12 replies to this topic

[Louis the Hedgehog]

Last month was the launch of military operations by the United States against a group called "ISIS", short for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, just a branch of the "Islamic State". Thing is they used to be part of Al-Qaeda but eventually outgrown them and cut ties. And it sounds to me like they want to create a middle-east wide superstate. Also I'm convinced they will try to remove all "impurities". After all drove all the Kurds into being trapped on that mountain and forced them to choose between Islam or death by their firepower or starvation. So then the united states military stepped in and after a couple of air/drone strikes against several ISIS artillery positions airlifted the people (at least most of them) out.

 

And I don't know why or when but then the order was given to just take ISIS out. So then they launched an all-out attack like Bill Clinton ordered against Al-Qaeda in the late 90's. The difference this time is that now more drones are being used, as well as my favorite plane for the very first time, which sometimes I wondered if it would ever see combat.

Now the reason why the Raptor was never used before is because most of the time over the past few years the people we fought were armed with things like trucks with turrets mounted in the back, RPGs, IED's, suicide bombers, and nothing in the terms of anti-air. However, this time the most important target, the ISIS central command building, was located well within a Russian-built Syrian advanced anti-aircraft network. Now President Assad has no love for ISIS, but tensions were still high because he ordered the use of chemical weapons against political dissenters and nearly caused A US military intervention, an action in which the Russians claimed would have severe consequences. But then the Syrian government agreed to turn over their chemical weapons and that war was avoided. However, this time military planers were still worried that the Syrian government would try to target our planes if they entered Syrian airspace. Now we have successfully penetrated airspace with such networks thanks to jammer aircraft and stealth planes. But those were retired, however, THIS plane just perfectly fits the bill, since it is extremely difficult to detect on radar and can go supersonic without attracting attention on IR by lighting the afterburners.

 

As for me personally, I have mixed feelings about this.There is always the ever present concern with collateral damage, and the spending is out of control at time. But on the other hand these ISIS thugs are everything we fear about that part of the world. I HIGHLY doubt they would invade us anytime soon since they surely would be mowed down. But could they attack us? Well, 19 religious fanatics armed only with box cutters were able to gain control of four airliners and kill nearly 3000 Americans so... And also keep in mind that because of ISIS exactly ELEVEN airliners in the region have gone unaccounted for. Think about that number, ELEVEN, noticing a pattern? And keep in mind they used to be part of the group that DID attack us. But at least this time there are no bullshit lies about weapons of mass destruction, or allegations about this only being about the oil. All of this is based upon stuff that actually has been confirmed.

 

Also, think about that name ISIS. Is it just me or does that sound like a really awesome G.I. Joe villain name?

ISIS: Cobra has selected ME to lead this operation! We shall make this region our empire!

Raptor: Not if I have something to say about it. EAT JDAM!

*Blast*

ISIS: Crap, didn't see that one coming.

Raptor: No one ever does.

[brmsort]

ISIS, and every one of the several heads of Islamic supremacy that calls itself by a name, needs to be swiftly and utterly obliterated. So much so that vultures will have no bones to pick and their names disappear from the annals of history.

 

But it seems the world is not serious about combating these guys, as they continue to advance despite the strikes. It seems we, meaning my lovely Commander-in-Chief, are still more interested in removing the useful idiot we have in Assad than in taking out ISIS. Then again, every thing Pres. Obama has done in that region of the world has actually helped these wackos. Helped them take over Libya and Egypt. Left the infant nation of Iraq to fend for itself. Now he seeks to depose Assad, who, though no saint, is the enemy of ISIS. As they say, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Why is it so pressing that we get rid of Assad now? So Syria can be the next Libya? Have we learned nothing?

 

Sigh. I want to see ISIS gone, and they deserve the whooping we can give them. But I fear that we are merely hurting them for appearance' sake and not actually trying to obliterate the threat.

[TheRedStranger]

 

 

Pretty bad when you sink that low...

