Deadly attacks in Paris / Brussels / Nice (07/14/2016)

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  • TheWizardOfIceTheWizardOfIce 'One of the Internet's more toxic individuals'
    edited November 2015 Posts: 9,117
    SaintMark wrote: »
    Suddenly people like Putin, the man who wants to return Russia to the former glory, a flipping worse sociopath than Gadhaffi, Assad, Hussein put together. That the Russian army/air-force suddenly pops up in oil countries and takes all the attention away from Crimea & Ukraine has nothing to do with eachother?- This little war with IS takes place in the backyard of Russia so what took them so long?- It is not like the Russians got their behind kicked before by the Taliban in a country called Afghanistan.

    Anybody cheering the policies of Putin can be considered a headcase, the man is not interested in anything the West wants after all he still covers Assads behind, the man who has killed more Syrians than IS has done. And causing a mass exodus of moderate muslims to the west.

    This war and its consequences is a incredible mess and I find the democratic chosen leaders that try and steer through the sh&te with diplomacy of bigger intelligence than those who want to walk in with guns blazing and bombing the crap out of IS and too many innocent bystanders that cannot go anywhere because in essence they are kept hostage and human shield. Becoming a feeding ground for hatred towards the West which in itself is a nice source for new radicals.
    The likes of Obama who does not want to make the matters worse than they already are should be cherished instead of those idiots who serve the weapon industries and want a bigger army, more bombs and more war. For f..... sake we already have enough war to keep mankind at the brink of self destruction.

    Well it seems like Putin is a necessary evil right now. The public want IS bombed to f**k and back and so do our politicians only they are far too gutless to admit it for fear of causing offence.

    But what they can do is turn a blind eye while a bloke like Putin does their dirty work for them.

    It's far easier to go on the Andrew Marr show and say Vlad was a bit naughty for levelling that village than it is to defend giving the order yourself.

    It's worrisome letting Putin off the leash as we might never get him back in his box but in dark times you need to turn to someone who doesn't care about fighting by Queensbury rules.

    Putin is certainly not the hero the world needs right now but he's probably the one it deserves.
  • bondjamesbondjames You were expecting someone else?
    Posts: 23,883
    RE: Putin: The enemy of my enemy is my friend.....and all that jazz
    Putin is certainly not the hero the world needs right now but he's probably the one it deserves.
    Nice....

    If I was ISIL, I'd be preparing to meet Allah shortly.
  • Posts: 486
    Well it seems like Putin is a necessary evil right now. The public want IS bombed to f**k and back and so do our politicians only they are far too gutless to admit it for fear of causing offence.

    But what they can do is turn a blind eye while a bloke like Putin does their dirty work for them.

    It's far easier to go on the Andrew Marr show and say Vlad was a bit naughty for levelling that village than it is to defend giving the order yourself.

    Modern day politics in a nutshell. Rather like the Labour party being asked to abstain voting on the welfare bill a few months ago. They allow further cuts to go through whilst tut tutting at the Tories for doing so.
    bondjames wrote: »
    RE: Putin: The enemy of my enemy is my friend.....and all that jazz
    Putin is certainly not the hero the world needs right now but he's probably the one it deserves.
    Nice....

    If I was ISIL, I'd be preparing to meet Allah shortly.

    That Russia is so out of favour with the west and yet shows no reserve in bombing Syria must surely unsettle them somewhat.
  • Posts: 7,653

    Putin is certainly not the hero the world needs right now but he's probably the one it deserves.

    Calling Putin a hero shows you only look at this moment and forget all the other affairs playing involving Putin & friends. The capitalistic Russia and its influence is spreading its wings and it is not going to go back in the bottle. The involvement and cheering on by the likes of you only gets us closer to a nuclear threat. It will happen in the middle east but somehow I doubt it will involve Iran or any Muslim state.
    The involvement by Putin is a far more dangerous element than the average gungho person might expect, he is there for Russia and its greater glory. They really do not give a shit about terrorism, they did facilitate the old terrorism with weapons & training in the good old days of the cold war.
    We do not deserve the dictator like Putin and neither is he a hero, to think that is saying that Bush jr did a splendid job keeping the middle east nice and balanced.
  • DoctorKaufmannDoctorKaufmann Can shoot you from Stuttgart and still make it look like suicide.
    Posts: 1,261
    12243467_10153701140879417_4568860648499124478_n.jpg?oh=e9e78a8081d93409689801921a839e90&oe=56F388B3

    Translation: "72 virgins? Sorry, mate, you are in the completely wrong place here. Fancy a host?"
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,797
    OHMSS69 wrote: »
    Eisenhower warned about this. The Industrial-Military complex in the USA has a stranglehold on politicians. This is a 600 billion dollar industry. They started this after WW2 and look at us now. They build factories in many rural states and create jobs, Congressmen and Senators won't campaign for cutting the budget because many of their constituents would be out of work....
    If a President ever tried to take it down, he would get "JFK'd".

