Fvck ISIS

[code green]

Last Friday, ISIS targeted a Christian neighborhood in Aleppo after losing a lot of ground to the Syrian army earlier in the week. RPGs were fired at people's dwellings, taking down buildings with the habitants trapped inside Article describing attack. (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/11/civilians-killed-in-aleppo-as-rebels-and-state-forces-launch-fresh-attacks) As I've said in a few of these threads, I've got family living in Syria, and unfortunately some in Aleppo. My aunt and 22 year old cousin were in an apartment complex that got decimated, and both died instantly. My aunt's mother asked the rescue workers how she looked when they found her, and said she looked like a sleeping angel. They didn't have the heart to tell her they found her daughter in 3 pieces, and my cousin was crushed by the rubble. Got to see some of the funeral over Skype, which was tough.

I remember talking to people here and IRL when the FSA was just starting to get attention saying if we didn't put a stop to the "moderates" then, it would escalate. Wrote letters to congressmen saying it would soon be open season on Christians, receiving nothing but condescending replies. Say what you want about Assad, but Christians had been living there in peace for decades without anything happening to them. Syria was the one country in the ME that managed to have people of different faiths co-inhabit without conflict. And now look at it....it's Beirut, Baghdad, and Cairo all glued together with the blood of innocent people that just wanted to live their lives. It's tough to really say anything else; I don't even have the heart to say "I told you so" anymore.

This shit's never going to end. I'm slowly resigning myself to the fact.

[BigNBAfan]

Problem is growth in the middle east is a ****ing pyramid. You kill one of those religious bastards and their 8 brothers turn to religion to cope and take on a mission of hate. This cycle just repeats itself... it's ****ed.

[Patrick Chewing]

This same kind of inaction from our government is what got Kennedy killed.


We can pound our fist in the pavement all we want, but until the United States decides to take decisive action and doesn't use words like "Degrade" instead of words like "Kill", ISIS will continue killing Christians, Jews, Muslims, you name it.


We elected this coward in chief, now we deal with it.

[Nick Young]

http://media2.giphy.com/media/dOJt6XZlQw8qQ/giphy.gif

Can't believe that Obama and David Cameron were doing their best to drag us in to a war ON THE SAME SIDE AS ISIS only a year ago! Assad is no saint but he kept shit in check! He knew if he let up, people like these ISIS psychos would rise up and run wild and start doing shit like eating peoples hearts and filming it.

Syria was one of the most liberal countries in the middle east for awhile-when Assad still had power.

Assad was basically Batman-he's not the dictator that Syria wanted-he's the dictator Syria needed.

I hope Kurdistan becomes a reality soon.

Also, all these people in Syria have been getting shitted on FOR YEARS NOW in this shitty civil war and you never hear anyone talking about them. Other Arabs hardly talk about them, the media hardly focuses on them, it is shit! Someone needs to sort these people out and get them help! Why was the US so quick to stop genocide in the Balkans and isn't doing shit to protect Syrians!

[code green]

This same kind of inaction from our government is what got Kennedy killed.


We can pound our fist in the pavement all we want, but until the United States decides to take decisive action and doesn't use words like "Degrade" instead of words like "Kill", ISIS will continue killing Christians, Jews, Muslims, you name it.


We elected this coward in chief, now we deal with it.

I hear you. I'm just as frustrated with our lack of action. But this goes beyond bipartisanship. John friggen McCain (who got my vote in 2008) is literally taking pictures with a person that was involved in kidnapping Lebanese bishops while claiming "he knows who the good guys are."

Democrats and Republicans don't matter when neither side understands the landscape over there. I'm a product of it, and I can barely understand it.

[Dresta]

I hear you. I'm just as frustrated with our lack of action. But this goes beyond bipartisanship. John friggen McCain (who got my vote in 2008) is literally taking pictures with a person that was involved in kidnapping Lebanese bishops while claiming "he knows who the good guys are."