 

Bombs won't work. ISIS is advancing on Baghdad and is closing into Turkey. They already have sleeper cells of sympathizers here and there as well, just waiting to strike when the big forces come. They've adapted. They are innovating. This is their drive, This is the purpose and cause taht gives them meaning: to rise the black flag of Islam, a homogeneous and unquestioning subjugation to the Koran and Sharia Law. You can't kill convictions with pandering diplomacy and bureaucracy. This takes subversion of radical misbeliefs backed by righteous unwavering force to truly eliminate. All ISIS needs to do to avoid an airstrike is to blend in with the innocent, the "kafir" and the "mushirks" of this world. ISIS is simply taking down their flags, dressing as civilians, keeping their guns and actions under cloak and dagger. You can not kill a shadow in a crowd with even the most advanced guided missile without there being massive collateral damage. You need human discretion, you need boots and brains on the ground (and there is, no matter what way we spin it - we have specialists there). Ballot-mongering Obama failed Baghdad and America the way the congress once failed Saigon in the name of getting votes for false promises and naive policy. They cut back to the tune of a million useful idiots. This should have been handled the way we handled Korea. Korea had it's hiccups with sectarianism with it's 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Republics and all the while they had North Korea looming over their head. But we stuck to them (and sadly still have to at the DMZ) and now look at them, look at the prosperity and freedom South Korea has today. Nothing sort of a gradual change of worldview will bring stability to the Middle East, and that takes time and influence, a form of ideological warfare backed with physical defense if need be to protect innocent lives - a thing Obama is appalled by because of his background and naive anti-colonial mentality shared by those who wish to ignore the reality of evil in their blind quest for a comical utopia fantasy-world where we all just blindly get along despite a sea of contradictions in our view of the nature of human life and society and it's worthy pursuits . The worse thing that gets in the way of our Commander in Chief, is his own self, his own deluded idealism that ISIS is not "Islamic" and is "Junior varsity," his pandering to sinful nations that treat women like scum and democracy like a curse-word.  And it's this espousing of a simplistic and quixotic ideal of coexistence and the down play of an obviously hostile evil that risks our lives and the lives of others, and, more importantly, the right to live it freely. 

[NeonBlack]

What I'm curious about now is what is the force that's enabling the movement's rapid growth - is it their ideology or their martial capabilities? Direct physical attacks can be effective on the latter, but seems to only perpetuate the former by giving the movement a pretext for further atrocities and recruitment.

[brmsort]

I suspect, Neon, that is it both. They seem to be well armed and coordinated (and probably connected to many other such groups in those regions), but Islam is also a merits-based religion. And if you can convince people that believe in such a thing already that physical conquest and subjugation is meritorious, you can get a whole lot of people, especially the impoverished, to rally around your cause. It also doesn't hurt if you can blame some other group for the impoverishing of the region, even if it is completely bunk.

Of course, as a Christian, I also believe that these people, though willing to be such monsters themselves, are being used and deceived by other "powers" to commit these atrocities. So the fight is on two fronts. They need to be fought with all available force to stop their madness; they need to be converted in their souls and minds toward a better way, a truth. They are on the cusp of truth: they just worship the wrong prophet (I know they claim not to worship any man). One prophet was a conqueror, an executioner of his enemies; the other allowed others to falsely accuse Him and kill Him. One sought revenge; the Other sought restoration. Who we worship, who we adore, or who we want to be LIKE, does make a difference. We westerners like to think that religion and principles are just personal choices and beliefs that don't matter outside the walls of our places of worship, but such is not the case.

[Louis the Hedgehog]

 

 

Pretty bad when you sink that low...

 

