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Without a good chunk of the population growing up and seeing reality, enabling the population "whole" to make sensible decisions in defeating this...maybe so.
They are no where near the threat that Hitler was but it is time to exterminate them. No POWS on the battlefield against this foe.
World War? I think its pretty much the World vs a group of radicals. Hell even Russia is in on it.
I would think any being of rational thought on this planet would be against this group of idiots.
Doesn't matter what country you love or live in, the thought of extermination just for the **** of it at any time of the day is beyond reason.
Sucks to have to do it, but it's time to arm up and swat assholes.
Doesn't matter what country you love or live in, the thought of extermination just for the **** of it at any time of the day is beyond reason.
Sucks to have to do it, but it's time to arm up and swat assholes.
You're spot on! Sadly, we have a putz living at 1600 Penn. Ave. who thinks global warming is our greatest enemy, and who will do anything to preserve his legacy - whateverTF that may be. He's not going to do jack shit to take care of the problem, other than tell more lies to the dumb-asses who eat the crap he feeds them.
The logistics are impossible. Where do you go to fight them? How do you know them when you see them?
How long will it take if for every one you kill, two more new ones pop up somewhere else? It's a Whack-a-Mole game from your most grotesque nightmares.
Will the rest of the world have to eradicate a billion-member world religion?
How long will it take if for every one you kill, two more new ones pop up somewhere else? It's a Whack-a-Mole game from your most grotesque nightmares.
Will the rest of the world have to eradicate a billion-member world religion?
Just to play mental gymnastics: what if for every 1 you kill, it can be demonstrated that not 2, but 0.25 pop up? Then what?
These guys aren't hard to find. They have a caliphate with physical borders and a capital city.
ISIS and Al Queda? And every splinter group of wanna be martyrs around the world? Where?
Then your chances of success have increased eight-fold. Now you have a dim, distant light at the end of the tunnel.
I'm not saying to not go after these guys. I'm saying we have to be willing to go to guerilla warfare for decade after decade into the future unless we go into this with near-genocidal ferver. Is the nation and our allies willing to do that?
If we conservatively call 9/11 as day one, we've been at this for a decade and a half already. Two complete re-elected presidencies, one from each party, and the Middle East, the world and the US are more dangerous than they were before we spent a trillion dollars to fix the problem.
I don't have a solution. If I did, and it were brilliant, it wouldn't matter because I could never be elected. I am an atheist.
That's why I'm doubly pissed about all this crap. Without religion, this all gets resolved pretty quickly. And don't bother me with all the "Oh, without religion we'd all be rapists and murderers."
Seriously? The only thing that keeps you from walking up and fondling women in the produce section is Sunday School? Smfh.
That's why I'm doubly pissed about all this crap. Without religion, this all gets resolved pretty quickly. And don't bother me with all the "Oh, without religion we'd all be rapists and murderers."
Seriously? The only thing that keeps you from walking up and fondling women in the produce section is Sunday School? Smfh.
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anon_ph7vrsh7abnty
Guest
Treat their cities like Dresden.
There will be innocents just like there were in WWWII.
It was a war crime then and would be today. Only difference is our stomach for it.
There will be innocents just like there were in WWWII.
It was a war crime then and would be today. Only difference is our stomach for it.
Exactly. It's simple.
They've had 30 or 40 centuries to figure out how to live together in the same armpit of the world and haven't been able to figure it out. The Western world has tried it impose a "peace" of some kind there for 10 centuries -- nothing's worked. As long as they were over there pissing in each others' sandbox, I guess it didn't matter.
But now the genie's out of the bottle and at least a few of these Bronze Age geniuses have settled into just about every nation on earth and brought their "my religion is better than your religion and if you don't like it I will kill you" mindset to all of us. Now we're all going to have to deal with it.
The question which needs an answer ASAP is how far are we willing to go? How far are we going to HAVE to go to convince them to keep their religion to themselves?
