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There was an article linked to by someone on here the author tried to understand ISIS in their own context he argued they are a deliberate planned Death cult. Their horrific actions beheadings, burning alive, drowning throwing off tall buildings deliberately reference incidents in the historical account of the Koran. If so then they actually want to engage in a boots on the ground conventional war and the difficult bit is they expect and want to lose in a massive bloody and costly way as a necessary prerequisite for a resurgence of a "pure" Islam . The argument is that all their actions are provocations to bring about this Armageddon Prophesy .
If true not sure where that leaves our military might. Personally I would explore containing isolating and starving them of funding then let their state collapse economically and socially. To do that in an ethical way would necessitate us accepting and accommodating those who fled the region though.
You remember correctly. The excellent article is here:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really-wants/384980/
My point is that innocent lives are taken in war by all sides with great disregard, I struggle to see isis beheading someone and bombs being drop form 30,000ft as something vastly different.
You really can't see any difference between a fraction of a millisecond of white flash and being burnt alive in a cage? Seriously?
Aye, one it's publicised widely, the other isn't.richc - Member
You really can't see any difference between a fraction of a millisecond of white flash and being burnt alive in a cage? Seriously?
a fraction of a millisecond of white flash
Bombs are rarely if ever that precise in the devastation they deliver.
zippykona - Memberhttp://www.panarabiaenquirer.com/wordpress/syria-only-weeks-away-from-bono-charity-single-warns-un/
Bono is a billionaire, apparently he sold some of his share on Facebok and now richest musician, so he can do whatever he likes ...
May have been answered, but who confirms the kill, and that it is infact the intended target?
MSP
Bombs are rarely if ever that precise in the devastation they deliver.
Too true, which is why a 7.62mm or 12.7mm to the cranium is far better. Cost effective and, well, effective.
Murder is murder to me
Really? You don't subscribe to the principle of justifiable homicide, such as in self defence?
Of course I do, but I don't consider the likes of setting off the chain of events that lead to the ISIS as justifiable homicide nor self defence. I've view that as a far worse crimes than ISIS, who, lets face it, are just the boogie men in a larger game. They're just a very small part in the shit storm raging through the muslim world for god knows how long.ninfan - Member
Murder is murder to me
Really? You don't subscribe to the principle of justifiable homicide, such as in self defence?
I view our leaders and those who do their bidding as culpable.
Too true, which is why a 7.62mm or 12.7mm to the cranium is far better. Cost effective and, well, effective.
It's not politically cost effective because bullets need soldiers to fire them. Which costs you political points with a public unwilling to get involved - bombing makes us all feel like we are doing something when in reality the only way to make things better are lots and lots of foot soldiers but no one has the stomach for the body bags.
So things will go on as they are, we'll carry on taking young men in as asylum seekers, whilst we lob the odd high explosive into Syria, we'll wash our hands whilst watching the entire region turn into a gigantic uninhabitable blackhole by telling ourselves that all we could do was take people in and bomb a few people.
Meanwhile Germany is happy having all those young fit working men as it will help alleviate their declining population and help keep their historically artificially low wages, lower still. Helping to screw southern Europe even further. Like Miss "Multikulti ist tot" Merkel, actually wants to help asylum seekers for humanitarian reasons. AHHHHHHHAHAHAH.
"That human existence should repeat itself, well and good, but that it should repeat itself like a hackneyed tune, or a record a drunkard keeps playing as he feeds coins into the jukebox . . ." - Solaris
If we actually cared, we'd be breaking out the amphibious assault ships.
we've done them a favor - they are now martyrs and are enjoying their 70 dark haired virgins.
It's what they wanted, no need to feel guilty about it.
@Tom_W1987, indeed. Better to seem like we're doing something, than [i]actually[/i] doing something. 😆
“A drone strike is a terror weapon, we don’t talk about it that way. It is; just imagine you are walking down the street and you don’t know whether in 5 minutes there is going to be an explosion across the street from some place up in the sky that you can’t see. Somebody will be killed, and whoever is around will be killed, maybe you’ll be injured if you’re there. That is a terror weapon. It terrorizes villages, regions, huge areas. It’s the most massive terror campaign going on by a long shot.”