    End result: we have been at war since the end of WW2 yet we have never declared war since 1942.
    Obscene defense budget that drains our resources and while the military has what it wants (but does not necessarily need) the rest of the country is going to sh*t. Bridges falling down, schools a joke, and don't ever get sick in the USA you are really screwed with our frakked up health care system.

    Uhhh, yep.
  • TheWizardOfIceTheWizardOfIce 'One of the Internet's more toxic individuals'
    Posts: 9,117
    SaintMark wrote: »

    Putin is certainly not the hero the world needs right now but he's probably the one it deserves.

    Calling Putin a hero shows you only look at this moment and forget all the other affairs playing involving Putin & friends. The capitalistic Russia and its influence is spreading its wings and it is not going to go back in the bottle. The involvement and cheering on by the likes of you only gets us closer to a nuclear threat. It will happen in the middle east but somehow I doubt it will involve Iran or any Muslim state.
    The involvement by Putin is a far more dangerous element than the average gungho person might expect, he is there for Russia and its greater glory. They really do not give a shit about terrorism, they did facilitate the old terrorism with weapons & training in the good old days of the cold war.
    We do not deserve the dictator like Putin and neither is he a hero, to think that is saying that Bush jr did a splendid job keeping the middle east nice and balanced.
    SaintMark wrote: »

    Putin is certainly not the hero the world needs right now but he's probably the one it deserves.

    Calling Putin a hero shows you only look at this moment and forget all the other affairs playing involving Putin & friends. The capitalistic Russia and its influence is spreading its wings and it is not going to go back in the bottle. The involvement and cheering on by the likes of you only gets us closer to a nuclear threat. It will happen in the middle east but somehow I doubt it will involve Iran or any Muslim state.
    The involvement by Putin is a far more dangerous element than the average gungho person might expect, he is there for Russia and its greater glory. They really do not give a shit about terrorism, they did facilitate the old terrorism with weapons & training in the good old days of the cold war.
    We do not deserve the dictator like Putin and neither is he a hero, to think that is saying that Bush jr did a splendid job keeping the middle east nice and balanced.

    I agree with you.

    We all know the real problem is not Syria it's at home. The problem is its utterly impossible to separate the terrorists from the peaceful majority and our feeble politicians have absolutely no idea how to go about this.

    But they need to be seen to be doing something to appease the masses so the obvious solution is to bomb someone; but they are also as scared of causing offence to Islam and being seem to be entering into another pointless war as they are of IS.

    So what do you do? You call the bogeyman. You call someone who will ignore any PC influenced moral qualms which keep you paralysed and do what you secretly know the public demands of you but are to scared to admit.

    You call a guy who doesn't care first and foremost about keeping his seat and getting reelected. He doesn't need to cling to an illusion of power like western leaders because he is power.

    Are these people pleasant? No. Can you control them? No. Are you ashamed of yourself? Yes.

    The trouble with western politics is there is no vision for the future only the next election. And so as we created the Taliban and Al Qaeda to combat the Russians now we come full circle.

    Is Putin a hero? No. But he is what we deserve for complacently voting at election after election for pathetic, chinless empty suits who have no concept of the issues affecting real people, are just born to govern and are protected from the real world in their Islington/Parliament/chauffeured limo ghetto.

    Don't for one minute think that if Putin could guarantee all this would go away the west wouldn't hesitate to let him do what he wants with the whole of Ukraine. The west is scared and helpless and in that state you try to make friends with the kid with the biggest stick. You worry later about him taking your lunch money off you at the school gate every day.
  • edited November 2015 Posts: 2,015
    During WWII, US and UK bombed several French cities to ruin and killed many French civilians, and the survivors were fed very strong propaganda to explain the so called liberators were evil. Well, even during the actual final days of war, there were rapes by GIs, much publicized. Many elder French (80/90s now) have then quite strong feelings about US and UK, for sure.