Where do they get their radical ideas? Islam
Who supports them? Islam
Who replaces their KIA brothers? Islam
Who do they think stole their land? Jews
Who helped the Jews steal their land this last time (20th Century)? Christians and other infidels
Who needs to die? Jews and Christians and other infidels
There's not one single teaching that we need today from any of those religions that people hadn't already figured out on their own. The notion that the Ten Commandments are the cornerstone of the American legal system makes me want to puke. Two of the ten have any bearing in American law. Two!
Killing and stealing, and everyone on the planet from the Cherokee to the Inca to the Maori to the Masai had already figured that out without ever hearing of Moses.
No one obeys traffic laws because Jesus says it's the right thing to do. We do it to avoid the sanctions that we as humans have agreed to allow our government to enforce on each other if we disobey.
It's the same with all laws. We have entered into a contract with each other as a society. We don't need religion to enforce those rules but we do need laws, so we have governments.
I never in my wildest dreams think religion is going away. Too many people have convinced themselves that they need it. If they draw comfort from it, good for them. If they keep it to themselves, good for me.
How many Americans have been killed by ISIS and how many are worth going to war over? We are in the ME for one reason and one reason only, oil. Frankly with the energy reserves and technology we have in North America it's time we got out of that region and left them to themselves. You can't kill a religion forcibly....all you do is make the believers more devout by trying and frankly I don't have the stomach to kill women and children indiscriminately which is what it will take. Enough Americans have died over there and we've killed plenty of Muslims....time to tie this one off and GTFO.
Damn, I'm guessing you lost more than 95% of the board with the Dresden reference; however, you're spot on!
This question depends entirely upon which definition of war you are referring too. If you are referring to conventional war, which is what the two world wars were, then no. This is not a war using conventional weapons, tactics, or well-defined sides in open confrontation. So long as we approach this as some kind of conventional war we will continue to lose ground. Air strikes, small fighting units, Special Forces, covert actions, are all a waste of time IMO and history is trending to prove exactly that (sure, we kill "high value targets" and party cheerleaders boast of the latest success of their dear leader, but they are easily replaced and all we've done is inadvertently help their cause). All these actions do is lend credence to the recruiting effort of these cells because those negatively affected by our intervention see exactly what their recruiters told them they'd see. They've been very clear about their goals for quite sometime; that our intervention is a motivator, that it's a religious war, that we are weak and unwilling to sustain casualties, and that if they spread this war to as many fronts as possible we will run around chasing these fronts to the point of bankruptcy.
If the definition to which you are referring is that of total war, then maybe. The problem is that 1st world nations don't have the stomach for total war (which is a recruiting tactic employed by these cells). Total war requires that we view non-combatants as targets, the people as a whole regardless of whether its a sick elderly person or a three year old child. Total war in this situation will also require an extremely large force (talking million plus boots on ground), the willingness to sustain heavy casualties, the willingness to kill without bias, a total disregard of conventional rules of war, and sacrifice by all citizens for the effort. I'm sorry, but I do not believe that we have the stomach for such an undertaking.
So what are our options as I see it? A. Continue to fight this with a conventional war approach until bankrupt, B. Commit to total war, or C. Pull back, secure our boarders, and take a responsible foreign policy approach. Two of these options result in the enemy declaring victory. The other option results in us, and our allies, being branded as war criminals in the mold of Adolf Hitler hell bent on genocide
Those of you calling for war need to sit down and actually take the time to think and research what kind of war will be required in order to meet the success you believe can occur through such an action. Because I can assure you that nothing less than total war is the answer should we pursue that path as a nation. What happened in Paris will happen in other 1st world nations including the U.S. What is the correct approach; total war or sustained foreign policy (this also requires a very strict immigration policy)? I don't have that answer, I just ask that we all have a seat and discuss the true ramifications and cost of whatever action we choose to take. There is no easy answer but a rush to action could be a grave mistake.
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anon_ph7vrsh7abnty
Guest
I was AFROTC at OSU until scheduling conflicts would have delayed my graduation by a year.
I liked studying the history quite a bit. LeMay was a complete dick.
I liked studying the history quite a bit. LeMay was a complete dick.
You nailed it. Your options in the next to last paragraph are exactly correct and let's be honest, option C is the only sensible answer, but option A is what we will pursue. A nation that mourned so heavily for Cecil the lion can't begin to comprehend option B.