Democrats and Republicans don't matter when neither side understands the landscape over there. I'm a product of it, and I can barely understand it.
It does, in the UK too, where the two major parties both support these sorts of excursions. American and UK foreign policy is being directed by people who have next to no understanding of the regions they're dealing with. First in Iraq, then Libya, then Syria, then Ukraine - all of them now uninhabitable wastelands (perhaps Ukraine is not there yet, but it would be already if European countries weren't so much more reluctant to get involved in the latest crusade).

The rise of IS was documented and well known about, but no one in the right places considered them a serious threat, while our allies Turkey and Saudi Arabia were busy financing and supplying them. Putin = evil bastard, Erdogan = faithful ally

:rolleyes:

It's become beyond ridiculous. So pointlessly destructive that even someone like Henry Kissinger is urging caution. This article, written some time ago, shows how clueless US officials have been to the threat (and how arrogant), and how they ignored the warnings of people actually on the ground:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/how-books-can-defeat-isis-patrick-cockburn-was-able-to-update-his-agendasetting-the-rise-of-islamic-state-while-under-attack-in-baghdad-10009778.html



I still find it astonishing that no foreign governments spotted the growing strength of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (formerly known as Isis) in the 18 months before it captured much of northern Iraq in June 2014.

There was plenty of evidence that Isis and al-Qa'ida-type organisations were getting stronger by the day in Iraq and Syria, but in January of that year President Obama flippantly compared Isis to a junior university basketball team which was never going to hit the big time and whose activities could be largely ignored.

He was speaking after Isis had captured the city of Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad, and the 350,000-strong Iraqi army was failing to win it back. The previous summer, Isis fighters had successfully attacked the infamous Abu Ghraib prison and freed hundreds of its most experienced fighters. In training camps in the deserts of Iraq and Syria, Isis fighters were preparing for spectacular advances in the summer of 2014 that would create a "caliphate" the size of Great Britain, defended by an army stronger than that of many members of the UN.

The outside world may have been astonished by the explosive rise of Isis, but Iraqi politicians had been warning me for several years that, if the war in Syria went on, it would destabilise Iraq and lead to the full-scale resumption of the Sunni-Shia civil war. They also predicted, with varying degrees of emphasis, that the Iraqi army was rotted with corruption and was not capable of fighting a battle.

I had been writing about the growing power of Isis and other jihadis in Iraq and Syria since the second half of 2013. In December 2013, I nominated the leader of Isis, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as The Independent's Middle East Man of the Year. The following March, I wrote a five-part series for the paper called "Al-Qa'ida's Second Act", the first sentence of which read: "Al-Qa'ida-type organisations, with beliefs and methods of operating similar to those who carried out the 9/11 attacks, have become a lethally powerful force from the Tigris to the Mediterranean in the past three years."

The five articles tried to show how strong Isis was on the ground in Iraq and that it was able to levy taxes in Sunni Arab cities such as Mosul and Tikrit that were nominally under the control of the Baghdad government. I wrote that the "War on Terror" had utterly failed, though the US and many of its allies had "adopted procedures formerly associated with police states, such as imprisonment without trial, rendition, torture and domestic espionage". The series attracted some interest among those who followed events in Iraq and Syria closely, but otherwise I was disappointed that there was so little appreciation of the danger.

Shortly afterwards I attended a conference of Middle East experts in Amman, Jordan, about the war in Syria, where I made the point that Isis was already powerful enough to carry out operations in a great swathe of territory. The only person who seemed to agree with me fully was Gareth Stansfield, Professor of Middle East Politics and Director of the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at Exeter University, who knew Iraq well. I got the sense that the others at the meeting considered our views exaggerated, even eccentric.

All ignored because it didn't fit with what people wanted to hear, like so many things in politics.

And this article looks into its rise and the role played by Saudi Arabia and Turkey: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n16/patrick-cockburn/isis-consolidates

**** IS, but seriously, **** Obama, too. Just woeful incompetence.

[Real Men Wear Green]

So people really want us to fully go to war in Iraq after we just spent over a decade over there achieving, apparently, nothing? I never want to hear about balanced budgets again and while we're at let's stop pretending to care about the lives of soldiers. Because neither talking point jibes with engaging in another war out in the Middle East.

