PieFacE Posted November 24, 2015 VT Supporter Share Posted November 24, 2015 1 minute ago, PongRiddims said: Genuine question, is this WW3? Genuine answer, don't know Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted November 24, 2015 Share Posted November 24, 2015 17 minutes ago, PongRiddims said: Genuine question, is this WW3? I hope not. I haven't stocked up on wine yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CarewsEyebrowDesigner Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 nah i don't think it is global enough for it to be a world war. sure the terrorist chaps turn up around the place but the actual war bit has been situated within one region for quite a while. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maqroll Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 2 hours ago, PongRiddims said: Genuine question, is this WW3? Ha, I was thinking the same thing. Could today's event be the Franz Ferdinand-style trigger? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maqroll Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 3 hours ago, chrisp65 said: potato potatoe I just think the reasoning behind WW1 was so mind numbingly stupid that a certain level of complicated gets assigned to it in order to give it some sort of justification, whereas it really just came down to a few royal families having a squabble and sending their subjects into a human meat grinder to settle it. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrentVilla Posted November 25, 2015 Moderator Share Posted November 25, 2015 9 hours ago, Genie said: I stand by the Amateurish quote, 1) if you are being told to respond, move or get shot down then you're asking for trouble if you ignore it all. 2) If you're heading into an area to (quite rightly) try and recover your service men, dead or alive then you need to take the correct precautions and go prepared when they knew it was crawling with rebels. They clearly didn't do that either and got their pants pulled down a second time in a day. Doesn't scream military super power to me. You can stand by it, I'm not trying to change your mind just explaining why I think you are wrong. On the one hand you call them amature then on the other you say they ignored warnings. Those two things contradict each other. It could be called amature of they didn't know they were in Turkish airspace but you are saying they did because they ignored warnings. So that isn't amature if anything it's arrogance. On your second point, it's predicated on two huge assumptions. The first that they didn't take precautions and the second that it was an area "crawling" with rebels. the latest reports on the first incident suggest the Russian plane was in Turkish airspace for 2 seconds. So the claims of 5 mins of warnings by Turkey can only have come while the Russian plane was in Syrian airspace. There are also reports that the Turkish plane pursued the Russian one into Syrian airspace, something I'm sure they didn't have permission for. I'm not particularly making a case for Russia being a military superpower (they are though by the way) just pointing out your reasoning for saying they aren't is based on two inicidents we as yet don't know the full detail of, a couple of assumptions, a contradiction and ignores their actual capabilities. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 5 hours ago, maqroll said: I just think the reasoning behind WW1 was so mind numbingly stupid that a certain level of complicated gets assigned to it in order to give it some sort of justification, whereas it really just came down to a few royal families having a squabble and sending their subjects into a human meat grinder to settle it. Whereas the reasoning behind this war is logical and justified? Take out 'royal families' and substitute with 'royal families. dictatorships and superpowers' and I'm struggling to see the difference. Years and years of ignorance and petty squabbling with everyone in treaties against everyone else and no two neighbours liking each other with no care for the consequences for 'the people'. Our relationship now with Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the EU, NATO, Crimea, Ukraine.....I'd say that was complicated enough. Russia needs a harbour on the coast of Syria, but also needs sanctions lifted because of Crimea. The Saudi's and Qatari's appear to be funding a death cult. We tried to impose democracy on Egypt but didn't like who they voted for. USA claim not to like what Israel is doing but invest billions in their military. We piled in to Iraq as liberators then left, then went back in, then left. Libya was just bizarre. Germany gave an open invite to refugees from another continent having told their partners Greece there wasn't money to help them. So Greece has adopted an open border policy - that's gone well. I'd say there are parallels in the ridiculously poor strategies vs disastrous egos game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maqroll Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 Maybe the difference is that we are witnessing it all in real time, and see the minutiae of it's all playing out, how the dots connect, etc. 100 years sheds enough light on WW1 that it's reasoning seems ridiculous, although I'm sure it all seemed reasonable then. But I take your basic point, war is stupid and signifies nothing but human failure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 6 hours ago, maqroll said: Could today's event be the Franz Ferdinand-style trigger? Hope not. Don't want any more of their music inflicted upon the masses. Best to stick with FFS I think. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limpid Posted November 25, 2015 Administrator Share Posted November 25, 2015 Why have people started using the phrase "death cult" to describe IS? All the Abrahamic religions are death cults. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrentVilla Posted November 25, 2015 Moderator Share Posted November 25, 2015 2 minutes ago, limpid said: Why have people started using the phrase "death cult" to describe IS? All the Abrahamic religions are death cults. Perhaps it's because it's the closest they can get to their real title with our word filter. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limpid Posted November 25, 2015 Administrator Share Posted November 25, 2015 Just now, TrentVilla said: Perhaps it's because it's the closest they can get to their real title with our word filter. I didn't mean here, in general. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrentVilla Posted November 25, 2015 Moderator Share Posted November 25, 2015 Just now, limpid said: I didn't mean here, in general. Not a clue. It joins my list of pet hates within the media alongside the use of 'brainwashed'. