ISIS will be more than busy fighting Iran and other closer enemies for the foreseeable future. If we stay out they will leave us alone. If we go in now we will be entering a shitstorm with no good allies and no clear objective. It's madness.
ISIS in Iraq and Syria
- Thread starter Suli
- Start date
They will leave us alone for now. And the humanitarian issues aside stability in the area will just get worse which can't be good for almost anyone with the majority of the world oil controlled in the region.
We're moving away from mid-east oil. They only go after us because we meddle in the region.
57% of oil reserves and 40% of gas is still a huge amount and uncertainty and conflict can have a massive effect on the world economy.
I wonder what the Saudis make of the potential for military cooperation between the US and Iran?
Is there anything happening that won't make them very nervous indeed?
I may be late to the party… but as far as I know. it's ISIL. Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Or as us Lebanese call the turds, "Da'aesh"
ISIL aren't terrorists? I would say guys that find it funny to kick around a bunch of human heads are pretty terror inducing...
Both are commonly used abbreviations.
Do you think they plan to hijack aircraft or plant bombs in the West? No, their plans are to take territory in a conventional manner. That is using soldiers and battlefield weapons. That they use horrific methods to deal with their prisoners is nothing to do with terrorism.
What does the second S stand for in ISIS?
If your definition of terrorism solely consists of flying planes into buildings then yes they are not terrorists. I am fairly certain most of what ISIL does can and should be classified as terrorism.
al Sham, I think.
They are a branch of Al-Qaeda, that later Al-Qaeda clashed with and they even considered them "too extreme". It's ok to call them terrorists.
Greater Syria.
How about suicide bombings, taking over shopping malls and killing people and massacring women and children in a village?
Ah, it's not terrorism if it's not terrorizing the West I see. This is everything that is wrong with todays world.
ISIS is primarily a coalition of militias. It's very similar to what happened in Bosnia with the religious and territorial motivations to ethnically cleanse areas and settle old scores. To brush them off as terrorists would be foolish as you would ignore the root causes of the problem.
ISIS have committed worse terror attacks against the populations of Iraq and Syria than any group has ever committed against the West.
When you are looking at the West getting involved then you use western terms of reference.
Were the Nazis terrorists?
Does all this stop for Ramadan then ?
Depends how you define terrorism I guess. Certainly the 9 million they killed in the holocaust weren't exactly combatants. I would define them as so but I know people in the West especially seem to have a large problem referring to governments, no matter how bad, as terrorists, so I guess a lot of people wouldn't agree.
The difference here is ISIS is not a state actor but a militia as you already outlined yourself and certainly at least a significant number of them are not Syrian or Iraqi. And many of their tactics are to strike immense fear into those they're fighting/ looking to subjugate.
Baby steps
Name me an army that hasn't sought to strike fear into the enemy. The majority of ISIS are Iraqis with legitimate grievances.
I think defining them as terrorists or otherwise is irrelevant. This lot with money, territory and power has got to be a bloody terrible outcome.
I agree that this is probably inevitable, but it could be avoided if we play this right.Baby steps
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It strikes me that there are only shit outcomes from here on in. How long before Afghanistan returns to the middle ages yet again?
Don't you know that the enemy of my enemy is my .... erm .. genocidal terrorist maniac?
Pretty much. But we definitely will not benefit by picking sides.
That's not really true.
How many armies cleanse a quarter of a city's population, specifically target members of other groups even if not in conflict with it and regularly conduct mass killings of the other sect to attempt to bring about a sectarian conflict again.
Didn't you just call them a militia as well?
If the majority of them are Iraqi (which I don't think they are), what on earth have they been doing in Syria for the past 3 years then?
And none of this is said with the desire to see Western intervention yet again (other than perhaps to start wheeling Bush and Blair off to the Hague) or the inability to see that Iraqi Sunnis do have some legitimate grievances (though the flight of both Syrians and Iraqis in the flight of ISIS would perhaps suggest that the common man doesn't exactly seem too optimistic with their future under ISIS)
Isn't that the accepted way of fighting in the ME?
The Iraqi leader Maliki has been a nightmare for the country. Some commentators say he is the cause, and has done and willing to commit massacres in order to keep himself and sections of his people in power. He is modelling himself into Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. Sunni Arab tribes are now siding with ISIS due to his policies. The tribes' alliance with the Iraqi army ended when they found Maliki had sectarian motives. It's amid this situation ISIS was to get support from the local Sunni tribes have allied with rebels in confrontations against the Iraqi forces.
This is what happens when you let idiots like Bush run a country. Invade to get rid of the bad guy with no real plan after that.
What's the deal with Shiite and Sunni muslims, why do they have to fight so badly? Isn't there like a Pope like figure in the Muslim clergy world that could broker a truce between them FFS
Yeh, having a Pope like figure did wonders to unite Christians.
Errm, I thought they'll be a bit more civilized