    But well, where are the French terrorists attacks against UK and US ?

    Quite a few here want a easy, rational, A means B, economy is key, explanation (in order to avoid talking about religion ?) as simplistic as "you always create your enemy" (that's the hypocritical version of "blame the victims"). But to feel you're vaguely true, you have to forget just about every case where your 'explanation' simply didn't happen at all.
  • Posts: 4,615
    I'm trying to educate myself on the role of religion and , thankfully, there are some great debates on youtube and its important that these debates include speakers who support Islam.
    I just wanted to bring up an excellent point from a debate I watched last night.
    Fundamentalism is used by default as a bad thing when talked about within this area. But there is nothing wrong in being a fundamentalist providing the fundamentals are sound or dont lead to having influence to non-believers (ie theocracy). So a fundamentalist in Jainism for example would brush the path ahead of them or drink through a cloth to avoid killing bugs. There is nothing wrong at all in being a religious fundamentalist as long as the fundamentals are sound. So, we have to ask ourselves, why do we have such an issue with Muslim fundamentalism? Is it the fundamentalist part or the Muslim part? To add to this, I personally am an atheist fundamentalist. The is nothing fuzzy, soft or compromising about my views. There is fundamentally no reason to believe in any God.100% , full stop, its all bullsh*t. I am as fundamental in my views as any religious person you would ever meet. Does that make me a danger to society? Will my fundamentalism lead me to look for an AK47 online? We all know the answer. These are hard issues to deal with but unless we all at least try to promote honest and grown up debate, we will note make any progress.
  • TheWizardOfIceTheWizardOfIce 'One of the Internet's more toxic individuals'
    edited November 2015 Posts: 9,117
    During WWII, US and UK bombed several French cities to ruin and killed many French civilians, and the survivors were fed very strong propaganda to explain the so called liberators were evil. Well, even during the actual final days of war, there were rapes by GIs, much publicized. Many elder French (80/90s now) have then quite strong feelings about US and UK, for sure.

    But well, where are the French terrorists attacks against UK and US ?

    Quite a few here want a easy, rational, A means B, economy is key, explanation (in order to avoid talking about religion ?) as simplistic as "you always create your enemy" (that's the hypocritical version of "blame the victims"). But to feel you're vaguely true, you have to forget just about every case where your 'explanation' simply didn't happen at all.

    Very shrewd observation.

    Similarly where are all the German suicide bombers in Moscow? The Russians laid waste to German towns and gang raped German women so if it's all about the west bombing Iraq why were there not a spate of German terrorist attacks after the war?

    And where are the Japanese suicide bombers? For a nation that invented Kamikaze they would seem the perfect culture to get revenge for Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the deaths of their ancestors.

    But apparently it's only the west bombing the Middle East that causes young men in Bolton and Bradford who have never been there to want to blow up western cities.

    Islam has absolutely zero bearing on it at all.
  • edited November 2015 Posts: 11,425
    Islam is clearly a factor. But also, so is a sense of powerlessness/disenfranchisement.

    It's a lethal cocktail of factors. I essentially agree though that most people who are pissed off with their life or the world don't go around killing and murdering. There is unfortunately something about contemporary fundamentalist Islam that encourages violence as a first resort - as infact something noble in itself.

    It's also a fact that the Prophet Mohammaed was a military leader, making him quite different from most other religious prophets. From the very start, the religion of 'peace' was closely entwined with violence and cruel retribution on those that stood in its way.

    Having said that, religions evolve and obviously most Muslims don't subscribe to violent jihad.
  • bondjamesbondjames You were expecting someone else?
    edited November 2015 Posts: 23,883
    Getafix wrote: »
    Islam is clearly a factor. But also, so is a sense of powerlessness/disenfranchisement.

    It's a lethal cocktail of factors. I essentially agree though that most people who are pissed off with their life or the world don't go around killing and murdering. There is unfortunately something about contemporary fundamentalist Islam that encourages violence as a first resort - as infact something noble in itself.

    It's also a fact that the Prophet Mohammaed was a military leader, making him quite different from most other religious prophets. From the very start, the religion of 'peace' was closely entwined with violence and cruel retribution on those that stood in its way.

