The Arab Spring and "the War on Terror"

[DanishVillan]

Destroying kit you're leaving behind requires organisation. An army in rout lacks organisation, because it isn't an army any more, in this case just Shia boys heading for the hills.

 

 

 

I am not really sure of what you're implying here? Are you suggesting that IS is some sort of phantom?

3 days of skirmiches and obviously not surrounded and they couldn´t do any of that?

Yet you bang the drums to start bombing a country where Russia is heavily invested and who got pacts with Iran, Chinas largest oilpartner.

Shouldn´t we just stay home and praccy?

[TrentVilla]

For a start Ads isn't a war mongrel neither is AWOL nor I for that matter and absolutely nobody is advocating bombing a any country leg alone banging a drum to bomb Syria.

Some people, myself included, think that we should it in fact need to take direct military action against IS. IS is not a state despite their claims or not a legitimate one anyway and IS is not Syria.

You talk about Iran, China and Russia but you seem to have missed that Iran are involved in the action against IS while Russia and China are unlikely to take issue with it for a number of reasons.

[Awol]

For a start Ads isn't a war mongrel neither is AWOL.

Actually I quite like the idea of being a war mongrel.

More seriously are those lambasting the illegality of action against IS suggesting any kind of alternative, or should they be left alone to massacre their way across the Levant?

It would be particularly interesting to read a response that didn't involve diverting the topic onto the evils of Israel or how IS is actually a pet CIA project.

[DanishVillan]

Hmm, how about replacing some of those bombs with some of the food/medics/toys we will likely end up destroying anyway.
What would that do to their numbers?

Worth a try after +10 years of bombing them.

[Ads]

Hmm, how about replacing some of those bombs with some of the food/medics/toys we will likely end up destroying anyway.

What would that do to their numbers?

Worth a try after +10 years of bombing them.

 

I am not sure how re-supplying IS is going to be of any benefit to containing their numbers or ability to strike further into Syria.

 

An MEU rolling into Raqqa would put a stop to the wholsale slaughter of non-Muslims or those that don't quit fit the bill, it would more than likely end the raping of women, children and stop local courts justifying the rape of 13 year old girls.

 

IS in Raqqa is not so much an insurgency, requiring COIN ops (as I think you're alluding to), but an occupying army, complete with all the trappings of soft government.

[TrentVilla]

Yeah food and toys, that is just what those poor people being slaughtered by ISIS need.

[lapal_fan]

Donate Lions and Tigers. 

[ender4]

I'm with the opinion that we just leave the middle east to get on with their fighting and territorial wars.  we stay the hell out and don't help either side. 

 

Revisit in 10 years time, and i'm sure they'll be some new wars going on.  stay out of those as well.

 

i just don't understand why the Western world (USA & UK mainly) has to get involved in every conflict round the globe.

Let people fight their own wars. 

[TrentVilla]

What if we had done the same during 1939?

I know it's not a like for like comparison but just like the German's IS aren't just interested in the middle eastern version of Poland. They will keep going, keep getting stronger and then they really will be ours and the rest of the West's problem. There is a reason other Arab nations are getting involved in combating them.

Sometimes the right thing to do isn't the easy thing to do.

Our (collective Western) presence in the Middle East hasn't been a positive in recent years it has more than likely contributed to the position today but I don't think we can stand back and let this shot happen as tempting or as easy as they may be.

[Awol]

I'm with the opinion that we just leave the middle east to get on with their fighting and territorial wars. we stay the hell out and don't help either side.

Revisit in 10 years time, and i'm sure they'll be some new wars going on. stay out of those as well.

i just don't understand why the Western world (USA & UK mainly) has to get involved in every conflict round the globe.

Let people fight their own wars.

The UK economy runs on hydrocarbons and we buy a large proportion of those from the Middle East.

Sadly renewable energy technology isn't yet mature enough to move us out of carbon fuels, so we have a choice:

-protect our sources of energy in the Gulf

-decide we don't mind living without a reliable electricity supply

-get fracking with a purpose and become gas self sufficient

-get back into coal and accept the impact on climate and air quality.

[peterms]

 

For a start Ads isn't a war mongrel neither is AWOL.

Actually I quite like the idea of being a war mongrel.

More seriously are those lambasting the illegality of action against IS suggesting any kind of alternative, or should they be left alone to massacre their way across the Levant?

It would be particularly interesting to read a response that didn't involve diverting the topic onto the evils of Israel or how IS is actually a pet CIA project.

 

 

War mongrel?  The dogs of war?

 

The point about illegality is important not so much in itself, but more that it reflects why so much of this stuff is happening.  By that, I mean that the US attitude that it can do what it likes, where and when it likes, with whatever consequences for sovereign states and millions of people, is one of the biggest causes of the problems of which IS is the latest festering symptom.