I am also against ISIS. Everyone should be against ISIS. But we don't take out every organization we're against. We don't, for example, overthrow the Kims in North Korea. There are four (soon to be three) countries on the state sponsors of terrorism list and we aren't at war with any of them. If the entire world is ready to take on the burden of reforming Iraq then it may be tolerable for us to do our part but if we take on the burden of reconquering the same country we seem to be fighting every ten years expect thousands more dead troops, tens of thousands more dead Iraqis (to be fair, that is probably in the cards with ISIS but the difference is that now the blood will on our hands...again), and trillions more in deficit spending.

ISIS is absolutely horrible. But how many more times are we going to go into Iraq, shoot a lot of people, and then leave behind a government that we will have to either save or remove ten years later? We need to realize that we don't really now what to do about Iraq and the Middle East in general. We don't have to solve their problems and so far our track record has been awful. It'd be one thing if our interventions had been productive but what have we achieved?

[Nick Young]

F*CK TURKEY! They are not our "allies" in any sense of the word.:mad: :mad: :mad:

[Dresta]

So people really want us to fully go to war in Iraq after we just spent over a decade over there achieving, apparently, nothing? I never want to hear about balanced budgets again and while we're at let's stop pretending to care about the lives of soldiers. Because neither talking point jibes with engaging in another war out in the Middle East.

I am also against ISIS. Everyone should be against ISIS. But we don't take out every organization we're against. We don't, for example, overthrow the Kims in North Korea. There are four (soon to be three) countries on the state sponsors of terrorism list and we aren't at war with any of them. If the entire world is ready to take on the burden of reforming Iraq then it may be tolerable for us to do our part but if we take on the burden of reconquering the same country we seem to be fighting every ten years expect thousands more dead troops, tens of thousands more dead Iraqis (to be fair, that is probably in the cards with ISIS but the difference is that now the blood will on our hands...again), and trillions more in deficit spending.

ISIS is absolutely horrible. But how many more times are we going to go into Iraq, shoot a lot of people, and then leave behind a government that we will have to either save or remove ten years later? We need to realize that we don't really now what to do about Iraq and the Middle East in general. We don't have to solve their problems and so far our track record has been awful. It'd be one thing if our interventions had been productive but what have we achieved?
What are you talking about? No one really seems to be saying that, most seem to be saying that it was a mistake to marginalise Assad and to supply the so-called 'moderate' rebels (when the fighting was, from the start, driven by extremist groups). It's too late now, sure, but IS could not have grown into what it is without ignoring it, without allying ourselves with Turkey and Saudi Arabia against Assad, and providing Islamists with training and weapons. Those in the Iraqi government knew what was happening in Syria would destabilise Iraq (only just after the US had left), relayed this information to US officials, who ignored it, and kept charging onwards in their anti-Assad crusade.

Where were the condemnations of Saudi Arabia and Turkey? Where was the awareness to a threat that utterly annulled all the money spent in the region over the past decade? Why wasn't the US putting the same pressure it now puts on Russia on these countries, who were acting far more outrageously?

You would have thought they'd have learned their lesson after Bin-Laden and Afghanistan the first time, but apparently not.

[Real Men Wear Green]

What are you talking about? This:
This same kind of inaction from our government is what got Kennedy killed.


We can pound our fist in the pavement all we want, but until the United States decides to take decisive action and doesn't use words like "Degrade" instead of words like "Kill", ISIS will continue killing Christians, Jews, Muslims, you name it.


We elected this coward in chief, now we deal with it.

[StephHamann]

Assad was basically Batman-he's not the dictator that Syria wanted-he's the dictator Syria needed.



:bowdown: :bowdown: :bowdown: :bowdown: :bowdown: :bowdown: :bowdown:

[code green]

You would have thought they'd have learned their lesson after Bin-Laden and Afghanistan the first time, but apparently not.

"You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else." -Winston Churchill

[Dresta]

This:
Still not 'people' - and most in this thread (including OP) are complaining about the unnecessary foreign subversion of Assad and its disastrous consequences (the general unthinkingness of American foreign policy), not calling for an invasion.

