December 2010, mass anti-government protests began in Tunisia and later spread across the Arab world, including Syria. By February 2011, revolutions occurred in Tunisia and Egypt, while Libya began to experience its own civil war. Numerous other Arab countries also faced protests, with some attempting to calm the masses by making concessions and governmental changes. The uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt are supposed to have inspired the mid-March 2011 protests in Syria.
 
Those two things have nothing much to do with each other, but make a catchy slogan. If you want serious discussion I would avoid sloganeering.

That said...

The US is still operating under the same nebulous lack of moral authority they started in Iraq with, but have been doing so for so long that the current air mission is just another piece in the puzzle and can be maintained as long as necessary...and no doubt will be.

Since it can and will continue there is no particular reason for anyone in Europe to dirty their hands, so they likely won't, and won't lead the UN to ask them to.

Sending ground troops into Iraq, or anywhere else in the middle east, was mind bogglingly stupid in theory and proved even worse in practice, so I don't expect anyone to do that any time soon. The bombing will constantly erode this particularly mad group of politicos and they will get chewed to bits by other groups.

Eventually some strongman of Saddam-esque proportion will arise and take charge while mouthing the right platitudes at the US and Europe to be appreciated for 'bringing peace to the region' instead of demonized, and Iraq, or Iraq-Syria, or whatever, will be armed to fight Iran.

I agree, we should have let Germany rule the world. That would have solved all the ME crisis.
 
I dont see this moving beyond airstrikes, the Iraq War was a giant quagmire mess, nothing the islamic state does is going to inspire a replay on that
 
How much is "enough much" to be serious for your liking? Did IS come from ISIS? ISIS grew significantly as an organization owing to its participation in the Syrian Civil War. Did Syrian Civil War started as civil uprisings? In December 2010, mass anti-government protests began in Tunisia and later spread across the Arab world, including Syria. By February 2011, revolutions occurred in Tunisia and Egypt, while Libya began to experience its own civil war. Numerous other Arab countries also faced protests, with some attempting to calm the masses by making concessions and governmental changes. The uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt are supposed to have inspired the mid-March 2011 protests in Syria.

We could say IS is an outcome of handing Palestine to the Jews too, but I don't have a catchy slogan. The timeline is longer, but probably more causal. Neither here nor there though.

@timtofly...I'm not real hip on the Germans. I'm starting to think stomping the USSR might have been a mistake though.
 
UN Security Council is the only organ which can authorise use of force in a souvereign country under international law. Sometimes, like French intervention in Mali, this was both effective and did not create universal backslash from Muslim countries, members of UN. Progresive forces need to revitalize the role of UN, any "rescue" war must be international operation which would include moderate muslim countries, Russia, and China. This way nobody would blame western "cruisaiders" invading Dar al Islam.
 
We could say IS is an outcome of handing Palestine to the Jews too, but I don't have a catchy slogan.

Any slogan involving Israel would be interpreted as antisemitic (like "all the problems are from Jews"), so I would advise you against such distant extrapolations :nono:

But sinse we talk about IS here is a curious fact: when it comes to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, since IS regards the Palestinian Sunni group Hamas as apostates who have no legitimate authority to lead jihad, it regards fighting Hamas as the first step toward confrontation with Israel.
 
UK is a president of UN's Security Council for the month of August.

One would assume if any topic could draw a wide consensus -- it has to be IS. I am not very good with UN webpages but this one reveals no activity on Iraq. No use of force is authorised in Iraq. No Emergency Council meeting was called on IS lately.

Do you even know what an emergency Security Council meeting is for? At present IS is an internal Iraqi problem. If the Security Council met for that they'd be in permanent session.
 
Any slogan involving Israel would be interpreted as antisemitic (like "all the problems are from Jews"), so I would advise you against such distant extrapolations :nono:

But sinse we talk about IS here is a curious fact: when it comes to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, since IS regards the Palestinian Sunni group Hamas as apostates who have no legitimate authority to lead jihad, it regards fighting Hamas as the first step toward confrontation with Israel.