Bombs won't work. ISIS is advancing on Baghdad and is closing into Turkey. They already have sleeper cells of sympathizers here and there as well, just waiting to strike when the big forces come. They've adapted. They are innovating. This is their drive, This is the purpose and cause taht gives them meaning: to rise the black flag of Islam, a homogeneous and unquestioning subjugation to the Koran and Sharia Law. You can't kill convictions with pandering diplomacy and bureaucracy. This takes subversion of radical misbeliefs backed by righteous unwavering force to truly eliminate. All ISIS needs to do to avoid an airstrike is to blend in with the innocent, the "kafir" and the "mushirks" of this world. ISIS is simply taking down their flags, dressing as civilians, keeping their guns and actions under cloak and dagger. You can not kill a shadow in a crowd with even the most advanced guided missile without there being massive collateral damage. You need human discretion, you need boots and brains on the ground (and there is, no matter what way we spin it - we have specialists there). Ballot-mongering Obama failed Baghdad and America the way the congress once failed Saigon in the name of getting votes for false promises and naive policy. They cut back to the tune of a million useful idiots. This should have been handled the way we handled Korea. Korea had it's hiccups with sectarianism with it's 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Republics and all the while they had North Korea looming over their head. But we stuck to them (and sadly still have to at the DMZ) and now look at them, look at the prosperity and freedom South Korea has today. Nothing sort of a gradual change of worldview will bring stability to the Middle East, and that takes time and influence, a form of ideological warfare backed with physical defense if need be to protect innocent lives - a thing Obama is appalled by because of his background and naive anti-colonial mentality shared by those who wish to ignore the reality of evil in their blind quest for a comical utopia fantasy-world where we all just blindly get along despite a sea of contradictions in our view of the nature of human life and society and it's worthy pursuits . The worse thing that gets in the way of our Commander in Chief, is his own self, his own deluded idealism that ISIS is not "Islamic" and is "Junior varsity," his pandering to sinful nations that treat women like scum and democracy like a curse-word.  And it's this espousing of a simplistic and quixotic ideal of coexistence and the down play of an obviously hostile evil that risks our lives and the lives of others, and, more importantly, the right to live it freely. 

Oh my goodness, Bill Whittle is living in a fantasy land. How would you feel if Vladimr Putin made a speech arguing that the Soviet Union really didn't lose the Cold War and used that as a reason to occupy Crimea? Would you take that claim at face value?

 

And as for his attitude in general...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYo0G_w9MHQ&list=UUjNxszyFPasDdRoD9J6X-sw

So what is the solution? War without end? MORE massive military spending when we are in so much debt?

 

As Sun Tsu said "No country has ever benefited form endless war". By the looks of it it was our involvement in Iraq in the first place that may have created ISIS in the first place. True, at times I consider our current president to be Bush light myself, but you know what? He's actually getting things DONE. This guy has KILLED Bin Laden, ended the Quadafi regime in Libia, and even was the first President to order my favorite plane into combat for the first time in pounding the ISIS. And he's doing it at probably a much lower cost then his predecessor would have. What else does he have to do to be considered "strong"? Does he have to nuke Russia? Does he have to invade the entire middle east? Does he have to spend 99% of the budget on the military? What does it take?

 

Oh, and by the way, waterboarding did NOT get us any closer to finding Bin Laden, it was good old-fashioned intelligence work. The guy delivering stuff to Bin Laden was someone who we thought was dead, when it was his BROTHER who died and he just switched names to fool us.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAMCHShxS9A

[brmsort]

Getting stuff done? What did he accomplish in getting rid of Quadafi? Oh yah, set up al qaeda offshoots to take over, and let our embassy get overrun. He did the same in Egypt. The whole Arab Spring that he supported has done nothing except give terrorists more power throughout the region. Mission accomplished, Mr. Obama!

ISIS would be a dead duck if 1) we didn't leave Iraq with an infant military in a hostile region and 2) if we left Syria alone to crush them. But no, our President wants to get rid of Assad just like he did Quadafi in Libya, which will give yet another country to jihadists.

So he killed Bin Laden? Big deal! Any American would have made that call. It doesn't take a great leader to make that choice! The only heroes in that act were the ones that actually did the deed and got it done.

Oh and funny thing, now we conveniently find out after all the crap he caught for it, that Bush didn't lie and Iraq DID have banned chemical weapons. Chemical weapons that our current President knew or should have known were still in Iraq which is now overrun by ISIS.

Now was going into Iraq in the first place a good choice? Who knows. But the war is hardly the only cause of our soaring debt. And I find it ironic that the same people applauding the removal of Quadifi and Assad condemn the removal of Saddam. The only difference is that Iraq took years to fall into the hands of terrorists thanks to the ground presence we had there and the training we began to provide (in fact it is not quiet there yet), but it took months for Libya, and would for Syria if Assad were removed.

