ISIS Thread

The Flash said:
If you continue intervening and arming groups that are threats themselves, one day the threat might not be ISIS, but a different group. Al Nusra, for example, isn't that far from ISIS when it comes to ideologies.
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We definitely agree on that. It's the Bin Laden story over again. The US arming Bin Laden to fight the Soviets just to fight him later....But with the brutality that ISIS has shown like you yourself said against..."Shiites, Yazidis, Hindus and Atheists. Also secularists." then you have to bet on a horse....The lesser of two evils.
 
Forostar said:
A difficult question. At least we should keep an eye on them and wonder where and how they are trained and taught. Also, I hope the threatened minorities in the area won't be forgotten by the West. Someone needs to do something (it's the old argument again). What that something is, I find that a difficult topic.

But simply leaving it be, that's not something I am content with.
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The problem is, IS and other terrorist groups are only so strong because the West messed up everything there to begin with. Sure, a new operation could diminish IS, but then another group will spring up and be even worse. Hard as it sounds, this is something Iraq and Syria should sort out. It's their countries, it's their people, it's their business.
 
SixesAlltheway said:
We definitely agree on that. It's the Bin Laden story over again. The US arming Bin Laden to fight the Soviets just to fight him later....But with the brutality that ISIS has shown like you yourself said against..."Shiites, Yazidis, Hindus and Atheists. Also secularists." then you have to bet on a horse....The lesser of two evils.
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That's what I disagree with. What may seem like the lesser of evils may lead to something beyond imaginable. Perun said something a month or so ago on this thread "Soviets in Afghanistan was thought to be the worst thing, then Taliban happened". It seemed like the evil to fight at that time, but could anyone imagine a terrorist group hijacking two planes and crashing them to the World Trade Center? Same thing could happen in this case as well.
 
It's hard to close your eyes when Yazidis, Hindus, Shiites are massacred by a group of fanatic muslims....but I do agree with Perun that it shouldn't be our problem ...I'm just not seeing much action from anywhere else...:p
 
SixesAlltheway said:
It's hard to close your eyes when Yazidis, Hindus, Shiites are massacred by a group of fanatic muslims....but I do agree with Perun that it shouldn't be our problem...I'm just not seeing much action from anywhere else...
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Well, I'm the one that should be concerned with all this the most here. I'm a direct target as an atheist living in a Sunni Muslim majority country and what's going on is happening just a couple of hundred miles away from where I live. But I'm just trying to be reasonable, even in a fucked up state like this. Just a reminder, a woman related to ISIS went on a suicide bombing mission in one of the most crowded places in Istanbul on the same day as Charlie Hebdo attack happened. It is pretty scary out there.
 
SixesAlltheway said:
It's hard to close your eyes when Yazidis, Hindus, Shiites are massacred by a group of fanatic muslims....but I do agree with Perun that it shouldn't be our problem...I'm just not seeing much action from anywhere else...
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Agreed, it is a hard thing to bear for a compassionate human being. But panic reactions will make it even worse. I'm not saying that the West should be absolutely inactive about that, but fact just is that every action so far in this general area did make it worse. And maybe, just maybe, the West is simply the wrong side to act here. It was Britain and France that artificially created Syria and Iraq, and in the eyes of many, IS is rectifying this.
 
Hm, I agree we should have stayed out. Generally speaking...leaving the middle east to find its own way and deal with it's own problems....But I don't think we've made it worse...the US bombardments, the humanitarian help..I think we've done a lot of good too. Again I would like people to imagine how things COULD be looking for ISIS right now without US or European force against them. They'd be 100 times stronger.
 
Perun said:
Hard as it sounds, this is something Iraq and Syria should sort out. It's their countries, it's their people, it's their business.
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To leave these people to their slaughter, that's against international law. It's not going to happen.
Perun said:
It was Britain and France that artificially created Syria and Iraq, and in the eyes of many, IS is rectifying this.
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I find it so weird to focus more on the past than on the present. So yes, mistakes were made in the past by Western nations, does that give reason to support IS to rectify this? Come on man.