— Noam Chomsky
May have been answered, but who confirms the kill, and that it is infact the intended target?
Frank Gardener was very interesting in Radio 4 today (may have said same on TV) he said that operations like this will have been running for a while with drones in the sky waiting for the right intelligence and situation, namely the target is confirmed by both communication intelligence (eg use of mobile phone) and on the ground sources (ie spies/infiltrators).
So my answer would be both those plus social media / mobile chatter immediately after
@kimbers so having seen Muslims tortured at Abu Gharib ISIS was formed so they could kill many more Muslims ? ISIS decided the shit smearing wasn't sufficient they they went for behheading and throwing people off buildings ? Kind of we Muslims can out do you kafirs when it comes to killing Muslims ?
I haven't had time to catch up on this whole thread yet but I heard on R4 that the father of the Cardiff boys who joined ISIS should not be targets for drone strikes as "they where not posing a direct threat to the UK". I can see the distress that the father must be going through but the minute they signed up and went to Syria it was quite likely they'd end up dead, one way or another
“A drone strike is a terror weapon, we don’t talk about it that way. It is; just imagine you are walking down the street and you don’t know whether in 5 minutes there is going to be an explosion across the street from some place up in the sky that you can’t see. Somebody will be killed, and whoever is around will be killed, maybe you’ll be injured if you’re there. That is a terror weapon. It terrorizes villages, regions, huge areas. It’s the most massive terror campaign going on by a long shot.”
— Noam Chomsky
I see your Chomsky quote and raise you a Hitchslap.
- C. HitchensMy quarrel with Chomsky goes back to the Balkan wars of the 1990s, where he more or less openly represented the "Serbian Socialist Party" (actually the national-socialist and expansionist dictatorship of Slobodan Milosevic) as the victim. Many of us are proud of having helped organize to prevent the slaughter and deportation of Europe's oldest and largest and most tolerant Muslim minority, in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in Kosovo. But at that time, when they were real, Chomsky wasn't apparently interested in Muslim grievances. He only became a voice for that when the Taliban and Al Qaeda needed to be represented in their turn as the victims of a "silent genocide" in Afghanistan. Let me put it like this, if a supposed scholar takes the Christian-Orthodox side when it is the aggressor, and then switches to taking the "Muslim" side when Muslims commit mass murder, I think that there is something very nasty going on. And yes, I don't think it is exaggerated to describe that nastiness as "anti-American" when the power that stops and punishes both aggressions is the United States … In some awful way, his regard for the underdog has mutated into support for mad dogs. This is not at all like watching the implosion of an obvious huckster and jerk like Michael Moore, who would have made a perfectly good Brownshirt populist. The collapse of Chomsky feels to me more like tragedy.
😀
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"they where not posing a direct threat to the UK". I can see the distress that the father must be going through but the minute they signed up and went to Syria it was quite likely they'd end up dead, one way or another
Who gives a ****, it strikes me as a bit racist to say they can kill Kurds but kill some Brits, oh that's just crossing the line.....we can't have that....savages should be allowed to kill each other...but Brits...nooo think about bombing Brits and we'll bomb you! I bet his dad didn't mind him killing some dirty kurds did he? I can't even believe we have to use the excuse that they were a threat to the UK, to kill them.
And whilst I'm on a roll, screw Erdogan and Turkey as well.
close the thread, people are quoting hitchens ffs! 😆 😐
[quote=TurnerGuy said]we've done them a favor - they are now martyrs and are enjoying their 70 dark haired virgins.
Finding them in Cardiff was always going to be a bit of an ask.
Is that bonkers climate nut hitchens?
Can't believe that people want to send troops into the middle East again, after failing so spectacularly in Iraq why would it work this time?
Can't believe that people want to send troops into the middle East again, after failing so spectacularly in Iraq why would it work this time?
Because ISIS's whole doctrine requires physical land. They're not an "idea" like Al Quaeda, they actually require a physical Caliphate. For this reason ISIS are unique amongst Islamists in that they really could be defeated in a conventionally military way, just by taking their land off them.
