Islamic State

[Rum]

I think of genocide as more of a group activity.

[Ian]

Collector it's about 20,000, not 200,000. Stop listening to the foreign policy expertise of Jeb Bush.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 63418.html

Gee, what reason would a Kurdish leader have to exaggerate the threat?

[Svartalf]

Collector it's about 20,000, not 200,000. Stop listening to the foreign policy expertise of Jeb Bush.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 63418.html

Gee, what reason would a Kurdish leader have to exaggerate the threat?

Would it get him more aid and support?

[piscator]

Probably only a few more pallets of $100 bills and maybe 10,000 Kalashnikovs from the CIA. Not much really.

[Ian]

Not if Turkey has anything to say about it. Which they wouldnt, really, but I digress. But if he could help convince Turkey or some other nations to do some real fighting, it would ease a ton of pressure off Kurdish troops.

As a rule, incentive trumps honesty.

[Seth]

Here in New Zealand, the decision has just been made to send a contingent of our rather limited armed forces to Iraq to assist in the fight against IS. My question to everyone is this. Is it justified to go to war against this entity?

Even though I am more pacifist than hawk, I am inclined to feel that, in this case, war is justified.

My father fought in WWII. In fact, he was among the first NZ volunteers, and spent four years on the battle field. He felt very strongly that opposing the evil of Hitler was the right thing to do. I cannot disagree with him.

Today, we face a group and a leader who is just as evil as Hitler. Sadly, like Hitler, in the early stages of his reign, he is also very successful, and his domain is growing.

Americans have the slogan about freedom and the blood of martyrs. This is not quite the same thing, but I see no way of stopping Islamic State from committing a whole lot more terrible deeds without opposing them militarily. Not that the military is the only possible action. There are many other things to be done, but soldiers and the air force will in the end be what makes the difference.

Do you agree?

Is yours a completely volunteer force?

If not, then no, you shouldn't. Conscripts should never be sent outside of a nation's boundaries, if conscription is ever moral in the first place. If conscription is necessary to defend the homeland against invasion, that's a pickle all its own, but sending conscripts overseas to fight somebody else's war is just wrong.

My philosophy is that if you cannot persuade enough people to volunteer for the military, then your government is doing something very wrong in going to war in the first place.

[laklak]

Yeah, pretty much my take on it. I was not much of a supporter of the Vietnam draft, particularly since I was in the cross hairs. As luck would have it I got high numbers the three years I was eligible for it, so I didn't have to go shoot little yellow dudes who never did anything to me.

WWII was a different kettle of fish, though.

[Seth]

It's hard to say. It's not as simple as good fighting evil. You've got the whole geopolitical thing and the history of colonialism and imperialism to throw into the mix as well. By my personal moral code, we should destroy this (ISIS) organisation. But marching on in to the holy(ish) land and shooting muzzies might not be the best thing to do. Something does need to be done, though. I just don't know what exactly that is. As a general rule, we need to somehow convince the Arab et al world to deal with the problem themselves.

Wayback Machine fallacy. What happened generations ago does not give rise to justification for terrorism today. To fight Marxism, imperialism or fascism within one's own country because it's happening today is justifiable, whereas attacking others for what someone in their nation did a hundred years ago simply is not. That's what makes "ancestral guilt" such an evil and destructive concept.

But you're right about convincing the Muslim world to take up the sword. After all, according to them the IS is a collection of apostates who are harming the One True Religion (of Peace) and therefore, it should be Muslims who are the most outraged by the perversion of their faith. After all, these idiots kill one another because they disagree about which cousin of Mohammed is the "legitimate" heir to the throne. They're awfully touchy about that. It's as if the Lutherans and the Catholics were burning one another at the stake these days over a minor dispute about religious dogma.

One would think, would one not, that if the IS is (in the opinion of "peaceful Muslims") actually perverting Mohammed's words and the will of God, those who believe that the IS is blaspheming would be the first ones to denounce the IS and the first ones to go to war with it out of a sense of religious outrage.

Interesting that they mostly aren't, isn't it? I wonder how the Koranic permission to lie bald-faced to infidels factors into this?

[Seth]

Yeah, pretty much my take on it. I was not much of a supporter of the Vietnam draft, particularly since I was in the cross hairs. As luck would have it I got high numbers the three years I was eligible for it, so I didn't have to go shoot little yellow dudes who never did anything to me.

WWII was a different kettle of fish, though.

