Islamic State vs. The World (except Canada)

[Cassius]

There should certainly be intervention, for the purposes of crushing this nascent hub for terrorism and also to stop these bastards from butchering Christians. However, something tangible needs to be gained from this; for example, a government needs to be established that is backed by the United States, and one that the United States can exercise some control over. If what happens is that ISIS get routed and then we all go home, the country may spiral back into chaos; thus a permanent presence is likely to be needed. Now, that presence must be worth our while; the United States and other countries shouldn't intervene solely to prevent this butchery.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Anyone hear the ISIS statement about raising the green flag over the White House? It was hilarious. They're deluded because they captured Mosul.

[Cory]

It's people like Chairman Sanchez and Deus Naturae here that are turning me into a foreign policy hawk. In a vacuum, a foreign policy of nonintervention seems sound, but just like many ideas that are "good in theory" they just aren't workable or reasonable in the nuance of real life.

While sectarian tensions in Iraq aren't new, we're the ones who toppled their government overnight, destroyed the existing social power structures, and forced them into a decade of foreign military occupation as a rumbling insurgency wrought havoc throughout the nation taking countless lives. We're the ones who effectively pulled out overnight and washed our hands of the matter while that insurgency transformed into a brutal sectarian revolution. ISIS is killing thousands of innocents whose only crime is practicing the "wrong" religion (or even practicing "right" one in an inadequate manner). This is our mess and we should be responsible for cleaning it up because we left the nation of Iraq in shambles. If we have the capacity to act and prevent death and oppression there's only one moral solution.

ISIS is rapidly advancing on the Kurdish capital of Erbil, the current home of the United States diplomatic mission to Iraq and the heart of our only real ally east of Jerusalem. If Iraqi Kurdistan falls then Baghdad falls because ISIS would no longer need to hold two fronts in Iraq. If Baghdad falls without America lifting a finger, then the rump Shia Iraq that's left will beg Iran for assistance and intervention. At that point ISIS's self-styled "Caliphate" would probably step up the killing of Shia civilians to the point of outright genocide.

This has the potential to go very wrong very quickly in so many ways. Fretting about ideological righteousness and partisan squabbling is outrageously ridiculous when there's tens of thousands of a minority religious group holding off on a mountainside. There faced with options of rescue or genocide- but that choice isn't for them to make. That choice gets made by people in Washington DC who are so out of touch that they weigh the chance to prevent a slaughter of thousands of innocent lives against a "public relations backlash" that would result. They're forced into such a situation by people like you, with righteous indignation about how that genocide "isn't our problem to stop!" People like you are why the Rwandan Genocide was allowed to happen. The boneheaded isolationist ideology you represent is the single greatest flaw of American democracy because it equates self-dependence with utterly immoral selfishness.

The combat airstrikes were visible from the Kurdish side of the front line- the front line that's been steadily pushing towards the Kurds for the past week. It's an active combat zone and was literally the no-man's land just a few days ago. Any civilians would have evacuated from the area well before the bombs fell, although I'm deeply sorry that your masturbatory delusions of exploding hospitals did not come true.





(drunk effortpost, sorry if not legible, things just struck a chord with me. not proofreading so my bad for typos)

This... just... this.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Given the current context of ISIS and its immediate threat to certain minority groups, I'm not entirely opposed to the strikes in and of themselves; however, anything beyond this is almost certain to backfire, as have plenty of "police actions" in the past.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Given the current context of ISIS and its immediate threat to certain minority groups, I'm not entirely opposed to the strikes in and of themselves; however, anything beyond this is almost certain to backfire, as have plenty of "police actions" in the past.

Be careful. Warning that this is certain to backfire automatically means you want a hospital to explode.

[Bacon King]

Given the current context of ISIS and its immediate threat to certain minority groups, I'm not entirely opposed to the strikes in and of themselves; however, anything beyond this is almost certain to backfire, as have plenty of "police actions" in the past.

Be careful. Warning that this is certain to backfire automatically means you want a hospital to explode.

... except that you literally said that.