Of course another core belief of ISIS is that Rome (USA) will attack them in their Caliphate in a battle that ends the world. So attacking them on the ground would make that prophecy appear to come true.
Personally I'm strongly opposed to getting involved, but there is (for once) a rational case for it.
Is that bonkers climate nut hitchens?
Christopher was never a climate nut, not sure about is brother Peter though.
Can't believe that people want to send troops into the middle East again, after failing so spectacularly in Iraq why would it work this time?
Because they'd have more support from the locals like they had in Kosovo and we have literally hundreds of thousands of male refugees, who's hearts and minds we can win if we tell them that we'll look after their families if they fight for us.
We could even run our own version of "Français par le sang versé" or citizenship after a set number of tours.
It would take far too much vision for the EU leaders to pull it off though.
And of course, some do-gooders would end up whining about how we were employing mercenaries and that the fighting was getting a bit nasty, there'd be dozens of long rambling Guardian articles by authors washing their hands of the situation - when the real thing to be worrying about is ISIS and their treatment of the locals and how an entire continent on the edge of Europe is turning to shit.
and how an entire continent on the edge of Europe is turning to shit.
To be fair, its never looked that clever since we stopped running the place. Some people might say that's because we drew some random lines down a map, created a load of new countries, without any concern to the religions or cultures already there, and handed it over to puppet governments mainly consisting of brutal dictators.
But then that would be the lilly-livered, pinko Guardianista do-gooders view, so probably best not to mention it
We should probably invade and start killing people again. That always goes well....
That Noam Chomsky quote doesn't make any sense to me, drones are just that drones, they are just a form of aircraft. Sure they can be a delivery platform for firing Hellfire missiles from but so can a variant of this:
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haha! 😆 we're not exactly blind to why that is happening, though you seem to wilfully ignore it.Tom_W1987 - Member
how an entire continent on the edge of Europe is turning to shit.
dragon - MemberThat Noam Chomsky quote doesn't make any sense to me, drones are just that drones, they are just a form of aircraft. Sure they can be a delivery platform for firing Hellfire missiles from but so can a variant of this:
I like the look of that plane (King Air) ... I like much! Just need a big parachute for added safety. 😛
Drones are computer games ... 🙄
Middle East has rarely been stable through history see
[url= http://www.mapsofwar.com/ind/imperial-history.html ]Maps of War Middle East[/url]
In response to people earlier saying ISIS are more brutal etc. Are they really? War is brutal, but historically we have heard about it through newspapers or TV news reports that have been censored. This time though, ISIS have used technology to their advantage for their campaign and put their stuff on YouTube. So now,for the first time we are seeing for the for ourselves the true brutality of war. Also, uncensored people are using the internet to write their own reports.
Furthermore, beheadings have been used by the state in parts of the middle east for years and rape is used as a form of state punishent in parts of rural India...
edenvalleyboy - MemberIn response to people earlier saying ISIS are more brutal etc. Are they really?
[b]It is ISIS everyday in S.Arabia [/b]according to the female Egyptian journalist being interviewed by Jon Snow at Ch 4 last night ... 😯 I think she was referring to head lopping, limbs chopping, stoning, etc but not rape.
People still seem to be missing the key point that the people who are really in charge of ISIS aren't religious nut jobs at all. Very interesting article if anyone can be arsed to read it.
There is a simple reason why there is no mention in Bakr's writings of prophecies relating to the establishment of an Islamic State allegedly ordained by God: He believed that fanatical religious convictions alone were not enough to achieve victory. But he did believe that the faith of others could be exploited.[b]In 2010, Bakr and a small group of former Iraqi intelligence officers made Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the emir and later "caliph," the official leader of the Islamic State. They reasoned that Baghdadi, an educated cleric, would give the group a religious face.[/b]
Bakr was "a nationalist, not an Islamist," says Iraqi journalist Hisham al-Hashimi, as he recalls the former career officer, who was stationed with Hashimi's cousin at the Habbaniya Air Base. "Colonel Samir," as Hashimi calls him, "was highly intelligent, firm and an excellent logistician." But when Paul Bremer, then head of the US occupational authority in Baghdad, "dissolved the army by decree in May 2003, he was bitter and unemployed."