    Having said that, religions evolve and obviously most Muslims don't subscribe to violent jihad.
    Agreed. No one has denied that Salafist & Wahabbist Islam (which is the extreme Sunni version being emphasized here) is not to blame. It is. That is a violent strand.

    The issue is also with the sympathisers on local shores. Multiculturalism and mass immigration without integration and assimilation encourages this sort of 'distancing' of communities and culture from the mainstream.

    This is also a culture war. We see it that way (whether we are going to admit or not) and they see it that way.

    In a culture war, any attack or violent act is amplified. Look at the reactions in the US to the Parisian attacks. More people are killed in the US each year by lone nutters with guns (including in schools etc) and yet the gun debate goes nowhere. Look at the reaction to this attack. It's because it's from a 'different culture'. The gun violence is from nutcases in the US from the same culture. It also applies to 'black' crime in the US. Also seen as a different culture by some.

    So, as long as attacks are perpetrated by people from different 'cultures', there is more enmity created on both sides and more desire for revenge.

    Many comments on here lump all 'Muslims' together and all 'religious believers' together.....that's wrong. As I said, if we do that, then they are just as justified in lumping 'The West' together. If you see them all as 'religious nutters' then they are just as justified in seeing us as 'decadent parasites'. They did not make distinctions between Jews, Christians or Muslims on Friday. Everyone was targetted.

    The violence is coming from the Sunii Salafist strand, but the Govts are not talking about that, because that strand actually originates in Saudi Arabia, the good friend.
  • Posts: 11,425
    Totally true. I've lived in South Asia. The Muslim tradition there, and in SE Asia, is relatively peaceful and tolerant. However, funding from Saudi Arabia for nutter preachers to spread wahhabi insanity has changed things a lot over recent decades.

    This situation has not sprung from nowhere. It's been developing for years right under our noses, funded by the Saudis. They have funded a worldwide propaganda project, spreading bigotry, intolerance, violence and stupidity. And because the UK, U.S. and the Bushes love the Saudis, nothing was ever done to stop it.

  • CommanderRossCommanderRoss The bottom of a pitch lake in Eastern Trinidad, place called La Brea
    Posts: 8,255
    OHMSS69 wrote: »
    bondjames wrote: »
    The only place that seems more difficult to take down is Afghanistan.


    :))

    I have a question relating to WW2: Was the UK ever in any real danger of invasion in 1940? I don't think so. The German high command had no idea how to mount a sea born invasion as the only country that had experience at it was Japan; a naval blockage was out of the question as the Kriegsmarine was no match for the Home Fleet: a U boat blockage would have required 200 boats and at the time Germany only had 17 U boats.
    Besides Hitler never wanted to fight the British, whom he considered to be good Aryans like the Germans. He felt the French were decadent and the Russians were filthy barbaric Slavs not much better than Jews, Gypsies and Blacks.

    He was hoping that the threat would force Britain to the bargaining table. Having failed at that he began planning but the mishandling of the Battle of Britain caused that door to shut. By Dec 1940 he began to draw up plans to invade the Soviet Union. Thus forgetting the UK altogether.

    Yes, the British Islands were in real danger of an invasion. No, the Germans hadn't had much experience, but neither did they have much experience with airborne landings before 1940. Yet they landed an masse in Poland and later in the Netherlands and Belgium. Over Holland (the Netherlands) they lost approximately one third of their transport aircraft between may the 10th and 15th. Airborne landings were a major part of operation 'Sea Lion', the invasion of Britain.

    It was clear for the German high command that an invasion was never going to work without the complete security of the air above the landing grounds, hence The Battle of Britain. And they weren't far off. In fact the Brits themselves calculated that it would've taken another two to three weeks before they wouldn't be able to put another fighter into the sky, when all of a sudden Goering was called 'Meier' and the Germans started bombing cities, giving the RAF the break they needed so badly, and hence letting the Germans lose their complete mastery of the British skies.

    You state that the RN would've been able to stop the invasion, but that's no certainty. If the Germans had had complete control over the skies no British vessel would've been safe and no frigate would've stood a chance. They wouldn't have been able to get close to the invasion fleet.
  • AceHoleAceHole Belgium, via Britain
    edited November 2015 Posts: 1,731
    SaintMark wrote: »

    Putin is certainly not the hero the world needs right now but he's probably the one it deserves.

