Whatever. Meanwhile, Achmed the Dead Terrorist says “I kill you!”, and millions laugh. Why? It’s funny. 
[QUOTE=Measure for Measure]
Well given how gung-ho you were, I thought you were going to hang up your keyboard and take the battle directly to the enemy. The point being that pit-talk is cheap and American lives and treasure expensive.
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Gung-ho about what? I posted an outrageous act in a Pit thread on why ISIS needs to be destroyed. I didn’t say anything about grabbing ma’ gunzes and going ovah theya to bag ma’ limit o’ rag’heads, yuck yuck. No idea where you are even coming from on this, to be honest.
Let me ask you…you aren’t outraged by all the rapes, murder, torture and tossing gays off rooftops stuff? Or just outraged when the US does it? Or…what?
Groups that do atrocious things don’t need to be an ‘existential threat’ to your country to rise to the level that they need to be stopped. And a group operating in an area that has vital strategic materials necessary for not just the US but pretty much every industrialized country to continue kind of IS an existential threat, or can become one (in case I wasn’t clear, I’m talking about that oil stuff).
I don’t even know what to say about your casual ‘They just post diverting videos on You-Tube’ comment…I’m not sure if you are trolling for Conservatives or you really believe that what they have been doing merely rises to the level of vague interest.
And the Iranians (as well as most of the other countries in the region) ARE doing stuff. But the US has as much interest as they do, as do the Europeans. Again…that oil stuff is kind of important and regional stability is kind of important. I’m not saying we need to mount up the entire Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines and send them over there to set things right, merely that ‘ISIS needs to be destroyed’. The US has a part to play in that destruction, one we are ALREADY PLAYING, and I’m good with that.
If we have little of substantive disagreement why are we arguing? 
It isn’t that I don’t care, I simply think there are too many problems at home for one army of maniacs to distracts us from them all. For example, the water quality in Flint, MI is so bad some residents claim they won’t give it to their dog, cite. We need to send ground troops in there, it is a local disaster.
I don’t think that is the same one.
[QUOTE=Try2B Comprehensive]
It isn’t that I don’t care, I simply think there are too many problems at home for one army of maniacs to distracts us from them all. For example, the water quality in Flint, MI is so bad some residents claim they won’t give it to their dog, cite. We need to send ground troops in there, it is a local disaster.
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From your cite:
Ok, I get it…it’s an issue. I’m unsure why we need to send in ‘ground troops’, or why we need to ignore murder, rape, torture and the destruction of historical and cultural treasures by a bunch of crazy assholes who think that God has given them a license to do whatever they like. I mean, we can walk and chew gum at the same time…I don’t think we need to drop everything and rush everyone to Flint, MI to deal with a problem that seemingly is already being dealt with. I know…this is really the ‘Holocaust’, no hyperbole there at all (this is the drinking water issue, not the one where ISIS/ISIL goes about systematically murdering every Muslim that disagrees with them and sells or otherwise co-ops young girls to be ‘comfort women’ and throws gay men and women from roof tops for fun).
After all, it seems there is a simple solution to this seemingly vast issue of water in Flint…they could just…
…you know, buck up and buy their water from Detroit again if they don’t like the smell or taste of the water they are getting (all that nasty chlorine in it I can’t blame them).
I’ve been to Cahokia. Monks Mound is the Big Mound, there was never a bigger one.
Well, for that kind of problem, you need the right ground troops.
:o OK, but that’s different! They didn’t do it on purpose!
All right, but 300 of the mounds have been bulldozed. This is one of eight world heritage sites in America, and large parts of it are currently being developed as commercial properties.
The Holocaust talk is over the top, I agree. But to both of you- I’m operating under my observation that there is always a Big Story that deflects attention away from serious domestic issues. At one time it was OJ Simpson; at one time it was Monica Lewinsky. Now it is Daesh.
Daesh is a little different because of its greater significance. All the same, we have 30,000 people a year getting shot and killed In Our Own Country. The water issues in Flint are not, I am sure, an isolated case. We have World Heritage Site in our country being dismantled which we can actually do something about, but instead we are wringing our hands over trashed museums on the other side of the world and using it to build a case for ignoring every problem here at home-again- to spend $1 trillion to invade the Middle East to do away with what is just the latest in a long line of maniacal murderous groups in that region. Last time we went in, looks like we fought to gain influence for Iran in the region, and now there is effectively a Sunni-Shia civil war.
Yah, I know it is more complicated than that. They use God as an excuse to kill off any opponent and commit any atrocity- that sure is a familiar story if you ask me. But Goddammit, guys, we have very serious problems right here in our own country, problems we can commit to resolving because hey, our country is ostensibly within our sphere of influence. You say we can walk and chew gum at the same time. I say that is exactly what this kind of story is intended to prevent. It takes everyone’s eye off the ball and nudges national policy closer to another war, one that benefits the big media-controlling corporations greatly, but which benefits our people not at all and, if history is any guide, won’t do jack shit to improve things in foreign lands and instead will probably make things even worse.