I certainly don't think the US has any money to be giving to charitable causes abroad right now, including the $5+ billion spent on democracy promotion in Ukraine, the purpose of which seems only to marginalise and antagonise Russia.

[Nick Young]

"You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else." -Winston Churchill
You think he'd be more grateful for us winning the war that he couldn't.

[Patrick Chewing]

It shouldn't matter how many times we go over there. Evil must not be allowed to thrive on any corner of this Earth.


Blame the U.S. for being a product of its own exceptionalism. If no one else will take the fight to the enemy, then we will.

[LJJ]

Sorry to hear that about your family, that's awful. The entire conflict is sickening.

And throughout it all there are still many people in the west who support the Islamists side of the conflict, and not just sunni Muslims. You can even see it on this forum. That's how strong the effect of the western propaganda against Assad is.

[rezznor]

This same kind of inaction from our government is what got Kennedy killed.


We can pound our fist in the pavement all we want, but until the United States decides to take decisive action and doesn't use words like "Degrade" instead of words like "Kill", ISIS will continue killing Christians, Jews, Muslims, you name it.


We elected this coward in chief, now we deal with it.
decisive action like invading iraq, right? that worked out great.

[rezznor]

It shouldn't matter how many times we go over there. Evil must not be allowed to thrive on any corner of this Earth.


Blame the U.S. for being a product of its own exceptionalism. If no one else will take the fight to the enemy, then we will.
that's great. send your own kids or yourself over there. stop volunteering other people's children.

fact: iraq and the middle east in general were in much better shape before baby bush decided to whip out his p3nis

[Godzuki]

Assad shouldn't have fukked with us or gone against our interests. he's learning a lesson like Sadaam did. Its unfortunate people suffer from their leaders actions but the Syrian regime has been operating against the US for a long time now.

the US is the easy scapegoat but mf'ers need to put some blame where it belongs. On country's leaders and the way Arabs are raised so grounded in the muslim faith to a fault. Muslim extremism may be exacerbated by US actions but they are not the cause of it, nor are we able to stop it, only deter. Its up to muslim parents and communities to not be so religiously focused, otherwise they'll continue to produce extremists who believe in the fundamentalist doctrines.

Blaming the US for Assad or actions in Libya is like blaming us for starving the NKorean people because their leader is constantly provoking us. when will leaders learn to not fukk with the west? look at Putin, dude is fukked, future of Russia looks bleak, and their best hope is Putin getting overthrown or dying soon, and getting back into the US and Europes good graces.

either way the problem is Arabs raise their children and live their lives very religiously. they are bound to gravitate towards fundamentalist preachings when they dedicate themselves to the purity of what they believe in.

i also think religious non muslims living in arab countries are making themselves targets in a obvious dangerous world climate. Its not the US's fault those muslim migrants from Libya threw those christians off the boat and killed them. its a much bigger issue to those regions than it all being big bad USA's fault.

[Godzuki]

I was waiting for KevinNYC to come here and write the most stupidest reply but you beat him too it. Guess we just have to wait and see if he beats ya


good argument like usual terrorist :applause:

[Godzuki]

You do realise that the majority of Americans who share your views of the world and American Foreign policy would gladly lynch your Asian ass if they ever got a chance? You remind me of that blind character from the Dave Chappelle show whose a white-Supremacist:oldlol: :oldlol:


lol the only place people of your mindset habitat is living on youtube conspiracy videos from their computer thinking they're smart but in reality have schizophrenic issues.

there are a lot of conspiracy nerds like you on the internet, so don't feel bad. most americans don't give a fukk about any of this, much less any foreigner, they're too busy living in their world. azn's are some of the smartest people on the planet thats why you should just take my word for me being right, and you wrong :pimp:

PS feel free to back up your talk and go fighting for what you believe in. you won't be any different than another blown up dumbass terrorist. at least they're not just yappin about how much they hate us, and everything is our fault.

[Patrick Chewing]

decisive action like invading iraq, right? that worked out great.


