It is only when a mosquito lands on your testicles that you realise there is always a way to solve a problem without using violence..

How the hell is anyone going to kill an ideology which spans multiple countries, let alone one?

Presumably by not supporting the conditions which have resulted in its spectacular growth.

Do you really believe jambalaya’s nonsense that ISIS’s spectacular growth and influence in Iraq is all down to the Americans leaving?

I don’t see peyote gung-ho rushing in but considered approach

A considered approach to killing a few more brown people who may or may not have hated the west, but you can be sure as shit that all their mates will, after they’ve buried their buddies.

The ‘problem’ of IS is not ours to solve. Like it or not, we are in the crosshairs of ISIS for their perception of ‘our’ transgressions against them and theirs historically, as well as a complete clash of ideologies. We, the west, cannot ‘defeat’ them without a costly and lengthy conventional war, which the public will not have the stomach for.

If we wish to aid their defeat, (do we? Really? It’s always good to have a convenient enemy to distract and unite public feeling) we should take an honest look at the ideologies of the various factions and support the ones that we can feel most moral affinity to, NOT just the ones that have the most oil. Unfortunately that will never happen because cash always trumps morality when it comes to foreign policy. When you look at the west dispassionately, from an outsiders, a middle easterner’s perspective, it’s not a hell of a lot more attractive in the way it treats people than ISIS…

It is only when a mosquito lands on your testicles that you realise there is always a way to solve a problem without using violence..

I dunno; sounds like a strong case for a surgical strike, minimising collateral damage to the maximum extent to me…

No.

And I’m still getting used to my actual MP saying things I fully agree with on subjects like this.

Nope

we should take an honest look at the ideologies of the various factions and support the ones that we can feel most moral affinity to, NOT just the ones that have the most oil.

this is a very relevant point – the more time they spend infighting and jostling for position against each other, the less time they spend trying to kill us

take a look at some of the most successful policies we had against the IRA – blackmail, bribery and disinformation. I recall that one of the best ones was when the IRA were robbing banks for cash, we subtly over reported the amounts lost, meaning they thought that people were pocketing money for themselves. The result being a spate of known PIRA men getting kneecapped. The thing about this is that, even if you’re only partially successful in turning people, then you end up with the enemy looking over their shoulder for betrayal and not trusting each other. The IRA wiped out many of their own best men looking for moles.

I see no reason why ‘targeted strikes’ – i.e.. bombings. can’t play a useful part in that.

Obviously, Mossad do similar, but they really do play ‘big boys rules’

Hell No…

Too much taxpayers money has already gone into the rise of ISIS, with MI6 providing training and weapons for many of those who went on to become ISIS recruits:

Pentagon report predicted West’s support for Islamist rebels would create ISIS

A declassified secret US government document obtained by the conservative public interest law firm, Judicial Watch, shows that Western governments deliberately allied with al-Qaeda and other Islamist extremist groups to topple Syrian dictator Bashir al-Assad.

The document reveals that in coordination with the Gulf states and Turkey, the West intentionally sponsored violent Islamist groups to destabilize Assad, and that these “supporting powers” desired the emergence of a “Salafist Principality” in Syria to “isolate the Syrian regime.”

According to the newly declassified US document, the Pentagon foresaw the likely rise of the ‘Islamic State’ as a direct consequence of this strategy, and warned that it could destabilize Iraq. Despite anticipating that Western, Gulf state and Turkish support for the “Syrian opposition”?—?which included al-Qaeda in Iraq?—?could lead to the emergence of an ‘Islamic State’ in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the document provides no indication of any decision to reverse the policy of support to the Syrian rebels. On the contrary, the emergence of an al-Qaeda affiliated “Salafist Principality” as a result is described as a strategic opportunity to isolate Assad.

Ex-intel officials: Pentagon report proves US complicity in ISIS:

Renowned government whistleblowers weigh in on debate over controversial declassified document

“it’s pretty well known” in the intelligence community that Saudi Arabia sponsors Islamist terrorists to this day:

“It’s kind of a deal that the Saudis will support various Islamic extremists, all around the world, and the deal is that they [extremists] will not try to overthrow the corrupt, alcohol-drinking clique in Saudi Arabia.”