I don’t approve of smashing ancient cities, enslaving women for sex, gunning down religious holdouts or throwing gays off of roofs- wayyyyy to the contrary, I shouldn’t have to say. But these are Iraq’s and Syria’s problems, and an immediate issue for the regional powers there. America’s problems are a shitty education system, lousy water, crumbling infrastructure, massive inequality, 30,000 gun deaths a year (which I think can be address not by banning guns but by addressing the underlying social problems that cause it, like poverty), racist cops, environmental degradation, global warming, and many more.
Iraq had a chance to be a free country, they fucked that chance up in favor of sectarian concerns, and now they are in sectarian religious maniac hell. That sucks, but we need to keep our focus on our very serious but wholly addressable problems here at home. Let’s not neglect our own people to focus attention on the world’s 20,000 most backward, assholish maniacs on the other side of the planet.
English isn’t her first language.
That’s what’s the US did, and got Pearl Harbour. You can’t bury your head in the sand.
Mostly because I wanted to read something like this:
I feel like I picked on the wrong guy, but ISIS isn’t Hilter and they aren’t even Saddam Hussein. They lack the firepower and as well as the manpower.
The other aspect in the back of my mind is the belief that military actions with committed local participation are more likely have lasting effects. ISIS pisses me off (and yeah I probably shouldn’t have jumped on you for posting their latest atrocity) but again they simply don’t rise to the level of either an industrial-level security threat or even a Sudan-style human rights catastrophe. Not yet anyway, which is why they need to be managed.
Are you prepared to launch a series of Iwo Jima-style attacks against ISIL, then? What is the ultimate goal, and what do we do once we’ve reached it?
Well, suppose we don’t, suppose we just go on doing what we’re doing – letting the locals do the fighting on the ground, and backing them up with air support. Suppose the present Iraqi government initiative is successful, and that in, say, the next three to six months, the Iraqis and Kurds, with Iranian support, retake Mosul and drive ISIS across the Syrian border. But Assad is still in no shape to take them on there. Would he invite the Iraqis across the border into his country, to fight his enemies? And if so and they finish off ISIS, what then? The Iraqi Kurds are now probably in control of the Kurdish bit in northeastern Syria (the city of al-Hasakah and the territory east of it), it is contiguous to Iraqi Kurdistan (and to Turkish Kurdistan), and they might not want to give it up, no matter what Assad says. Meanwhile, northern Syria is under the momentary control of the Iraqi Shi’ite forces back by Iran. Assad is also backed by Iran. What happens to the (rest of the) Syrian rebel factions then? Does this war end with Assad in control of all Syria (except perhaps for the Kurdish bit) once more? I guess that’s better than it ending with ISIS in control, but, still.
Well it would be refreshing for the local powers to hammer out their own borders instead of the traditional colonial powers doing it for them once again. That is one of the roots of the ongoing turmoil in the region IMHO- foreigners dictating the borders of these countries.
As seen here. Fascinating ISIS-produced video of a Chilean-born jihadist on the border between Iraq and Syria, speaking in excellent English about breaking down the borders imposed on the region by Messrs. Sykes & Picot.
It looks like they blew up the police station with the Iraqi soldiers and civilians still inside. I bet the Iraqis are furious!
What are the chances that the different groups currently moving on Tikrit will end up fighting each other?
The risk of Kurd-on-Kurd conflict seems very low indeed. Despite some popular discontent, Barzani seems to be running a pretty tight ship.
The risk of Shia-on-Shia conflict seems, perhaps, slightly higher, but still pretty low. Sure, the Shia militias may disagree on all kinds of stuff - some love Iran more than others; Muqtada al-Sadr has criticised other militias for brutalising innocent Sunnis - but intra-Shia violence of the kind we saw back in 2012, when maverick cleric al-Sarkhi openly challenged Ayatollah al-Sistani, and their respective followers clashed in the streets, seems to remain fairly rare.
That leaves the possibility of Shia-on-Kurd conflict - and aye, there’s the rub:
Hassan Hassan, author of ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror (2015) provides a skeptical take of the operations in Tikrit. He thinks the battle, “…is likely to drag on and backfire.” The Iranian backed militias have a history of human rights abuses and use some of the language of ethnic cleansing. Sunnis notice: [INDENT]Dislodging Isis from Shia areas or from mixed areas by Shia militias is understandable. However, unilaterally launching a revenge-tinged campaign in a Sunni area by sectarian militias with a track record of acts of cleansing will unavoidably be seen as a vigilante operation.
If the history of fighting Isis, and its previous incarnations, can teach us one lesson, it is that Isis can only be defeated by Sunni from within. … the defeat of Isis in Tikrit will not help in the fight in Mosul. On the contrary, it will convince Sunni communities living under Isis that the alternative is just as bad. [/INDENT]
I lack requisite knowledge to properly evaluate opinions expressed.
Very interesting article, especially this:
That might, perhaps, help explain a thing or two.
I hasten to add that so do I! Speculation is fun, though.
Interesting (to me, at least) was an article on CNN today: ISIS gaining ground in Libya, threatens nearby Italy
I know that, for a rag-tag group of confused religious fanatics (oops, sorry for the redundancy), they are surprisingly organized, but when we claim that they are “threatening Italy” are we not attributing to them a Hitler-like capability that doesn’t exist? Threatening Italy? Ok. Exaggeration.