Either Pres. Obama has the worst luck in decision making ever, or he is the smartest man ever to commit a conspiracy before our eyes and get away with it.

[TheRedStranger]

 

So he killed Bin Laden? Big deal! Any American would have made that call. It doesn't take a great leader to make that choice! The only heroes in that act were the ones that actually did the deed and got it done.

 

 

Actually - to further kindle your fire - the Bush administration, CIA, and Seal Team Six killed Bin Laden. Bush ordered the waterboarding of the man who named dropped the courier and the subsequent connections; Obama was on the golf course when he got the call that they finally found him. He then publicized the even to further his support at the risk of preserving confidential information about the person's in the operation as the methodologies of HUMINT .

[TheRedStranger]

Oh my goodness, Bill Whittle is living in a fantasy land. How would you feel if Vladimr Putin made a speech arguing that the Soviet Union really didn't lose the Cold War and used that as a reason to occupy Crimea? Would you take that claim at face value?

 

 

[Fallacy of the Complex Question and non-sequitor.]

 

Help! Help! A straw man has been killed! 

 

 

 

And as for his attitude in general...

https://www.youtube....PasDdRoD9J6X-sw

 

 

 

 

Is this really the best you have to give us? A self -important neck-beard with a penchant for childish banter (that believes in a ridiculous universal negative) blabbering on about something not even relevant to this discussion? That's very presumptuous. 

 

So what is the solution? War without end? MORE massive military spending when we are in so much debt?

 

 

 

[Fallacy of the Complex Question.]

 

Apparently that's what you indeed want if you think drawing out of Iraq so prematurely was the right idea. The solution is not as easy as you want it to be. Look at our experience with South Korea, and Western and Eastern Germany. We had to maintain a garrison to maintain a level of peace.

 

As Sun Tsu said "No country has ever benefited form endless war".

 

 

That's not what the videos were even about. You are not even entertaining the content of what other's are saying. You are just expounding into non-relevant or tangential issues. You are rebutting a false point, and rather sloppily and crassly I might add.

 

"If your enemy is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him. If your opponent is temperamental, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them. If sovereign and subject are in accord, put division between them. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected." - Sun Tzu, Art of War, Chapter One

 

ISIS saw the opportunity now we are going back because Obama withdrew wholesale to merely keep a myopic campaign promise, even though he was indeed warned. The premature move has costed lives and even government property.

 

Our current supposed supporters in the region have proven themselves too sectarian and opportunistic for a yet another unsuccessful Middle Eastern proxy war like during the Cold War. Sadly, we will become more and more involved as their will be a need of more and more human discretion. ISIS has been steadily growing and simply adapting to the bombings.  As Hussam Al Marie, the spokesman for the Free Syrian Army in northern Syria said: "Airstrikes against ISIS inside Syria will not be helpful. Airstrikes will not get rid of ISIS. Airstrikes are like just tickling ISIS… ISIS is not a real state that you can attack and destroy; they are thugs who are spread all over the east of Syria in the desert. And when they are in the cities, they are using civilian buildings. So airstrikes will not be enough to get rid of these terrorists and at the same time, they might hit civilians. That’s the problem."

 

By the looks of it it was our involvement in Iraq in the first place that may have created ISIS in the first place. True, at times I consider our current president to be Bush light myself, but you know what? He's actually getting things DONE. This guy has KILLED Bin Laden, ended the Quadafi regime in Libia, and even was the first President to order my favorite plane into combat for the first time in pounding the ISIS. And he's doing it at probably a much lower cost then his predecessor would have. What else does he have to do to be considered "strong"? Does he have to nuke Russia? Does he have to invade the entire middle east? Does he have to spend 99% of the budget on the military? What does it take?

 

 

 

[Citations needed; fallacy of Cum ergo Propter Hoc; again, loaded questions.]