Thousands of well-trained Sunni officers were robbed of their livelihood with the stroke of a pen. In doing so, America created its most bitter and intelligent enemies.
Al-Big Daddy is creating his new empire ... (something to do with his gangster style name ... )
haha! we're not exactly blind to why that is happening, though you seem to wilfully ignore it.
Saudi backed extremism?
I've got plenty of Iraqi friends who don't blame it on the Americans at all, or at least don't blame the Americans for dismantling the Iraqi military after the initial invasion.
Besides, if we hadn't have removed Saddam we'd have another dictator on the edge of Europe that was willing to gas entire villages and start wars that were fought in a manner of which hadn't been seen since WW1.
I'm sure that would have worked out in the long run and it totally would have not led to huge swathes of refugees fleeing for Europe.
LOL.
We should probably invade and start killing people again. That always goes well....
Sebrenica went well didn't it, you know that time when we chose not to get fully involved?
I bet if we'd let some Marines loose, the Guardian would have ended up whining that we'd made it worse, even if that accusation had no basis in reality.
People still seem to be missing the key point that the people who are really in charge of ISIS aren't religious nut jobs at all. Very interesting article if anyone can be arsed to read it.
Although that is a bit besides the point, it morhphed into a Jihadi group. The secularism of it's now dead leader doesn't matter, it's not pushing Baathist ideology.
The "legal" aspect is interesting, primarily because our "laws" are so far behind the times.
100 years ago a "war" was a highly defined situation. When politics broke down between two parties, each party formed a uniformed army, and within a set of rules (The Geneva Convention) were allowed to kill each other in pretty much any way possible until a "winner" emerged (of course, there is never actually a "winner" just a "not quite so much of a loser as the other poor b*st*rds")
Now this was easy. Killing an opposing "soldier" was not difficult because they wore a uniform to tell you to whose allegiance they were sworn. If they took off that uniform and "surrendered" they became a prisoner of war. They were not killed but locked up till the end of the war. However, if they took that uniform off, but continued to fight for their side, then they were deemed to be a "spy" and killed without much of a trial.
The situation we have now is that wars are less about capturing territory and populations, and more about "war-ing" to gain power either politically or ideologically. Modern soldiers do not necessarily wear a uniform and as such are extremely difficult to capture or neutralise. In fact, even if you physically invade another country with your ground troops, the only way to "win" that war would be to kill everyone in that country. This modern gorilla warfare is a very difference situation, and in fact, the word "war" is not really necessarily applicable at all, and hence legally i'd suggest it's a very grey area!
Although that is a bit besides the point, it morhphed into a Jihadi group. The secularism of it's now dead leader doesn't matter, it's not pushing Baathist ideology.
I'm pretty sure I've read that all the people still pulling the strings are former Iraqi military and intelligence with no religious convictions. The fanatical stuff is a recruiting tool/smokescreen.
'm pretty sure I've read that all the people still pulling the strings are former Iraqi military and intelligence with no religious convictions.
If you read the Atlantic article above you'll see that people who know think these guys are 100pc sincere in their faith. Hard for us to get our heads round, and a great weakness for them, because they're acting in accordance with a formula.
I could well believe that grums article is correct. People being manipulated by more intelligent types for personal gain isn't exactly a stretch is it?
If you read the Atlantic article above you'll see that people who know think these guys are 100pc sincere in their faith. Hard for us to get our heads round, and a great weakness for them, because they're acting in accordance with a formula.
I'm not denying that lots of the people involved are 100pc sincere in their faith, but the people who created the movement and are probably still pulling the strings weren't religiously motivated at all.
@ kimbers - It didn't fail though? The oil fields are under American contractors control as is the puppet government. When the rest of the oil countries do the right thing 😉 and cooperate with America the bombing will stop, their economies won't suffer as much outside intervention, sanctions will be lifted, sponsored uprisings will cease, except for the locals who recognise they have a puppet government, sales of C-Grade arms stock will deal with them! It's simple really and nothing new in this game of world chess.