Why aren’t stories such as those linked above reported more widely within the media?

And why are Saudi Arabia allowed to continue their global promotion of Wahhabism, which is core to the ideology behind ISIS (and Al-Qaeda)?

And why are Saudi Arabia allowed to continue their global promotion of Wahhabism, which is core to the ideology behind ISIS (and Al-Qaeda)?

Because; oil, money.

Had lunch with a very considered American friend of mine who said Bataclan is Europe’s 9/11, things will not be the same again. The “do nothing” argument is history.

Having had a recent trip to the states and sat next to a lady with interesting American opinions the mindset and conditioning over there is mental. From the moment you land in LAX you feel like a suspect, posters reminding them of 9/11 and never let it happen again promoting a fear and terror in the masses that the next attack is only just around the corner. The terrorists have won and can sit back on the beach there.
Many were probably just waiting for the Paris attack to happen to prove how right they were and how there should be huge amounts of security , searching the 90 year old granny in her wheel chair and suspecting everyone is out to get you.

There is no one solution to ISIS, bombing will be counter-productive if done alone and western boots on the ground would be like fire fighting with petrol.

Of course bombing alone will not solve the problem – that’s obvious as we’re already engaged in bombing ISIS in Iraq along side our allies, who are also bombing ISIS in Syria, and yet ISIS territory is not defeated. However it is not a waste of time and it is not useless. Territory is being taken from ISIS by other troops on the ground exactly because the bombing campaign is supporting them, and the territory is being held. But those forces are not enough on their own to completely defeat ISIS forces on the ground. So whilst bombing will not work on its own, neither will boots on the ground, both are required.

David Cameron was clear in his justification yesterday that we need to take the fight ti ISIS on many fronts, the military front in Iraq and Syria, which does mean troops on the ground (not necessarily ours – ideally not ours) and a plan to help the countries in the aftermath of the military campaign (probably for decades), as well as the intelligence angle to fight ISIS in our own country and within our society and to win the idealogical battle. I’m not sure he convinced the house that he has a full plan for all those elements – and he won’t, but I think it shows he has learned the lessons of recent wars.

The whole thing about diplomacy is a red herring. We won’t beat ISIS via diplomacy. We can only address the Assad situation via diplomacy, once we’ve taken out ISIS on the ground, but that is now clearly a secondary objective to be addressed once ISIS is defeated on the ground in Iraq and Syria.

It’s a ridiculous situation that we’re bombing ISIS in Iraq, but only conducting recon and targeting missions over Syria (i.e. directing others bombs onto targets in Syria), but yet not actually dropping bombs over Syria. Some think we’re being high and mighty and taking the moral high ground – the reality is that it doesn’t make sense, we’re still a target for ISIS and our allies are probably a bit bemused at the situation. ISIS is the target, not Iraq or Syria. But some politicians love to be pedantic.

However if we think ISIS in Iraq and Syria is the end, it’s not. There are other regions in the world they can just focus on setting up shop so no doubt we’ll have to deal with them elsewhere afterwards in north and central Africa. We’re in it for the long haul whether we like it or not.

No
I have yet to see any explanation as to how bombing will hurt or restrict ISIS in any practical way . It will inevitably kill civilians it will create a sence of division with those who are susceptible to the binary clash of religions argument that ISIS rely on.
So no military gain.
No propaganda gain in the fight against terrorism.
The advantages would be political for Cameron becoming a diplomatic ‘ hard man.’ And the country in appearing to stand by the US , the yanks who love us will love us regardless Trump and the Tea Party end will continue to regard us as an irrelevance.

Are we even sure ‘beating’ ISIS is a good idea?

ISIS is effectively a Sunni nation formed out of Sunni areas of Syria and Iraq. If we beat ISIS we hand those areas back to Shias in Iraq and Assad in Syria. Being ruled by Shias/Assad was the reason the uprising started in the first place.