 

What planet are you on? NSA scandle? Fast and Furious? Obamacare? Ignoring ISIS and calling them "junior varsity?" Mass Amnesty to strain our fragile infrastructure? Bailing out GM, despite them killing people with their clunky cars while the rest of Detroit is dying? Benghazi, where four innocent lives were brutally murdered after the current administration denied their multiple requests for FEST? None of this ringing a bell? Despite ignoring him, Brmsort has you pegged... You are just making negative emotional assertions and not entertaining what people are actually saying, just like that raggedy pompous neck beard you blindly worship. Your favorite plane? Who cares?  What about the issues and other's thoughts? Too bad it's being used to kill civilians like I showed above. It's the drone issue all over again. And you really are not dishing anything out here of substance. In fact you are just being brusque and presumptuous again. 

 

Oh, and by the way, waterboarding did NOT get us any closer to finding Bin Laden, it was good old-fashioned intelligence work. The guy delivering stuff to Bin Laden was someone who we thought was dead, when it was his BROTHER who died and he just switched names to fool us.

https://www.youtube....h?v=HAMCHShxS9A

 

 

 

[Emotional Star Trek clips apparently count for sources and citations now...Even if so my points still stand. If you think you can win a war without hurting people, then you are dangerously sheltered. They only things that we can do is protect what we can and encourage change for the better. If you want to make peace in the world, you better keep your agenda alive by protecting it. Let's not end up being a bunch of Neville Chamberlands. War is painful. Even if they say anything you want to hear under the board you can simply compare it with other intel, such has been done over and over again in the art of interrogation. Interrogation and combat are just two facts of war. ]

 

Louis...You just really need to avoid the debate section. You don't have the emotional stability, kindness, and logical ability to entertain issues with others. You have been a rather cruel reactivist filled with hollow and seering bravado, incapable of level headed dialogue. You always seem to have a hurtful chip on your shoulder, so much so I have even received  PM's about how cantankerous you are to others and how off the wall and accusatory your arguments are. I have spent a good time consoling these people, so much so I roll my eyes every time I hear your name.  If you are going to make this heated with goofy videos and presumptions,  and make things personal with pull out the "you" card - you can just PM me from now on, or you can talk to me face to face on Skype in person and we will reason things out directly. Now, if you start another rant like you have in the past I'm just going to report you and so are others, but  if you want to have a civil discourse in private in hopes to reach constructive conclusions rather than protect and badger us your pet-opinions I would welcome it wholesale. Let's reason with each other and be civil. Let's give you a voice actually worth hearing and that will be listened to, and one that will listen to others. We all deserve such. 

 

I leave you to make that mature choice. In the mean time I recommend you actually read a book called Throw Them All Out. I think it would temper your idealism.

 

Take yourself a breather and take care in the meantime. 

[Louis the Hedgehog]

I will try to be as non-personal in this as I can, but it cannot be seen as personal for disagreeing with you. Trust me, what I'm doing here is NOTHING compared to what I put up with. I've been called racist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic comments (none of which ever applied to me) I've had people constantly spamming me, I've had people cyberstalking me by constantly ban-jumping, I've even had people uploading my address without my consent. And you call this heated and personal? Please, calm down.

 

In order to address many of the comments sent my way I've decided to break it down into numbered segments to save time.

 

1) First of all, with the Bengazi attack, only four people were killed, even though one of them was a US ambassador, and we had no prior intelligence of that attack. During the original 9/11 attacks 2997 people were killed and there were memos warning of an impending attack.

 

2) If ANY president had the ability to kill Bin Laden, why didn't Bush do it? He had nearly 8 years. Why didn't he do it?

 

3) The weapons of mass destruction found in iraq were in such a poor state that they were not weapons of any kind any more. They MIGHT still be dangerous, to those dumb enough to EAT them. The justification for the second war in Iraq was based upon the claim of PRESENT WMDs that were in ready condition, but also their ability to PRODUCE them. Neither claim was true. Also, guess who made those weapons?

 

4) Torture does not work, it just gets people to confess to whatever you want to hear, but that does not automatically make it the truth. Don't you think it's odd that all the people who were tortured during the Spanish Inquisition "confessed" to their "crimes against the faith"? I consider it a mighty long coincidence. Also, how would you feel if OUR enemies water-boarded OUR personnel? That is why I posted the video I did. "Torture has never been an effective means of extracting information, and ultimately self-defeating as a means of control. It is a wonder why in this age it is still practiced."

