The object of war has always been to see what you can do without yourself getting hurt. It’s not supposed to be “fair” or “noble” or “sporting”. The idea is to kill as many of theirs as you can possibly can without any of yours getting killed.
The mindset that war should somehow be clean and bloodless and TV-PG rated is more in line with your comments about video games than the actual reality of the matter.
Yep, that’s why they bomb western cities.
Well, they can all go pray at the shitstain left on the street where he spent his last few seconds on earth.
Meanwhile, the CIA estimated up to 31,500 ISIS fighters. They also estimate 10,000 have been killed. Our work is 1/3 done as I see it. I suspect that Russia and now France joining in the battle may increase ISIS attrition rates.
They very well may. That is why bin ladin was buried at sea.
Russia and France on the same side. It recalls August, 1914.
It recalls 1996-2003. 
Although less “shooty” Russia and France were both part of the NATO peacekeeping missions in Bosnia and Kosovo.
If it comes down to actual fighting war. The “civilized” ideal is to convince the other side that they’ll be so likely killed if it comes to an actual fight, that they’d rather not find out for sure. But once committed you have to really destroy and defeat the opponent.
But feel free to stop by my beer concession first. I’m having a special on Miller Lite.
Isnt Colibri Miller Lite?
“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
Woody Allen: Has anybody read that Nazis are gonna march in New Jersey? Y’know, I read this in the newspaper. We should go down there, get some guys together, y’know, get some bricks and baseball bats and really explain things to them.
Party Guest: There is this devastating satirical piece on that on the Op Ed page of the Times, it is devastating.
Woody Allen: Well, a satirical piece in the Times is one thing, but bricks and baseball bats really gets right to the point.
Party Guest: Oh, but really biting satire is always better than physical force.
Woody Allen: No, physical force is always better with Nazis.
– Manhattan (1979)
Just to be clear: I am not anti-Muslim. I am anti-ISIS. Just like I am anti-Nazi but not anti-German.
nah, pick up the pieces and feed him to a pen full of pigs.
That’s awful cruel to the pigs…
The willful ignorance people have of ISIS is staggering. They are not al Qaeda, which is a shadowy global terrorist network which wants to disrupt the West in any way possible. ISIS is – or claims to be – a caliphate. The first Koranic “state” since the Ottoman Empire fell in 1924 (even though they don’t consider the Ottomans as a “true” caliphate, whatever). A caliphate is a state that’s run with the strictest, letter-of-the-law interpretation of Islam possible, and according to the Koran, if a caliphate exists and you don’t declare allegiance to it, you’re not a true Muslim, aka you’re dead.
This is bad, because fundamentalist religious types, in general, want to live in the most fundamental way possible. Islam, Christianity, Buddhists – doesn’t matter. Like with Christianity, actually Catholicism – imagine if there hadn’t been a Pope for almost a century, and suddenly a Pope was declared in the ruins of the former Vatican (eh… stick with me a bit…) and this Pope declared they were going to be the most Roman Catholic goddamn state the world had ever seen, and yea – there might be a stoning or two of harlots – but fuck it, there will also be downright progressive social programs, like free food and healthcare for all.
Fundamentalist Catholics would flock to the place, because of course they would. Just as (some kinds) of fundamentalist Muslism are flocking to ISIS – they want to be a part of A True Muslim State, unlike places like Saudi Arabia that only pick and choose which parts of the Koran to follow.
But this is good, because unlike al Qaeda, ISIS is telling you exactly what it’s doing and why. Maybe not the details – like the recent attacks in France – but there were warnings then. Anyway, point is: there’s a blueprint for its destruction.
For instance, a caliphate has really strict rules for existing. The caliph – the Pope, if you will – can only exist if it has “authority” to exist. As in, it has to have land. If you take away the land, the caliphate no longer exists, and ISIS no longer exists. And unlike al-Qaeda, if you destroy ISIS it’s not going to go underground. It actually can’t go underground – that’s also against the rules accoring the Koran.
Likewise, you can kill the caliph. You can confuse them with academic questions – like, is their interpretation of the Koran correct? There’s a lot of different interpretations out there, which are just as fundamental. Or their tactics – isn’t suicide a sin according the Koran? What happens to suicide bombers, then?
Or you can question their legitimacy – the Koran says for a caliphate to exist, there must be an international consensus in the Muslim community that it has a legitimate right to exist and as of right now, only ISIS is saying it’s a caliphate. Not even al-Qaeda likes the fuckers.
Point is, al-Qaeda is a war of ideas, but it’s nearly impossible to stop because it’s nebulous and underground. ISIS is a war of ideas, but it’s relatively easy to stop, if you want to spend the resources doing it.
The problem I have with your strategy is that disbanding ISIL and their efforts to establish a caliphate does not account for what happens with the former members of ISIL. ISIL is just a symptom - the disease is the tens of thousands of men who look at a theocratic dictatorship built on rape and murder and like what they see. If they see a reason to identify themselves as such and then congregate together under a banner where we can kill them with a clear conscience, I would rather use that opportunity to cull their numbers than focus on removing that reason to congregate.
Unless you deal with Saudi Arabia first it’s all so much bandage on a wound that won’t heal.
But the US won’t, all those 9/11 Saudi passport holders flying planes into New York building and … nothing.
The CIA also considers any military age male it happens to kill to be an enemy target. But the best part of your analysis is that Da-esh is unable to recruit any new fighters so every time will kill one, we don’t have to worry about another person taking his place. :rolleyes:
Guess you did not sit through the BODY COUNT updates we used to get in the nightly news during the 60s. Or the constant “victory is right around the corner; the next 6 months will be pivotal” chanting from Cheney et al during the '00s.
If you weren’t intent on ignoring logic and, like a drunk, stumbling around in a topic looking for an alley to get lost in, I’d engage you. But keeping you focused would require a team of competent doctors and a cabinet full of modern drugs, and a pair of blinders.