Christians lived in that area before Muslims did, before these lands were known in the West. If we are following the thought of rectifying, let's wipe out the rest shall we?
 
Forostar said:
To leave these people to their slaughter, that's against international law. It's not going to happen.
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It is not America's and France's sole responsibility to uphold international law by their own approximation. There are 190 other countries in the world, and a major international organisation called the United Nations that you may have heard of.

Forostar said:
I find it so weird to focus more on the past than on the present. So yes, mistakes were made in the past by Western nations, does that give reason to support IS to rectify this? Come on man.
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I never said that the West should support the IS. Don't put words in my mouth. What I am saying is, they should keep out because they are ultimately responsible for this mess in several historical layers. They are hated by many people in the Middle East, even such who detest IS - in fact, many people there are in full agreement that IS is the West's fault.

The West should keep out of this. They did enough harm to this region, and they will do more - that's empirical. Leave it to other powers to sort this out.
 
Perhaps this is really a internet and media problem...I mean...if this had happened back in pre media and internet days..Things would just have taken it's toll....Is that scary or not? I don't know.

Sort of like what's happening in Africa right now...
 
I acknowledge that IS could largely be the West's fault. Still, I do not find responsibility more important than the danger of a fast spreading totalitarian regime.

I fully support the ending of the most terrible post-WWII conflict in Europe. People from other nations did something to make that happen.

I fully support international meddling in the Israel-Palestine crisis. If there was no meddling, the Palestinians would largely be annihilated. With probably more rockets shot at Israel.

Without the West IS will annihilate everyone who thinks different. I don't have an ounce of trust that other powers have the will to do anything. In this region, people are either too weak in numbers, or in power, too oppressed, or too afraid to succesfully fight IS. Without the West, they give in or die.
 
I haven't really heard how other powers (in other words "without the West") can stop totalitarian regimes.
The Flash said:
Well, I'm the one that should be concerned with all this the most here.
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I can imagine that. I can also imagine the consequences of what you're advocating. Let's put a large bucket over the whole region, including Turkey. Good luck!
 
Forostar said:
I haven't really heard how other powers (in other words "without the West") can stop totalitarian regimes.
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There's the United Nations. Everything that happens should be done in their name and under their direct supervision. I know it is unrealistic, but that's how it should be.

Other than that: I am not a politician, it is not my decision, I have no say in international affairs, I can at this point only say what I see as wrong. I do not know what would be right here. I am only saying what I think is wrong.
 
I admit that the IS conflic has really challenged me intellectually, and there are points where I simply don't know about right or wrong anymore.
 
Who knows, because the West has caused problems, they still feel responsible, can't leave it and wish to correct "matters.
Politicians will have lots of headaches over how to do that.
 
If there's any aspect of this discussion I think was missed, it's that IS wants to draw the USA back in. They want the USA to put soldiers on the ground in Iraq again, because last time it cost the USA trillions of dollars, thousands of lives, and significantly impacted the way Americans were seen around the world. In other words, IS thinks the Iraq War was a long-game victory for them, because it hurt the USA in ways that other operations didn't.

The government of Iraq asked for help from NATO. You can't turn them away, but I think the line being walked right now is as close to correct as reasonably possible. As for what western states need to do to protect from these IS fleabites, it is being done. Security procedures are being tightened, new laws introduced, some of which don't even violate various constitutions. And as sad as it is to say, there are going to be lone attackers doing damage in western countries, or tiny cells. That's going to be the price of doing business.
 
LooseCannon said:
If there's any aspect of this discussion I think was missed, it's that IS wants to draw the USA back in. They want the USA to put soldiers on the ground in Iraq again, because last time it cost the USA trillions of dollars, thousands of lives, and significantly impacted the way Americans were seen around the world. In other words, IS thinks the Iraq War was a long-game victory for them, because it hurt the USA in ways that other operations didn't.
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Good point. IS wants to draw back EU in as well. Because they want to increase hate vs the West. Because it will lead to more support for IS, more people will join the masses.
 
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