I hope this backfires. I really do. We need to learn a lesson. I guarentee that when the bombs begin to fall we are going to nail a hospital or a school, and ISIS's ranks will only continue to swell.

emphasis mine

[Adam Griffin]

[Deus Naturae]

While sectarian tensions in Iraq aren't new, we're the ones who toppled their government overnight, destroyed the existing social power structures, and forced them into a decade of foreign military occupation as a rumbling insurgency wrought havoc throughout the nation taking countless lives. We're the ones who effectively pulled out overnight and washed our hands of the matter while that insurgency transformed into a brutal sectarian revolution. ISIS is killing thousands of innocents whose only crime is practicing the "wrong" religion (or even practicing "right" one in an inadequate manner).

And yet when US-funded terrorists (a number of whom have now joined ISIS) did (and continue to do) the same, the advocates of "humanitarian" intervention were (and still are) silent. Idk, maybe you personally have good intentions, but I don't buy that this bombing campaign is being carried out by our wise overlords with the intent of "fixing the problem we created" when we continue to create problems throughout the region.

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Nice field of strawmen you have there. I like how you use totally random buzzwords like "partisanship" when this is a discussion on an online message board that has nothing with partisan politics. I don't masturbate thinking of people being blown up, and the implication that either Sanchez or myself want to see people killed by bombings we oppose is so strange that it leads me to believe that you're projecting your own sick thoughts onto others. Who do you think evacuated people under ISIS occupation...ISIS?! Sorry, bombing towns is going to kill lots of innocent people. As the map posted earlier by Starwatcher shows, ISIS controls plenty of territory in the North, so going after "ISIS targets" means bombing a vast area.  

[tik 🪀✨]

Doing nothing will likely result in even more innocent deaths. And these deaths will also be blamed on the West for its lack of action.

Sometimes you only have two awful options to choose from.

[patrick1]

I wish I had followed through with my investment advice in Toyota's pickup division.  This really should have happened months ago when the so many fighters were convoying it from Syria. ISIS is appalling in their brutality and fanaticism. Sadly, some civilians will be killed, however, in the brutal calculus of war, more innocent life will be saved.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Given the current context of ISIS and its immediate threat to certain minority groups, I'm not entirely opposed to the strikes in and of themselves; however, anything beyond this is almost certain to backfire, as have plenty of "police actions" in the past.

Be careful. Warning that this is certain to backfire automatically means you want a hospital to explode.

... except that you literally said that.

I hope this backfires. I really do. We need to learn a lesson. I guarentee that when the bombs begin to fall we are going to nail a hospital or a school, and ISIS's ranks will only continue to swell.

emphasis mine

I know you're smarter than this. I did NOT hope that we would hit a hospital, but I know we will. I'm hoping that we learn a lesson about meddling in the Middle East. I'm hoping the powers that be will get burned on this, but it's there choice on how that will happen. They can stick their hands into fire or they can stick it into boiling water.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Given the current context of ISIS and its immediate threat to certain minority groups, I'm not entirely opposed to the strikes in and of themselves; however, anything beyond this is almost certain to backfire, as have plenty of "police actions" in the past.

Be careful. Warning that this is certain to backfire automatically means you want a hospital to explode.

... except that you literally said that.

I hope this backfires. I really do. We need to learn a lesson. I guarentee that when the bombs begin to fall we are going to nail a hospital or a school, and ISIS's ranks will only continue to swell.

emphasis mine

I know you're smarter than this. I did NOT hope that we would hit a hospital, but I know we will. I'm hoping that we learn a lesson about meddling in the Middle East. I'm hoping the powers that be will get burned on this, but it's there choice on how that will happen. They can stick their hands into fire or they can stick it into boiling water.

No, you said you hoped the strikes would backfire, with hitting a hospital among the options.

I would suggest that you're smarter than 'this'... but your horrendous reasoning and navel-gazing suggests otherwise.

[dead0man]

Yeah, it might not have been what you meant, but it is what you said.

[Deus Naturae]

I wish I had followed through with my investment advice in Toyota's pickup division.  This really should have happened months ago when the so many fighters were convoying it from Syria. ISIS is appalling in their brutality and fanaticism. Sadly, some civilians will be killed, however, in the brutal calculus of war, more innocent life will be saved.

Will it though? Even if we somehow drive ISIS out of Northern Iraq (which is going to take more than a few airstrikes and cost the lives of more than "some" civilians), they'll be back. A direct fight against the the United States, the symbol of the sinful West, will be a huge motivator for these fanatics and a boon for recruitment throughout the Middle East. Then, we'll either have to stay and perpetually pour even more blood and treasure into this Godforsaken desert, or leave and see them return even stronger and crazier than before, like angry hornets (if that happens, the interventionist crowd will say we have to stay because "we created this mess"). The Kurds need to fight this out themselves. It just isn't possible for them to rely on a foreign power, especially the United States, for their defense forever. We'll have to leave at some point, and the later we get out permanently the worse it'll be for us and them.