My draft number was over 350, which meant they would call me up and issue me a broom to go sweep up after it was all over. At the time I was relieved, but now I wish I'd joined the military. It would have been good for me. Too soon we get old, too late we get smart.

[Seth]

To piscator who said "not on those grounds".

Perhaps you might elaborate.

To rEvo, who thinks we should send other arabs in to do the fighting.

Why do you think that arab killing arab is more 'moral' than westerner killing ISIS member?

It's their common religion, or so they say, so it's up to those who believe the IS is apostasy to fix it. Unless of course they are lying and they don't actually believe that the IS is apostasy and they secretly support the IS as a part of their agenda to create a worldwide Caliphate.

Hmm....

[Seth]

I'm wondering if the world is sick of this shit enough yet.

I'm thinking nukes should be taken into consideration.

Neutron bombs, please. Minimize the infrastructure destruction.

Or perhaps a nice dose of VX like Saddam like to use against the Kurds.

[pErvinalia]

Not if Turkey has anything to say about it. Which they wouldnt, really, but I digress. But if he could help convince Turkey or some other nations to do some real fighting, it would ease a ton of pressure off Kurdish troops.

As a rule, incentive trumps honesty.

I just saw an interesting story about ISIS in Syria. About 20kms into Syrian territory there is a tomb of a famous Ottoman shah that Turkey actually considers Turkish territory, and they guard it with special forces troops. Anyway, ISIS has surrounded the area so Turkey decided to evacuate and relocate the contents of the tomb (including the old shah). To do it they had to organise it with the Kurdish forces in the area, as they control northern Syria. I thought it was interesting that they managed to cooperate, given the bitter history between the Kurds and the Turks.

[pErvinalia]

It's hard to say. It's not as simple as good fighting evil. You've got the whole geopolitical thing and the history of colonialism and imperialism to throw into the mix as well. By my personal moral code, we should destroy this (ISIS) organisation. But marching on in to the holy(ish) land and shooting muzzies might not be the best thing to do. Something does need to be done, though. I just don't know what exactly that is. As a general rule, we need to somehow convince the Arab et al world to deal with the problem themselves.

Wayback Machine fallacy.

Your invented fallacies are no substitute for an actual cogent argument.

What happened generations ago does not give rise to justification for terrorism today.

It does in some of their eyes. But they're not Merkan, so they are unexceptional.

But you're right about convincing the Muslim world to take up the sword. After all, according to them the IS is a collection of apostates who are harming the One True Religion (of Peace) and therefore, it should be Muslims who are the most outraged by the perversion of their faith. After all, these idiots kill one another because they disagree about which cousin of Mohammed is the "legitimate" heir to the throne. They're awfully touchy about that. It's as if the Lutherans and the Catholics were burning one another at the stake these days over a minor dispute about religious dogma.

One would think, would one not, that if the IS is (in the opinion of "peaceful Muslims") actually perverting Mohammed's words and the will of God, those who believe that the IS is blaspheming would be the first ones to denounce the IS and the first ones to go to war with it out of a sense of religious outrage.

Interesting that they mostly aren't, isn't it? I wonder how the Koranic permission to lie bald-faced to infidels factors into this?

The way I understand it is that the regimes in these muslim countries are only ever hanging on by a thin thread, and they are fearful to lose the backing of the religious nuts in their countries. Hence why they are always reticent to act against Islamic terrorists. Egypt can bomb the shit out of ISIS, but it takes an attack on Egyptian citizens before they will consider it.

[JimC]

Seth wrote:

Conscripts should never be sent outside of a nation's boundaries, if conscription is ever moral in the first place. If conscription is necessary to defend the homeland against invasion, that's a pickle all its own, but sending conscripts overseas to fight somebody else's war is just wrong.

100% agree.

[piscator]

I'm wondering if the world is sick of this shit enough yet.

I'm thinking nukes should be taken into consideration.

Neutron bombs, please. Minimize the infrastructure destruction.

Or perhaps a nice dose of VX like Saddam like to use against the Kurds.

The infrastructure in Iraq wasn't very good even before Saddam pocketed all the oil $$ and then pissed off the Bush Family twice. Nothing you can do to a tanker dock that you can't fix in a very few months. Refineries and pump stations can be modular as well. You can be sure oil facilities factor into Bagdaddy's future plans, and as they can be destroyed literally overnight by the Good Guys...well, now we control something the Bad Guys need, as we can take it out of the equation.

I guess China doesn't care, so we should do what suits us.