 

5) In Korea, the United States drove out an INVADING government from another country, rather than attempting to dissolve a government that was already there on its own for quite some time. Now you can argue that the same thing was attempted in Vietnam, and you'd be right. But why that didn't go so well was because of poor planning, plenty of places to hide in the jungle, the Ho-Chi-Minn trail, and the fact that as US airstrikes were leveling villages left and right with more bombs that were dropped in all of Europe during WWII, most of the Viet-Cong were safely underground. Thanks to that, and the use of napalm, the civilian death toll reached around 7 million.

 

6) We TRIED to train the Iraqi people and give them arms to do so, but they did not agree among themselves how the country should be run and the result was a civil war. Also, guess who made the howitzers and Humvees that ISIS uses? Noticing a pattern here? That is why people cautioned against arming the free-syria army because there was a chance that it would arm ISIS even MORE. If we had ignored them we probably would have. Still, there are some people over there who ARE willing to fight both Asaad and ISIS, and I would be fine if we helped them, but we still have to be careful.

 

7) The only real way to destroy an enemy is to convince them not to be so anymore. When US and Russian forces were finally deep in Germany in 1945, the battle of Berlin made Hitler walk into his bunker and shoot himself in the head. The German people fought on for hours, even days believing he was still alive. But once they found out he was dead the German people surrendered. Now, in cases such as Vietnam or the second war in Iraq, our enemies were determined to fight no matter what. In fact, our attempts to subdue them would only make them stronger in willpower. Which is precisely why it will take more than bombs and missiles to defeat ISIS, but deploying ground troops will only give ISIS target practice in the long run. THIS battle has to be fought in the most important place of them all, the mind. Besides, I already mentioned that are people on the ground ALREADY there who are willing to fight ISIS.

 

So basically, yes, I do want ISIS stopped, but I'm afraid we cannot afford another long, drawn-out stalemate of an occupation. Thankfully we DO have allies in the region. Heck, even IRAN of all people want to fight ISIS. I just don't see how we appear weak against ISIS. I just read about how ISIS took control of a hill in Syria, and US airstrikes took it right back. So we actually ARE doing something, but again, I hope the long-run consequences don't haunt us later. That's what this is all about.

 

I calmly, and humbly, await your response.

[TheRedStranger]

I will try to be as non-personal in this as I can, but it cannot be seen as personal for disagreeing with you. Trust me, what I'm doing here is NOTHING compared to what I put up with. I've been called racist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic comments (none of which ever applied to me) I've had people constantly spamming me, I've had people cyberstalking me by constantly ban-jumping, I've even had people uploading my address without my consent. And you call this heated and personal? Please, calm down.

 

In order to address many of the comments sent my way I've decided to break it down into numbered segments to save time.

 

1) First of all, with the Bengazi attack, only four people were killed, even though one of them was a US ambassador, and we had no prior intelligence of that attack. During the original 9/11 attacks 2997 people were killed and there were memos warning of an impending attack.

 

2) If ANY president had the ability to kill Bin Laden, why didn't Bush do it? He had nearly 8 years. Why didn't he do it?

 

3) The weapons of mass destruction found in iraq were in such a poor state that they were not weapons of any kind any more. They MIGHT still be dangerous, to those dumb enough to EAT them. The justification for the second war in Iraq was based upon the claim of PRESENT WMDs that were in ready condition, but also their ability to PRODUCE them. Neither claim was true. Also, guess who made those weapons?

 

4) Torture does not work, it just gets people to confess to whatever you want to hear, but that does not automatically make it the truth. Don't you think it's odd that all the people who were tortured during the Spanish Inquisition "confessed" to their "crimes against the faith"? I consider it a mighty long coincidence. Also, how would you feel if OUR enemies water-boarded OUR personnel? That is why I posted the video I did. "Torture has never been an effective means of extracting information, and ultimately self-defeating as a means of control. It is a wonder why in this age it is still practiced."