 

Of course any attempted solution to the problems of the region must involve Syria and Iran as well as other countries.  The fact of trying to ignore this, while assembling a faux coalition of client tyrannies (which have until very recently armed and funded IS, and perhaps are still doing) to give a semblance of political cover, is both desperately cynical and doomed to failure.

 

The US ignores this obvious fact, in favour of pursuing its own self-interested agenda in the region, regardless of the destruction caused.  I don't see a solution that doesn't involve the US backing off from this rogue state, Death Star approach, and I don't see that happening any time soon.

 

No, IS should not be left to massacre their way across regions.  But neither should the response be to bomb Syrian civilians, as is happening now, while excluding Syria from attempts to devise a response.

[Ads]

The long term cause to the current problem is around a 1000 years older than the US. Sunni's don't like the Twelvers and the Twelvers don't like the Sunnis. You might argue that because of the West demand for oil, that a particularly singular approach (one mosque amongst Wahhabism's creed and all that) to Islam has billions of dollars at its disposal to go and bug the Twelvers across the region. I wouldn't be blaming the US though for twists of geology and geography. That underlines everything in the region. Heck, even Sunni's don't like other Sunnis. Just to confuse things, IS want to get stuck into Palestinians, because they're Iranian buddies and just too nationalist.

 

Your post seems contradcitory to me and pretty abstract from what has been happening. Far from doing "what they want, be damned with the consequences", the situation with IS flourished because the US did not do anything. Obama dithered and the Saudi's and Qataris backed rebels in Syria of their own choosing. Who was surprised when they turned out to be the most brutal of the lot?

 

You also attack the US for acting unilaterraly, then pour scorn on the idea of them having local actors in KSA et al involved, because they're autocratic, but then chide them for not involving Syria, despite issues of the same. Issues including a helathy dollop of genocide and war crimes on top to give Assad that extra flavour. I think you're also wrong about the apparent ignoring of Syria and Tehrran too; US CAS in Iraq has been provided to the Shia militia lead by Iranian commanders and on occassions, so I have heard, Quds Force. I also agree with Awol's earlier point that Syria had given the thumbs up for the current strike.

 

This is who we have to deal with in the region, throwing in Turkey, who have been tacitly supporting IS through oil purchase and freedom of movement to IS coming in and out of theatre, to even providing military expertise. There are no clean hands and it has been a feature of all our allies, from The Kingdom with IS, to Pakistani ISI and al Qadea; to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. So I will agree with one part of your post, that there there are conflciting policies on-going from the regional players.

 

As for bombing civilians, surely then you welcome the US airstrikes in Syria? The US have far more sophisticated Forward Air Control procedures with JSOC calling them in, thus ensuring more of what you want to hit is actually hit, than any Syrian or Iranian or Magic Kingdom air?

Edited September 23, 2014 by Ads

[maqroll]

I think for the US in this instance, its damned if you do, damned if you dont. I agree with Peter to the extent that The US should have tried to finesse the situation more to try and get an all Arab response together while avoiding having to drop any bombs themselves. But that was never giing to happen. As it stands, there is a broad coalition of countries that is participating directly and indirectly, and a number of those states are Arab. I think the last foreign conflict the US had a moral obligation to persue wasWW2. ISIL comes pretty close to being as obviously diabolical as the Nazis, whose defeat was also in everyones best interest.

Edited September 23, 2014 by maqroll

[HanoiVillan]

 

 

 

 

...the lack of any response by Syria's top class air defence system indicates the strikes had their tacit consent...

More like they are well aware that the US would rather bomb the regime and are looking for an excuse to do so, so a military response would be playing into their hands.

Why would they rather bomb the regime?

Because achieving regime change by arming and training rebels hasn't worked.

If they wanted to bomb the regime they would be bombing the regime, not bombing the other side.

 

 

They want to bomb both sides, they always have done. You might remember that there was a vote in Parliament rejecting military action against the Syrian government. 

 

The ultimate goal of bombing both sides of the Syrian Civil War is fairly obscure to me, I have to admit. 

[Ads]

8 US airstrikes in Aleppo have hit al Qaeda franchise Khorasan. Apparently they were in advanced stages of an attack in the west and posed an "imminent" threat.

[TrentVilla]

Following on from the Australian 'thing' the other day….

 

An 18-year-old man who had made threats against Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has been shot dead in Melbourne, reports say.

The man had been under surveillance as a "person of interest", and was being investigated over claims of terrorism, the ABC broadcaster said.

Two police officers were reportedly stabbed by the man before he was shot.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-29331228

[Xann]

The ultimate goal of bombing both sides of the Syrian Civil War is fairly obscure to me, I have to admit. 