Moreover what does beating ISIS actually mean? We’re not going to kill all of them, most will remain part of the local population. Probably in some kind of local power.

I think the biggest problem isn’t deciding how to defeat ISIS it’s deciding who we want to take over from them – we clearly have no idea. Peace loving moderates do not emerge as winners in violent Civil wars – whoever wins is not going to be warm and friendly. And when they are in control of Sunni areas they are going to be inflicting similar ISIS-esque atrocities as revenge on the Sunni/ISIS population.

The one case I would support bombing would be to keep individual towns/areas in the hands of their current population. ie) If a largely Christian town was fighting to protect itself from being taken over by Sunnis then I have no problem with bombing to support the locals in such a case. That doesn’t seem to be what is suggested.

appearing to stand by the US

Standing by the US is a foreign policy objective in its own right and has been for years. Whether it should be or not, I’ve no idea.

outofbreath – Member
Standing by the US is a foreign policy objective in its own right and has been for years. Whether it should be or not, I’ve no idea.

Like they stood by the UK in the Falklands?

It’s all about money IMO.

Take a look at the Sino-Russian War and the part financiers played in that.

It’s not about which side wins, but how much the financiers and arms industry benefits from escalating a war to the point where the combatants need expensive shiny weapons. The political donations of these groups get them tame politicians on all sides of the political spectrum to do their bidding.

About the only good thing about nuclear deterrents is that they scare the shit out of the warmongers too, so localised conflicts work better for them, and as asymmetric as possible.

Like they stood by the UK in the Falklands?

I don’t accept the premise of your point, but since nobody is claiming that standing by the UK is a foreign policy objective for the USA it’s not worth debating.

We won’t beat ISIS via diplomacy. We can only address the Assad situation via diplomacy, once we’ve taken out ISIS on the ground, but that is now clearly a secondary objective to be addressed once ISIS is defeated on the ground in Iraq and Syria…we’re in it for the long haul whether we like it or not”.

Unfortunately this is the government’s approach: focus on the easily achievable military objective (destroying IS as a military force), describe everything that comes after that as secondary. History tells us that those “everything else” factors are not secondary, they’re subsequent. They’re quite important and have implications for the next century. There’s no point in doing the bombing to destroy IS of something just as bad comes along afterward.

Invading Iraq was militarily easy (if not quite a “cake walk”); invading the important bits of Afghanistan was militarily straightforward too. Mission accomplished, you might say. It’s those inconvenient, boring, long term “secondary” questions like “what the F happens now we have destroyed everything and we want these people to settle down” that have buggered us – and them – up.

We KNOW this is for the long haul: we’ve been at war for the last 14 years. We KNOW the Syrian chapter starts with air strikes. That’s why some of us want to know what the purpose and plan for the long haul is.

.:.and that’s exactly what my ex-intelligence mate Terrence Q Madeupname told me confidentially when I saw him at Condi’s house last time…

Airstrikes and ground intervention are already happening including drone strikes from the UK against identified UK citizens directly threatening us.

Corbyn is going to be further damaged by this as his consistent Stop the War positioning is going to fall flat in the face of Shadow Cabinet opposition and his own party. A Labour leader who doesn’t hold the support or respect of a major portion of his own MPs on one of his “signature issues”. He’s going to offer a free vote as he knows a whipped vote will be a PR disaster as MPs simply ignore him and vote with the Government

Good luck with the thread, it will show how STW political threads are not representative (shock horror), not even of Labour constituency MPs. I’ll be back after the Yes vote is carried sometime in the next few weeks.

I found this useful:

BBC News: What’s the UK doing about Syria: 11 key questions answered

There are some good links to background information under the heading ‘Islamic State’ (at the bottom of the page).

outofbreath – Member
‘Like they stood by the UK in the Falklands?’
I don’t accept the premise of your point, but since nobody is claiming that standing by the UK is a foreign policy objective for the USA it’s not worth debating.