 

5) In Korea, the United States drove out an INVADING government from another country, rather than attempting to dissolve a government that was already there on its own for quite some time. Now you can argue that the same thing was attempted in Vietnam, and you'd be right. But why that didn't go so well was because of poor planning, plenty of places to hide in the jungle, the Ho-Chi-Minn trail, and the fact that as US airstrikes were leveling villages left and right with more bombs that were dropped in all of Europe during WWII, most of the Viet-Cong were safely underground. Thanks to that, and the use of napalm, the civilian death toll reached around 7 million.

 

6) We TRIED to train the Iraqi people and give them arms to do so, but they did not agree among themselves how the country should be run and the result was a civil war. Also, guess who made the howitzers and Humvees that ISIS uses? Noticing a pattern here? That is why people cautioned against arming the free-syria army because there was a chance that it would arm ISIS even MORE. If we had ignored them we probably would have. Still, there are some people over there who ARE willing to fight both Asaad and ISIS, and I would be fine if we helped them, but we still have to be careful.

 

7) The only real way to destroy an enemy is to convince them not to be so anymore. When US and Russian forces were finally deep in Germany in 1945, the battle of Berlin made Hitler walk into his bunker and shoot himself in the head. The German people fought on for hours, even days believing he was still alive. But once they found out he was dead the German people surrendered. Now, in cases such as Vietnam or the second war in Iraq, our enemies were determined to fight no matter what. In fact, our attempts to subdue them would only make them stronger in willpower. Which is precisely why it will take more than bombs and missiles to defeat ISIS, but deploying ground troops will only give ISIS target practice in the long run. THIS battle has to be fought in the most important place of them all, the mind. Besides, I already mentioned that are people on the ground ALREADY there who are willing to fight ISIS.

 

So basically, yes, I do want ISIS stopped, but I'm afraid we cannot afford another long, drawn-out stalemate of an occupation. Thankfully we DO have allies in the region. Heck, even IRAN of all people want to fight ISIS. I just don't see how we appear weak against ISIS. I just read about how ISIS took control of a hill in Syria, and US airstrikes took it right back. So we actually ARE doing something, but again, I hope the long-run consequences don't haunt us later. That's what this is all about.

 

I calmly, and humbly, await your response.

 

[It will be in PM. I told you otherwise. I don't want others input to be shouted out and overshadowed because of this. We are covering a lot of heated ground. Like I insisted before, we will talk about it person to person. I will Pm you. And do you have a Skype? We can talk personally that way. It's much better that way to understand where each one of us are coming from. I do not wish this to devolve into a one on one debate between you and me; as others should give their thoughts. Us just slinging walls of text at each will not help us or others. Let's not argue for the sake of argument. Let's actually try to reason with a goal in mind shall we? This is not about one-ups-menship, it's about reasoning important issues through and correctly. You might find we agree on a lot more than you think.]

[Louis the Hedgehog]

 

[It will be in PM. I told you otherwise. I don't want others input to be shouted out and overshadowed because of this. We are covering a lot of heated ground. Like I insisted before, we will talk about it person to person. I will Pm you. And do you have a Skype? We can talk personally that way. It's much better that way to understand where each one of us are coming from. I do not wish this to devolve into a one on one debate between you and me; as others should give their thoughts. Us just slinging walls of text at each will not help us or others. Let's not argue for the sake of argument. Let's actually try to reason with a goal in mind shall we? This is not about one-ups-menship, it's about reasoning important issues through and correctly. You might find we agree on a lot more than you think.]

Well at LEAST you're not locking the topic, that's a start I suppose. But keep in mind I'm not doing this for one-upmenship.

 

I guess for now I'll just leave the past where it belongs. I'll focus more on the future from this point forward.

[MoKat]

I'm reluctant to revive this topic, but I found an interesting (and very relevant) article at Vox & didn't want to start a new thread.

 

ISIS is losing

 

("Cliff Notes" version: ISIS is being pushed back because they are outgunned, outnumbered, and friendless.  Also, ISIS's self-destructive ideology is its greatest weakness.)