At last sighting Israel is pretty well placed between them and Gaza.

I'm not worried about being called anti-Semitic, by the way...I can differentiate between a political unit and a religion, and anyone who can't I will cheerfully educate.
 
I would like to ask again how exactly 'Isis' is able to carve up a country for themselves in a region with other standing armies (supposedly having more soldiers and also tanks and even planes).
I really doubt that Isis has no tanks/planes or help from powers which do. So i doubt that Obama ordering a bombing raid on Isis will do much, cause you don't really bomb your own proxy army.
 
I would like to ask again how exactly 'Isis' is able to carve up a country for themselves in a region with other standing armies (supposedly having more soldiers and also tanks and even planes).
I really doubt that Isis has no tanks/planes or help from powers which do. So i doubt that Obama ordering a bombing raid on Isis will do much, cause you don't really bomb your own proxy army.

Where are these standing armies? Iraq defense forces are insufficient to contain their civil war. Same with Syria. For the most part this ISIS business is just the two civil wars rolled into one.

The US has conducted any number of lame proxy wars, and I'm not the least bit shy about saying so...but pinning this on the US is way out in the weeds. Now, if some secular despot comes to power in Iraq and mysteriously snuffs this ISIS like a pinched candle while spouting about being a barrier against Iran...that might be our guy.
 
But half the 'rebels' in Syria are sponsored by US, and they don't seem to be particularly secular- or even sane for that matter :)
They also are in the habbit of sawing-off prisoner's heads, or even eating their remains.
 
Sending ground troops into Iraq, or anywhere else in the middle east, was mind bogglingly stupid in theory and proved even worse in practice, so I don't expect anyone to do that any time soon. The bombing will constantly erode this particularly mad group of politicos and they will get chewed to bits by other groups.

I think it is a mistake to dismiss them as 'particularly mad', by which I assume you mean 'crazy'. Even crazy people have they're own logic and it's usually pretty sane. In this case, I feel like they know exactly what they're doing: They want us to go back into Iraq and are baiting us in the most obnoxious way possible, figuring that if they do something shocking enough, our hand will be forced. And sure, we can bomb them. But every dead civilian (or 'civilian'; it hardly matters) will be used as recruitment propaganda. By weakening them we will make them stronger. And we will ultimately be weaker. They surely know this. That's why they're so desperate for us to rush in.

And here's the thing... they in all likelihood do not care if they die. I do not know their specific tenets or ideology, but I think it's fair to assume that there will be suicide bombings. There's certainly no reason for there not to use suicide bombings. From their perspective, there's no downside. They're fighting the good fight for Allah. So what if some innocent Muslims die. An early ticket to paradise is no punishment. They're like the kamikaze pilots of old, except they can look like bystanders, and boy will there be outrage if a bystander is killed by mistake.

I don't know what the answer is, but I can't shake the feeling that we're about to play their game again, a game that we cannot win.
 
I think it is a mistake to dismiss them as 'particularly mad', by which I assume you mean 'crazy'. Even crazy people have they're own logic and it's usually pretty sane. In this case, I feel like they know exactly what they're doing: They want us to go back into Iraq and are baiting us in the most obnoxious way possible, figuring that if they do something shocking enough, our hand will be forced. And sure, we can bomb them. But every dead civilian (or 'civilian'; it hardly matters) will be used as recruitment propaganda. By weakening them we will make them stronger. And we will ultimately be weaker. They surely know this. That's why they're so desperate for us to rush in.

And here's the thing... they in all likelihood do not care if they die. I do not know their specific tenets or ideology, but I think it's fair to assume that there will be suicide bombings. There's certainly no reason for there not to use suicide bombings. From their perspective, there's no downside. They're fighting the good fight for Allah. So what if some innocent Muslims die. An early ticket to paradise is no punishment. They're like the kamikaze pilots of old, except they can look like bystanders, and boy will there be outrage if a bystander is killed by mistake.

I don't know what the answer is, but I can't shake the feeling that we're about to play their game again, a game that we cannot win.