    Calling Putin a hero shows you only look at this moment and forget all the other affairs playing involving Putin & friends. The capitalistic Russia and its influence is spreading its wings and it is not going to go back in the bottle. The involvement and cheering on by the likes of you only gets us closer to a nuclear threat. It will happen in the middle east but somehow I doubt it will involve Iran or any Muslim state.
    The involvement by Putin is a far more dangerous element than the average gungho person might expect, he is there for Russia and its greater glory. They really do not give a shit about terrorism, they did facilitate the old terrorism with weapons & training in the good old days of the cold war.
    We do not deserve the dictator like Putin and neither is he a hero, to think that is saying that Bush jr did a splendid job keeping the middle east nice and balanced.
    SaintMark wrote: »

    Putin is certainly not the hero the world needs right now but he's probably the one it deserves.

    Calling Putin a hero shows you only look at this moment and forget all the other affairs playing involving Putin & friends. The capitalistic Russia and its influence is spreading its wings and it is not going to go back in the bottle. The involvement and cheering on by the likes of you only gets us closer to a nuclear threat. It will happen in the middle east but somehow I doubt it will involve Iran or any Muslim state.
    The involvement by Putin is a far more dangerous element than the average gungho person might expect, he is there for Russia and its greater glory. They really do not give a shit about terrorism, they did facilitate the old terrorism with weapons & training in the good old days of the cold war.
    We do not deserve the dictator like Putin and neither is he a hero, to think that is saying that Bush jr did a splendid job keeping the middle east nice and balanced.

    I agree with you.

    We all know the real problem is not Syria it's at home. The problem is its utterly impossible to separate the terrorists from the peaceful majority and our feeble politicians have absolutely no idea how to go about this.

    But they need to be seen to be doing something to appease the masses so the obvious solution is to bomb someone; but they are also as scared of causing offence to Islam and being seem to be entering into another pointless war as they are of IS.

    So what do you do? You call the bogeyman. You call someone who will ignore any PC influenced moral qualms which keep you paralysed and do what you secretly know the public demands of you but are to scared to admit.

    You call a guy who doesn't care first and foremost about keeping his seat and getting reelected. He doesn't need to cling to an illusion of power like western leaders because he is power.

    Are these people pleasant? No. Can you control them? No. Are you ashamed of yourself? Yes.

    The trouble with western politics is there is no vision for the future only the next election. And so as we created the Taliban and Al Qaeda to combat the Russians now we come full circle.

    Is Putin a hero? No. But he is what we deserve for complacently voting at election after election for pathetic, chinless empty suits who have no concept of the issues affecting real people, are just born to govern and are protected from the real world in their Islington/Parliament/chauffeured limo ghetto.

    Don't for one minute think that if Putin could guarantee all this would go away the west wouldn't hesitate to let him do what he wants with the whole of Ukraine. The west is scared and helpless and in that state you try to make friends with the kid with the biggest stick. You worry later about him taking your lunch money off you at the school gate every day.

    I'd say this is the crux of the problem - further still, most of our problems.

    Damp fish are constantly brought(=bought) to power by ignorant democratic societies, only digging us into a deeper hole than the one we climbed out of after WWII

    Nobody 'leads' or effects any real change (for the better) because their hands are in everybody's pockets.

    We are not 'led' by elected politicians, we are led by large corporations. Only when we admit this, will anything start to change.
  • CommanderRossCommanderRoss The bottom of a pitch lake in Eastern Trinidad, place called La Brea
    edited November 2015 Posts: 8,255
    Sorry for the second post, but it's another topic:
    I think @Suave puts it out correctly. It isn't that clear all together. But for those who say it's no good fighting ISIL: If we don't bom them, they will bomb us. And even more so, yes, innocent victims will fall during bombings and if either the West or Russia invades, but those same people are helpless against the continuous murder and rape of ISIL fighters. Staying away isn't going to save those people at all.

    Is Putin the ultimate bad guy or our saviour? Neither. He is a power politician whose people just lost an aeroplane full of countrymen. He took the Krim to secure his naval base, and now he'll use his position (and bases in Syria) to attack all opposing forces to Assad. When he's done Rusneft will get the lucrative oil contracts and Syria and Russia will be very good friends indeed. As long as nobody else acts, this is the most likely scenario. If France is willing to get groundtroops, and as they should perhaps NATO, things will get complicated and perhaps they will occupy the country for the next 50 years, like they did in Austria after WW2. This takes Assad out of the equation perhaps.