Exactly the point. I know it’s not a USA policy, so why should we do their dirty work?

jambalaya – Member

Corbyn is going to be further damaged by this as his consistent Stop the War positioning <snip>

I’m curious whether you chose to make this up first without bothering to find out what he said, or if you decided you didn’t like what he’d said, then made it up.

It probably doesn’t make any difference in the grand scheme, but it’d be interesting to know.

Corbyn is going to be further damaged by this as his consistent Stop the War positioning

Corbyn will be no more damaged with his MPs than he already was as they still haven’t accepted that their views don’t represent the broad base of the party and a large part of the public. He will however gain a huge amount of respect from a significant part of the public who can recognise what this is, which is an establishment driven rush to war with no long term planning or commitment.

In actual fact, I’m sure a lot of labour MPs agree with him, but of course they’ll use it as another opportunity to boost their campaign to remove him. The sooner the deselections start the better IMO.

Unfortunately this is the government’s approach: focus on the easily achievable military objective (destroying IS as a military force), describe everything that comes after that as secondary. History tells us that those “everything else” factors are not secondary, they’re subsequent. They’re quite important and have implications for the next century. There’s no point in doing the bombing to destroy IS of something just as bad comes along afterward.

Invading Iraq was militarily easy (if not quite a “cake walk”); invading the important bits of Afghanistan was militarily straightforward too. Mission accomplished, you might say. It’s those inconvenient, boring, long term “secondary” questions like “what the F happens now we have destroyed everything and we want these people to settle down” that have buggered us – and them – up.

This.

I know it’s not a USA policy, so why should we do their dirty work?

I’ve no idea, why not ask someone who thinks we should do the dirty work of the USA?

Good luck with the thread, it will show how STW political threads are not representative (shock horror), not even of Labour constituency MPs

I haven’t noticed anyone suggesting that STW threads are representative of any particular group of people. Certainly not the UK population and not even of chubby middle-aged IT spods etc etc.

I have noticed someone who repeatedly claims his posts are representative of the views of the UK, US and European governments and implies they should be deferred to on that basis, though… 😆

We’re at war with these folks. Like it or not, and regardless of how we got here, that’s the way it is. Once one is in this situation, the best thing to do is crack on and get it done. The longer wars go on the worse they get in general.

So I don’t see why any option that might help get it finished should be off the table.

Should the UK bomb IS in Syria? Honestly I don’t know if that would be tactically beneficial, but I am sure it’s stupid to block out the option.

As for the “bombing isn’t working” brigade, I’d question that. Nobody ever said bombing would be a magic bullet, but if it forces the enemy to adapt their tactics, destroys assets, restricts movement and so on, then it’s contributing to the day, that will eventually arrive, when they collapse.

So I’d vote yes.

Quite. But that is begging the question. There is no evidence that bombing will finish anything. Not in Syria, not in Iraq, not in Afghanistan, not in Libya.

Not even in Palestine, where the Israelis have had massive firepower raining bombs down week after week, year after year, decade after decade, and they STILL haven’t extinguished the will of the Palestiinan people.

(Excellent article here by the way:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/27/bomb-isis-west-learned-nothign-from-war-terror-defeat-muslim-world-equal-partner)

Bombing won’t finish it alone, you’re quite right. Nobody’s expecting it will. It’s one tool in the toolbox, one that we have, with moderately low risk of casualties on our side, which is material.

Libya: my recollection is Gadaffi’s forces were advancing on separatist minded Benghazi, which had long been a thorn in his side, an there would have been a slaughter of medieval proportions had they not been stopped.

Iraq: that was a failure to manage the peace immediately following the fall of Saddam.

We’re at war with these folks. Like it or not, and regardless of how we got here, that’s the way it is. Once one is in this situation, the best thing to do is crack on and get it done. The longer wars go on the worse they get in general.

Must be nice to live in your world. Everything is so simple. No time for fuss. Or thought. Or reason. Or rational. Crack on. Get it done.

I think this guy’s right, bombing won’t work, and will play into their hands.