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 3 hours ago, TrentVilla said: You can stand by it, I'm not trying to change your mind just explaining why I think you are wrong. On the one hand you call them amature then on the other you say they ignored warnings. Those two things contradict each other. It could be called amature of they didn't know they were in Turkish airspace but you are saying they did because they ignored warnings. So that isn't amature if anything it's arrogance. On your second point, it's predicated on two huge assumptions. The first that they didn't take precautions and the second that it was an area "crawling" with rebels. the latest reports on the first incident suggest the Russian plane was in Turkish airspace for 2 seconds. So the claims of 5 mins of warnings by Turkey can only have come while the Russian plane was in Syrian airspace. There are also reports that the Turkish plane pursued the Russian one into Syrian airspace, something I'm sure they didn't have permission for. I'm not particularly making a case for Russia being a military superpower (they are though by the way) just pointing out your reasoning for saying they aren't is based on two inicidents we as yet don't know the full detail of, a couple of assumptions, a contradiction and ignores their actual capabilities. I think there's more holes in that post than in the Villa defence, and without going through it all line by line I'll reiterate the inital post on the previous post "amateur hour". Clearly Russia have a very strong military force, I was just making the point they did have a very bad day at the office. Coasting along the border ignoring comms to respond has left them 1 $20m jet down and a pilot who won't be returning to his family this Christmas. You say arrogance, I say stupid. They will (should) have known there would be rebels in the area, especially as a Russian jet had just crashed there. If they were doing a search and rescue they did make mess of it as they ended up recovering nothing and have another member of dead staff on their hands. Amateur hour. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted November 25, 2015 VT Supporter Share Posted November 25, 2015 This all gets more fascinating by the day. I can't remember a more convoluted geopolitical situation...ever? So many players involved with both similar and conflicting interests, it's impossible to predict how it will shake out, but it certainly won't be pretty. Best parallel is the Balkans in the years leading up to the First World War. Similar tangled mess of local hostilities, with the big nations having their own agendas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 24 minutes ago, mjmooney said: Best parallel is the Balkans in the years leading up to the First World War. Similar tangled mess of local hostilities, with the big nations having their own agendas. I tried that one MJ but he's not having it. Something to do with WW1 starting in the summer of 1918 and being over in a couple of months. Don't know what he's on about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted November 25, 2015 Moderator Share Posted November 25, 2015 1 hour ago, Genie said: Clearly Russia have a very strong military force, I was just making the point they did have a very bad day at the office. That seems about right to me. And not just bad luck. Miscalculation was a factor. Overconfidence, arrogance, underestimating the state of mind of potential threats - whatever you want to call it, it does look like they made a number of mistakes, which resulted in people unfortunately being killed. Just on the how long was the plane in Turkish airspace? point Trent made earlier, and also his comment that Russia regularly enters the territory/airspace of other countries - take the UK - Russian aircraft regularly approach UK airspace and her ships sail in International waters close to british territory. On each instance the RAF or Navy responds and escorts the vessels/aircraft away from coming any closer. The UK forces act before the Russians actually enter sovereign territory. In other words they are warned away, warned that they should not proceed further, or come any closer. They don't actually breach the space, they test "us" and they know they need to comply. It's al la bit silly, but it's what goes on. So bearing that in mind, I feel that Turkish planes (whatever any other motives about protecting fighters in Syria) would do exactly the same with a Russian aircraft heading towards Turkish airspace (and definitely entering it). The duration is not a major factor. If we get to know the exact period, we might make a judgement, but it's not really the issue. If the russian plane, heading directly towards Turkish airspace and/or being in Turkish airspace, and being told to turn away from Turkeys borders, and knowing that Russia's ambassador and Russian planes previously had been repeatedly told to stop with the incursions, and that Turkey would not tolerate any more incursions. If it then continued (which it did), then that was a miscalculation/stupid/arrogant. Russian planes turn off their IFF/SSR, they operate in a manner which is unsafe, they probe and they breach and in an already volatile place they just got it wrong. (None of that says Turkey is a paragon). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 2 hours ago, limpid said: Why have people started using the phrase "death cult" to describe IS? All the Abrahamic religions are death cults. Standard media/political stuff: someone used it and it has spread like wildfire - see also so-called Islamic State. I imagine there are a few memos with instructions flying around Whitehall, the Beeb and elsewhere. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted November 25, 2015 VT Supporter Share Posted November 25, 2015 'So called Islamic State' is destined to be a feature on Charlie Brookers Wipe of the Year IMO. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrentVilla Posted November 25, 2015 Moderator Share Posted November 25, 2015 5 hours ago, Genie said: I think there's more holes in that post than in the Villa defence, and without going through it all line by line I'll reiterate the inital post on the previous post "amateur hour". Clearly Russia have a very strong military force, I was just making the point they did have a very bad day at the office. Coasting along the border ignoring comms to respond has left them 1 $20m jet down and a pilot who won't be returning to his family this Christmas. You say arrogance, I say stupid. They will (should) have known there would be rebels in the area, especially as a Russian jet had just crashed there. If they were doing a search and rescue they did make mess of it as they ended up recovering nothing and have another member of dead staff on their hands. Amateur hour. That is only one point of your initial post, the other was the one suggesting there was no need for anyone to be fearful of the Russian military. That was the main point I was picking up and which you now appear to be backtracking from. Bad day at the office. Yes. I still don't agree with your "amature" label for the reasons I've already given so I'm not going to repeat them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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