    @patb yes all fundamentalism is evil. It perhaps doesn't show in the examples you give, but fundamentalism restraints people from changing their minds due to circumstances. Fundamentalism gives people an unchangeable view of life, discarding any other idea. That, in itself, is evil. It gives the opportunity to do whatever you want, as long as it fits your religion, no matter what it means to anybody else.
  • edited November 2015 Posts: 2,015
    The cultural explanation is a self-defining circular nonsense.
    "Why do they fight us ?"
    "Because they're from a different culture"
    "But look at these two different cultures, they don't fight"
    "No, their culture is not so different"
    "Uh ? What do you mean ?"
    "Well, the proof is that they don't fight"
  • bondjamesbondjames You were expecting someone else?
    edited November 2015 Posts: 23,883
    Sorry for the second post, but it's another topic:
    I think @Suave puts it out correctly. It isn't that clear all together. But for those who say it's no good fighting ISIL: If we don't bom them, they will bomb us. And even more so, yes, innocent victims will fall during bombings and if either the West or Russia invades, but those same people are helpless against the continuous murder and rape of ISIL fighters. Staying away isn't going to save those people at all.
    One must not stay away now. The genie is out of the bottle unfortunately. Now there is a full on war and it must be won. However, I believe it must be won first and foremost by the locals. We should pick a strongman (in this case Assad is the one, even though he is hated by many) and supply him with the arms to finish the job, while providing air support. The Russians want to do this, but the US is saying that support must go to the 'free Syrian army' even though they have not even defined what that is.

    Then, once ISIL has been exterminated (at great cost to the locals unfortunately) we then have to transition him out of power and open that economy up. That has to be coordinated with many powers involved....sort of like a Marshall plan for the area. A major redevelopment project with involvement from all.

    I certainly believe the US wants to do this, and that is why all major powers engineered a rapprochment with Iran earlier this year. They are trying to remove overreliance on Saudi oil and try to create more of a balanced situation in that region. You are going to find that the biggest opponents of this strategy will be the Saudis.

    Russia's involvement imho is a good thing. There has to be a check on US triumphalism and hubris. The delicate balance that comes from having two 'super nuclear' powers involved ensures that neither overreaches and both have to watch it.

    Whatever happens with Russia, it can't be worse than the bloody mess that was created there in the last 20 years by US meddling and overreach.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    The Free Syrian Army=IS. Backed by the US to overthrow Assad and destabilize the country. They need a Central Bank down there.

    And Allah Akhbar just means Thank God.
  • edited November 2015 Posts: 2,015
    bondjames wrote: »
    One must not stay away now. The genie is out of the bottle unfortunately. Now there is a full on war and it must be won. However, I believe it must be won first and foremost by the locals.

    Could you give some example of this working ?

    bondjames wrote: »
    Then, once ISIL has been exterminated (at great cost to the locals unfortunately) we then have to transition him out of power and open that economy up.

    The idea that any opening of economy will help fighting war is the main idea for the last 100 years. Simplistic to explain, but not very predictable if you judge the results (well, unless you're the ones doing business with the terrorists, here you win indeed).
    bondjames wrote: »
    That has to be coordinated with many powers involved....sort of like a Marshall plan for the area.

    The Marshall plan, that happened after countries were freed not by locals but by foreign armies ? They even cut a country in two... Sounds like a counter-example of your theory.
  • bondjamesbondjames You were expecting someone else?
    Posts: 23,883
    Just going in to see Spectre for the last time. I'll get back to you after
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    bondjames wrote: »
    Just going in to see Spectre for the last time.

    Last time? Who do you expect in the cinema?
  • TheWizardOfIceTheWizardOfIce 'One of the Internet's more toxic individuals'
    Posts: 9,117
    bondjames wrote: »
    Sorry for the second post, but it's another topic:
    I think @Suave puts it out correctly. It isn't that clear all together. But for those who say it's no good fighting ISIL: If we don't bom them, they will bomb us. And even more so, yes, innocent victims will fall during bombings and if either the West or Russia invades, but those same people are helpless against the continuous murder and rape of ISIL fighters. Staying away isn't going to save those people at all.
    One must not stay away now. The genie is out of the bottle unfortunately. Now there is a full on war and it must be won. However, I believe it must be won first and foremost by the locals. We should pick a strongman (in this case Assad is the one, even though he is hated by many) and supply him with the arms to finish the job, while providing air support. The Russians want to do this, but the US is saying that support must go to the 'free Syrian army' even though they have not even defined what that is.