“If you strike me now, I will become more powerful than you could ever imagine..”

Bombing won’t finish it alone, you’re quite right. Nobody’s expecting it will. It’s one tool in the toolbox, one that we have, with moderately low risk of casualties on our side, which is material.

The point is that what you’re saying would suggest bombing as part of an overall strategy to achieve a recognised end goal.

Do you see that? Because I don’t.

It seems like its Iraq all over again

We’ll do Shock and Awe*, then…. erm… I dunno… any suggestions?….. oh, it’ll probably be alright…. something will come up….. I’m sure it’ll be fine…… anyway… Shock and Awe… LETS GO!!!!

* Copyright Donald Rumsfeld

> “If you strike me now, I will become more powerful than you could ever imagine..”

Airey fairy nonsense. Dead fighters can’t fight, ammunition destroyed at the dump can’t be used for fighting, roads under the eye of a drone can’t be used to get forces to the front. Knock by knock, it reduces the enemy’s capabilities. Obviously they’re prefer none of this happened.

“If you leave me alone for fear of the consequences, I will also become more powerful than you could ever imagine..” 😉

@binners fair points re the follow through. One can hope there are deals going on behind the scenes. I doubt we know more than 5% of what’s really happening.

Airey fairy nonsense. Dead fighters can’t fight,

Umm.. a dead civillian can inspire many more fighters though. Surely you must agree with that?

PS I’m not suggesting leaving them alone either.

One can hope there are deals going on behind the scenes. I doubt we know more than 5% of what’s really happening.

That’s the bit that concerns me…

History suggests that the deals being done won’t help build a stable situation. Why is this time going to be better and not just make things incrementally worse with a new ISIS which is even worse than the current ISIS in place instead?

No one can say what is being done differently but somehow expect a different outcome.

> Umm.. a dead civillian can inspire many more fighters though. Surely you must agree with that?

Yes of course. Horribly, civilian casualties are inevitable. If nothing is done, they’re also going to mount up, inexorably, under the brutality of IS. We see that already. But I see the civilians in Mosul, Raqqa etc as living under an army of occupation, something analogous to Europe under the Nazis, rather than them being fundamentally sympathetic to the occupiers.

Nobody ever said bombing would be a magic bullet…

But I think that’s part of the problem. It’s being sold as such. And even if it works and IS is decimated, what happens then? Who fills the void? This is why some sort of infrastructure to follow attacks is needed, which is what seems to be lacking in the grand masterplans at the moment.

One can hope there are deals going on behind the scenes. I doubt we know more than 5% of what’s really happening.

I’m sure that’s happening. What worries me is what’s being done to genuinely defeat IS / make the (our?) world a safer place, and what’s being done to boost difficult arms-producing economies, increase share values and define governments.

If only we had some clever people around, we might be able to figure out a way to stop IS that’s better than just bombing their houses from the air with planes.

Just to REPEAT in case you missed it, I am not advocating doing nothing.

My point is that whilst we do need to do something, bombing won’t actually work.

Yes of course. Horribly, civilian casualties are inevitable. If nothing is done, they’re also going to mount up, inexorably, under the brutality of IS.

Can you explain what makes you morally superior to somebody who supports ISIL? You both agree that killing civilians is justified for your beliefs.

mattjg – Member
> “If you strike me now, I will become more powerful than you could ever imagine..”

Airey fairy nonsense. Dead fighters can’t fight, ammunition destroyed at the dump can’t be used for fighting, roads under the eye of a drone can’t be used to get forces to the front. Knock by knock, it reduces the enemy’s capabilities.

True, but an undefeated enemy being losing a conventional war tends to resort to asymmetrical warfare eg guerrilla warfare or coming to our country and blowing up civilians. Can’t see that happening though.

Oh….

If we’re going to take on ISIS it needs to be on the ground.

No I didn’t miss it molgrips. What would you do?

I think bombing won’t work on it’s own, but I can see it could be part of the strategy that will work.

& it’s OK to disagree, that happens a lot here!