[swl]

I agree that something had to be done about ISIS. But unfortunately once ISIS is weakened we can expect some violence against Sunnis.

[Franzl]

I'm not seeing the arguments against this. A mission like this is precisely what American military might should be used for.

[dead0man]

Indeed.  And we're good at it*....much better than we are at policing.



*it being air attacks on ground forces

[Mopsus]

I see that it's time for an Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi blingee.

Even if we somehow drive ISIS out of Northern Iraq (which is going to take more than a few airstrikes and cost the lives of more than "some" civilians), they'll be back. A direct fight against the the United States, the symbol of the sinful West, will be a huge motivator for these fanatics and a boon for recruitment throughout the Middle East. Then, we'll either have to stay and perpetually pour even more blood and treasure into this Godforsaken desert, or leave and see them return even stronger and crazier than before, like angry hornets (if that happens, the interventionist crowd will say we have to stay because "we created this mess").

This is foreordained, is it?

The I. S. took advantage of western Iraq's grievances against its government in order to establish itself in that region. The surest way to decapitate the Islamic State is to address those grievances (lack of say in the government) (which is in the process of happening, as I understand it), and/or convince the local Ba'athists and Sunni tribes to revolt against their "liberators". The latter might happen naturally, if the I. S. continues to blow up sites that are holy to Sunnis.

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The Peshmerga was more than a match for the Islamic State until very recently. Now that the I. S. is armed with the mortars and artillery that it recovered from the fleeing Iraqi Army, the Peshmerga is outgunned. Since you oppose leveling the playing field with US airstrikes against I. S. mortar and artillery positions, do you support leveling the playing field by arming the Kurds with that kind of heavy equipment?

[patrick1]

I wish I had followed through with my investment advice in Toyota's pickup division.  This really should have happened months ago when the so many fighters were convoying it from Syria. ISIS is appalling in their brutality and fanaticism. Sadly, some civilians will be killed, however, in the brutal calculus of war, more innocent life will be saved.

Will it though? Even if we somehow drive ISIS out of Northern Iraq (which is going to take more than a few airstrikes and cost the lives of more than "some" civilians), they'll be back. A direct fight against the the United States, the symbol of the sinful West, will be a huge motivator for these fanatics and a boon for recruitment throughout the Middle East. Then, we'll either have to stay and perpetually pour even more blood and treasure into this Godforsaken desert, or leave and see them return even stronger and crazier than before, like angry hornets (if that happens, the interventionist crowd will say we have to stay because "we created this mess"). The Kurds need to fight this out themselves. It just isn't possible for them to rely on a foreign power, especially the United States, for their defense forever. We'll have to leave at some point, and the later we get out permanently the worse it'll be for us and them.

This isnt your standard radical Islamist organization like a Muslim Brotherhood. ISIS is a very extreme group. You do not have an inexhaustible supply of people willing to lob peoples heads off.  When they congregate in large convoys and go on an offensive, we kill them. If these extremists re-surface, kill those replacements. The Kurds and the Sunni population that gets sick of their behavior will have to do the ground fighting. For me, when you can save civilians from this lot and kill a good number of the rotten bastards, you go ahead.

[Silent Hunter]

al-Qaeda disassociated themselves with ISIS... they were too radical even for them.

[Simfan34]

Wonder if the reduced activity near Mosul has anything to do with the dam.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Yeah, it might not have been what you meant, but it is what you said.

I'll concede that it was poorly worded.

Wonder if the reduced activity near Mosul has anything to do with the dam.

Again, this may be a move to keep their forces under protection. We won't bomb the dam, so if they corale close enough to it, they're going to stay safe. And if we do bomb them and manage to not destroy the dam, there is a chance that they might destroy it. If IIRC, Wolf Blitzer said that this dam is a huge source of Baghdad's electricity.

[Suburbia]

Hopefully it doesn't become a ground war.

[King]

I think America's preferred future place in international relations should be as this almighty Sky God that rains fire on those who goes against its will but never directly imposes itself on the situation.

[Simfan34]

I like this.