    Then, once ISIL has been exterminated (at great cost to the locals unfortunately) we then have to transition him out of power and open that economy up. That has to be coordinated with many powers involved....sort of like a Marshall plan for the area. A major redevelopment project with involvement from all.

    I certainly believe the US wants to do this, and that is why all major powers engineered a rapprochment with Iran earlier this year. They are trying to remove overreliance on Saudi oil and try to create more of a balanced situation in that region. You are going to find that the biggest opponents of this strategy will be the Saudis.

    Russia's involvement imho is a good thing. There has to be a check on US triumphalism and hubris. The delicate balance that comes from having two 'super nuclear' powers involved ensures that neither overreaches and both have to watch it.

    Whatever happens with Russia, it can't be worse than the bloody mess that was created there in the last 20 years by US meddling and overreach.

    Some very valid points there but still doesn't explain to me why a guy sat in his bedroom in Bradford should give a flying f**k about what happens in Syria to the extent that he wants to blow himself up?

    Syria is an utter irrelevance. If IS in Syria was all we had to worry about this could be over tomorrow with a couple of tactical nukes.

    It's the cancer we have allowed to grow in our society that is the threat and you can turn Syria into the surface of Mars if you want but it won't stop tragic little wankers making bombs in their basements while dreaming of all those virgins they are going to get their hands on.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    We need to welcome hundreds of thousands more muslims into Europe, so they can keep those extremists in check. Maybe a million, that will do the trick.
  • TheWizardOfIceTheWizardOfIce 'One of the Internet's more toxic individuals'
    Posts: 9,117
    We need to welcome hundreds of thousands more muslims into Europe, so they can keep those extremists in check. Maybe a million, that will do the trick.

    Great idea but I think Angela Merkel already has the patent on this brilliant solution.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    We need to welcome hundreds of thousands more muslims into Europe, so they can keep those extremists in check. Maybe a million, that will do the trick.

    Great idea but I think Angela Merkel already has the patent on this brilliant solution.

    She is not alone.

    Yes, the final solution for us all.
  • Posts: 4,615
    "Some very valid points there but still doesn't explain to me why a guy sat in his bedroom in Bradford should give a flying f**k about what happens in Syria to the extent that he wants to blow himself up?"

    Easy, they fight for the same cause. Those who want to play down the role of religion have a big problem explaining this. Those that focus on the role of religion have a very easy "in your face"explanation.
    Devotion to Islam on a global scale. By dividing up the World in terms of Syria, Bradford etc shows a lack of insight. There is one Islamic world and it has no boundaries.
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    edited November 2015 Posts: 45,489
    patb wrote: »
    "Some very valid points there but still doesn't explain to me why a guy sat in his bedroom in Bradford should give a flying f**k about what happens in Syria to the extent that he wants to blow himself up?"

    Easy, they fight for the same cause. Those who want to play down the role of religion have a big problem explaining this. Those that focus on the role of religion have a very easy "in your face"explanation.
    Devotion to Islam on a global scale. By dividing up the World in terms of Syria, Bradford etc shows a lack of insight. There is one Islamic world and it has no boundaries.

    Just google The Ummah.It has nothing to do with Uma Thurman or Ummagumma.
  • TheWizardOfIceTheWizardOfIce 'One of the Internet's more toxic individuals'
    edited November 2015 Posts: 9,117
    patb wrote: »
    "Some very valid points there but still doesn't explain to me why a guy sat in his bedroom in Bradford should give a flying f**k about what happens in Syria to the extent that he wants to blow himself up?"

    Easy, they fight for the same cause. Those who want to play down the role of religion have a big problem explaining this. Those that focus on the role of religion have a very easy "in your face"explanation.
    Devotion to Islam on a global scale. By dividing up the World in terms of Syria, Bradford etc shows a lack of insight. There is one Islamic world and it has no boundaries.

    So why can't Cameron admit that?

    Anyway I thought it had nothing to do with Islam? But now you're telling me different? Surely it's the religion of peace isn't it?

    Like Le Chiffre 'I'm a little confused'.
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