Are Iraq and ISIS the same? No. Iraq's downfall was a combination of a poor exit strategy and a removal of forces. So you depose Saddam, now what?

You people love to compare the Iraqi invasion, but it is not the same as the treachery that ISIS is undertaking at the moment.

[Patrick Chewing]

fact: iraq and the middle east in general were in much better shape


An actual Iraqi should be making a claim like this, not someone a million miles away.

Maybe we should ask some dead Kurds instead.

[Godzuki]

http://media.discovernikkei.org/album/items/2/1/2144/camp_amache_full.jpg

http://inconvenienthistory.com/archive/2009/volume_1/number_1/imgs/japanese_internment.gif

http://www.rcinet.ca/patrimoine-asiatique-en/wp-content/uploads/sites/26/2012/05/Pic-2-c046350.jpg

http://0.thumbs.scribol.com/4/sites/default/files/images/BarbedWire_0.jpeg?v=1

http://lanternreview.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/internment-image.jpg

http://www.lib.uidaho.edu/digital/Kooskia/Kooskia.jpg

http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/uploaded_images/InternmentCamp-791870.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/K6jn7zM.png

i'm not japanese, in fact most old school azns dislike them :oldlol:

i could always post bosnia vs serbia war pics if i cared FYI. just go to war against us and stop yappin fool :facepalm

[Dresta]

Assad shouldn't have fukked with us or gone against our interests. he's learning a lesson like Sadaam did. Its unfortunate people suffer from their leaders actions but the Syrian regime has been operating against the US for a long time now.

the US is the easy scapegoat but mf'ers need to put some blame where it belongs. On country's leaders and the way Arabs are raised so grounded in the muslim faith to a fault. Muslim extremism may be exacerbated by US actions but they are not the cause of it, nor are we able to stop it, only deter. Its up to muslim parents and communities to not be so religiously focused, otherwise they'll continue to produce extremists who believe in the fundamentalist doctrines.

Blaming the US for Assad or actions in Libya is like blaming us for starving the NKorean people because their leader is constantly provoking us. when will leaders learn to not fukk with the west? look at Putin, dude is fukked, future of Russia looks bleak, and their best hope is Putin getting overthrown or dying soon, and getting back into the US and Europes good graces.

either way the problem is Arabs raise their children and live their lives very religiously. they are bound to gravitate towards fundamentalist preachings when they dedicate themselves to the purity of what they believe in.

i also think religious non muslims living in arab countries are making themselves targets in a obvious dangerous world climate. Its not the US's fault those muslim migrants from Libya threw those christians off the boat and killed them. its a much bigger issue to those regions than it all being big bad USA's fault.
:facepalm

Sadly, this is the kind of mentality that litters the US State Department.

[Godzuki]

:facepalm

Sadly, this is the kind of mentality that litters the US State Department.


sadly i'm one of the very few here who keeps up with current events, and not from al jazeera, youtubes, and other stupid shit where so many go by completely reinvented history to blame the US. we don't purposely intend to create half the shit y'all blame us for, but it is always retold that way :rolleyes:

[Pushxx]

Ron Paul, man. Dude is one of the only public figures left that understands economics and world politics.

We are ****ed until some of the liberty and freedom of Americans is restored. The Constitution is becoming a distant memory. No country was founded on better principles than the United States of America. Those principles are fast fading.

[KingBeasley08]

I'm sorry to hear about your family. It's easy to see death on the news but when you see it happen up close, it feels very different.

Even in this forum, guys like KevinNYC were reiterating Democrat (and Republican tbh, both parties wanted to invade) talking points about how we need to invade Syria and how evil Assad is

Me and Nick were calling that shit out saying that the "rebels" were a bunch of crazy, Islamic militant f*cks.

Most of the Middle East is a disease. It's a cancer. You can't cure it. You can't even destroy it. At most, it goes into remission and resurfaces after a little bit. The only thing you can do is control it. Strong dictators that clamp down on fanatics are a necessity in these regions. Syria and Libya are much worse places after intervention. I blame France and the EU more for Libya but the US and the UK are the biggest culprits for the crazy shit going on in Syria. They f*cked up hard