I would just like to point out that you took exception to me calling them 'particularly mad' and went on to say they would certainly opt for suicide bombers as a main point of strategy. Not necessarily saying that contradiction isn't reasonable enough when dealing with the particularly mad...

As to the meat of your comment, you are I think correct in their general idea that a land war on their turf is somehow 'winnable', when really all it is is a quagmire for all concerned including them. The thing is I really do think we (excluding certain particularly mad neo-cons like Dick Cheney and his crew) have learned the necessary lessons.

1) We don't really seem to be playing the 'hearts and minds' game any more. If some stray bombs hit some non-ISIS...well whatever they were they probably hate us anyway, or would sooner rather than later. We'll bomb ISIS so they don't accumulate too much hardware. We'll bomb a path through them for huge groups of unarmed folks so there isn't a massive loss of life all at one time...and we'll drone strike anyone, anywhere, who presents a genuine threat.

2) If the next group that looks like they might develop a significant power base starts chanting about hating us, we'll bomb them too, even if they set up a voting booth on every corner and say they elected the guy leading the chant. Democratization is out, friendly is in...if that takes an oppressive despot willing to kill off his own people when they insist on 'death to the west', so be it.

3) We don't care so much about recruitment any more. There are enough home grown lunatics in the US that terrorism is just a way of life. A few more trying to swim the Atlantic is just not so big a deal. Every round of 'bomb down the growing top dogs because they are unsatisfactory' reduces the overall capability of the region to produce effective terrorists, because if they go enough rounds they are going to be fighting with rocks and sticks before they fall to someone acceptable.

Let us not forget that we had very little 'terrorist problem' back in the day when Saddam Hussein was our friend, and we were his best friend. In fact for the most part the entire developed world thought the whole middle east was pretty much fine and dandy. Slowly but surely we are headed back there.
 
My main take is that IS cannot be even compared to Taliban or Al Qaeda. Former never aspired to created Caliphate, while latter never managed to capture a state of their own.

They can be compared to the Taliban. They're pretty much the same animal and their grandiose ambitions are nothing more than daydreams. Why doesn't the UN security council act ? Because the whole afair is seen as an internal matter. Why won't Saudi Arabia or the Arab League do anything ? Because they don't take IS seriously. This could backfire in time, but should IS gain control of Iraq and start to actually govern their conquered territory they will run out of steam, because maintaining a country's infrastructure and fostering economic growth is a lot harder than beheading and crucifying people for having the wrong religion. Their only way to hold on to power will be through ongoing violence which will take most of their attention.
This doesn't mean they shouldn't be stopped. They have caused a humanitarian catastrophe and can create a terrorist haven, but I don't think they are more dangerous than the Taliban were.
 
the reason the UN acted back in 2001 was because America wanted it so . The difference between 2001 and 2011 and Syria not being bombed is not solely the increased power and confidence for the Commies . The fall of the towers was such a powerful image ; and it suited everybody in the region that the "invasion" of the Pakistan would be something nice to have . American destablization of Pakistan was wellcome , considering they had become too full of themselves . As such it's almost child's play to hatch yet another Jihadist cadre in Syria , a state which will not loose and America will not stop supporting the trouble , resulting in an instant vacuum .

explanation ? Apparently too many El Kaide members seen the wrong side of the rifle ; they lost their lustful desire for grand strategy and stuff .
 
UK is a president of UN's Security Council for the month of August.

One would assume if any topic could draw a wide consensus -- it has to be IS. I am not very good with UN webpages but this one reveals no activity on Iraq. No use of force is authorised in Iraq. No Emergency Council meeting was called on IS lately.

Security Council resolution 2170 adopted August 15th (Threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts) and resolution 2169 adopted July 30th (Iraq) and 2161 adopted June 17th (Threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts) actually show they are quite engaged on the matter of IS - they stop short of allowing use of force as they cannot really do that anyways - its up to the affected countries to ask for assistance and if they do its not something the UN needs to concern itself with.
 
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