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anon_ph7vrsh7abnty
Guest
I'm OK with option B from the perspective that I'll do anything to secure safety for my son's future.
The suspension of morality has been necessary before.
The suspension of morality has been necessary before.
Insightful. The problem is our preoccupation with zero collateral damage.
problem is, (A) will fuel the problem until (B) becomes an unavoidable necessity.
Ideally the answer is C but we will never do that for fear of losing the Latino vote.
I don't know how old your son is but this isn't something that will be short lived in my estimation, think decades. It could cost your son his life. Are you still okay with option B?
Mass bombings only play into their hands and increase their recruiting effort world wide.
I agree that (A) will fuel the problem and that (B) could be an unavoidable necessity, but I think (B) will be off the table due to economic factors caused by (A). Therefore, we will scurry to do the best we can with option (C) and fail miserably.
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anon_ph7vrsh7abnty
Guest
A similar thought process has had me very depressed since Friday.
The problem here is that you are only thinking of those being bombed directly. Sure, they can be broken. You're not considering those that are being recruited elsewhere and only indirectly affected (or even unaffected but under the belief their way of life is affected through propaganda by recruiters).
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anon_ph7vrsh7abnty
Guest
I'm not hitting those limits in thinking. The message is "you'll be next if you don't drop it."
A couple random thoughts: It's such a shocking deal, perspective is easy to lose. There have been so many terrorist attacks through the years that rivaled or surpassed the destructiveness of this.... 911, Munich, Lockerbie, Murrah bombing, Spain train deal, a couple in London, we can go on and on.
Thor, I don't think your options are all mutually exclusive. I would think lots and lots of arab intel and sabotage would greatly accelerate ISIS' defeat. Why isn't Saudi all over ISIS? Maybe it's going on, and maybe the bombing and military campaigns of the last year actually have taken a toll -- you don't really need lots of organizational brilliance or state support to get guns and shoot people up. The US, Great Britain, France, Russia have all been hitting ISIS targets for many months, and that doesn't count the problems they've had with the local population. Surely they're degraded.
They're not as smart as we give them credit for. If their intent is to scare or kill, they could do it much more effectively. Shooting down a russian airliner, suicide bombing a hezbollah neighborhood and shooting up Paris isn't tactically or diplomatically smart. The whole world is on their ass now. I think they flame out within a year or two.
Thor, I don't think your options are all mutually exclusive. I would think lots and lots of arab intel and sabotage would greatly accelerate ISIS' defeat. Why isn't Saudi all over ISIS? Maybe it's going on, and maybe the bombing and military campaigns of the last year actually have taken a toll -- you don't really need lots of organizational brilliance or state support to get guns and shoot people up. The US, Great Britain, France, Russia have all been hitting ISIS targets for many months, and that doesn't count the problems they've had with the local population. Surely they're degraded.
They're not as smart as we give them credit for. If their intent is to scare or kill, they could do it much more effectively. Shooting down a russian airliner, suicide bombing a hezbollah neighborhood and shooting up Paris isn't tactically or diplomatically smart. The whole world is on their ass now. I think they flame out within a year or two.
Agreed, but it's gonna be a $hitty year or two for a lot of people before we can put them down. The much longer term issue, and extremely difficult issue, is how you put into place governmental structures in the middle east whose primary purpose isn't "avenge grievances". Hell, we had thousands of diplomats and lawyers in Iraq for over a decade and still managed to put a government in place the equivalent of the Bad News Bears.
Yeah, we and others will squash ISIS over the course of time, but....1) how many attacks will they pull off in the West before that happens? 2) what despotic idiot will the West and Russia arm-wrestle into place once the fighting dies down?
If you don't have governments in place that are both strong and responsible enough, you wind up with more Afghanistan's, Iraq's, and Syria's.
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If they had the ability to inflict more damage at a faster pace, they would and they would do it as painfully as possible. That is the part that gets me.
I disagree. I think it will look to many of those that are down and out that the tide is moving in their direction and that they can join a winning team.
I would go a step further and say that looking after our next generation is morally correct.
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