 

They've got some old bombs they need to get rid of.

[LondonLax]

...the lack of any response by Syria's top class air defence system indicates the strikes had their tacit consent...

More like they are well aware that the US would rather bomb the regime and are looking for an excuse to do so, so a military response would be playing into their hands.

Why would they rather bomb the regime?

Because achieving regime change by arming and training rebels hasn't worked.

If they wanted to bomb the regime they would be bombing the regime, not bombing the other side.

They want to bomb both sides, they always have done. You might remember that there was a vote in Parliament rejecting military action against the Syrian government.

The ultimate goal of bombing both sides of the Syrian Civil War is fairly obscure to me, I have to admit.

That's right, the US government voted against bombing the regime. If the US government wanted to bomb Assad it wouldn't have voted against bombing him

[HanoiVillan]

Congress never voted on military action against Syria, as a result of both the British 'no' vote and Congressional whips reporting that the vote may have failed in Congress.

[peterms]

The long term cause to the current problem is around a 1000 years older than the US. Sunni's don't like the Twelvers and the Twelvers don't like the Sunnis. You might argue that because of the West demand for oil, that a particularly singular approach (one mosque amongst Wahhabism's creed and all that) to Islam has billions of dollars at its disposal to go and bug the Twelvers across the region. I wouldn't be blaming the US though for twists of geology and geography. That underlines everything in the region. Heck, even Sunni's don't like other Sunnis. Just to confuse things, IS want to get stuck into Palestinians, because they're Iranian buddies and just too nationalist.

 

Your post seems contradcitory to me and pretty abstract from what has been happening. Far from doing "what they want, be damned with the consequences", the situation with IS flourished because the US did not do anything. Obama dithered and the Saudi's and Qataris backed rebels in Syria of their own choosing. Who was surprised when they turned out to be the most brutal of the lot?

 

You also attack the US for acting unilaterraly, then pour scorn on the idea of them having local actors in KSA et al involved, because they're autocratic, but then chide them for not involving Syria, despite issues of the same. Issues including a helathy dollop of genocide and war crimes on top to give Assad that extra flavour. I think you're also wrong about the apparent ignoring of Syria and Tehrran too; US CAS in Iraq has been provided to the Shia militia lead by Iranian commanders and on occassions, so I have heard, Quds Force. I also agree with Awol's earlier point that Syria had given the thumbs up for the current strike.

 

This is who we have to deal with in the region, throwing in Turkey, who have been tacitly supporting IS through oil purchase and freedom of movement to IS coming in and out of theatre, to even providing military expertise. There are no clean hands and it has been a feature of all our allies, from The Kingdom with IS, to Pakistani ISI and al Qadea; to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. So I will agree with one part of your post, that there there are conflciting policies on-going from the regional players.

 

As for bombing civilians, surely then you welcome the US airstrikes in Syria? The US have far more sophisticated Forward Air Control procedures with JSOC calling them in, thus ensuring more of what you want to hit is actually hit, than any Syrian or Iranian or Magic Kingdom air?

 

There's nothing specifically Middle Eastern about groups of people attacking each other, whether organised as gangs, private militias, or nation-states.  Neither is there something uniquely Islamic about opposing sects within one religion attacking each other.  We don't even have to go further than our own UK history to understand both points clearly.

 

Where this has been contained and managed, it's either been by repressive force keeping the lid on until it all blows up again, or more successfully by creating conditions which reduce potential grievances and also stop violence before it becomes entrenched.

 

The US approach in the Middle East has been to destroy the conditions for building peace, by undermining governments, playing off interests against each other by arming opposing sides either sequentially or even at the same time, destroying infrastructure to the point where even water and sanitation are often missing or inadequate, and preventing the establishment of a local security force which could rein in local militias.  Vast numbers of people have been displaced or killed, and millions of others now live in the most desperate conditions.  Bandits and militias thrive in those conditions.

 

As AWOL says above, it is being done in order to extract the mineral wealth of the region.

 

It'#s really no good looking at an organised group of thugs like IS as though there were no history and no need for a future plan, and take the view that because they have committed acts of depraved barbarity they must be punished with bombs dropped on the civilians among whom they are based, as though that's all there is to it.

 

Building peace in the area, like in other areas, will not be achieved by the US seeking to topple any government it doesn't like, or supporting local military coups against elected governments as it did in Egypt.  Nor will it be achieved by firing off missiles from a distance, like kids playing a real and deadly video game.  That just creates more anger.  Dressing hostages in Guantanamo-style orange jumpsuits before killing them is just the symbolic tip of a very large iceberg of bitter resentment, which the US continues to feed.