It was only ever about oil.
The situation we have now is that wars are less about capturing territory and populations, and more about "war-ing" to gain power either politically or ideologically. Modern soldiers do not necessarily wear a uniform and as such are extremely difficult to capture or neutralise. In fact, even if you physically invade another country with your ground troops, the only way to "win" that war would be to kill everyone in that country. This modern gorilla warfare is a very difference situation, and in fact, the word "war" is not really necessarily applicable at all, and hence legally i'd suggest it's a very grey area!
There have been plenty of successful counter insurgencies.
FARC have been pretty much decimated by the Colombian government, Chechnya, the Rhodesian Bush War, Malaya, The Tamil Tigers, Northern Ireland, The Dhofar Rebellion etc etc etc.
The issue is, that it's the Europeans who should be getting involved with this along with the Turks, with Europe hopefully moderating and influencing Turkish policy towards the Kurds..... and not the Americans getting involved - however to quote the Economist ""The biggest barrier to European superpowerdom is that European elites refuse to bring their postmodern fantasies about the illegitimacy of military 'hard power' into line with the way the rest of the world interprets reality,". Europe is utterly devoid of any vision and leadership, so none of this will ever change.
I see the Russians are now sending a force of considerable size to Syria, so again, Europe is at risk of becoming an utter irrelevancy on the world stage.
Tom_W1987 - Member
Europe is at risk of becoming an utter irrelevancy on the world stage.
Not getting involved in these conflicts hasn't really lead to China becoming an utter irrelevancy on the world stage....
China not involved????
Anyway they have their own mighty problems right now...
Not getting involved in these conflicts hasn't really lead to China becoming an utter irrelevancy on the world stage....
China is involved in plenty of military mischief....they plan to kick the Americans way beyond the first island chain.
And China isn't taking in hundreds of thousands of refugees whilst looking on and shrugging it's shoulders.
Northern Ireland,
eh?
we rolled over, released the prisoners and accepted sinn fein into government, and it was the right decision, because it ended the violence
yeah just get all the civilians onto the beach and shell the shit out of themThe Tamil Tigers
eh?
we rolled over, released the prisoners and accepted sinn fein into government, and it was the right decision, because it ended the violence
The IRA never achieved their real goals did they?
Compromise isn't a loss.
yeah just get all the civilians onto the beach and shell the shit out of them
They got the job done though didn't they?
selling arms aye, but bombing campaigns and troops over the 20 years? Where? Google suggests they may have started helping nigeria with drones against boko harum, but not much more. Unless you count pissing off the americans by island building the south china sea.Tom_W1987 - Member
Not getting involved in these conflicts hasn't really lead to China becoming an utter irrelevancy on the world stage....
China is involved in plenty of military mischief....
I don't see them invading or bombing many countries
Regardless, point is their relative lack of actual miltary action has done everything but lead to obscurity in the last 20 years.4
Funny how it's the communists that embrace the world markets at face value more than the capitalists rather than trying to change them by force! 😆
selling arms aye, but bombing campaigns and troops over the 20 years? Where? Google suggests they may have started helping nigeria with drones against boko harum, but not much more. Unless you count pissing off the americans by island building the south china sea.
China is simply biding it's time, when it sees opportunities to seize land or influence world affairs through force, it has done so.
Why would they develop expeditionary capability if they never intend to use it? They could sit back, line their coast with anti-ship missiles and SAMs and carry on as usual. They aren't though.
They never were going to via the armalite and the bomb, they've known that for a long time.Tom_W1987 - Member
The IRA never achieved their real goals did they?
The people in the nationalist/republican movement know that a UI must be achieved through the ballot box and that it's a long long game, though you will still get the hard of thinking demanding the right to armed resistance and claiming the move to politics as a defeat, which it isn't.
They never were going to via the armalite and the bomb, they've known that for a long time.
That's a small digression, my point still stands that there have been plenty of counterinsurgencies that have worked for a variety of reasons.
weve just spent the last 15 years brining to bear our 'military hard power' on Afghanistan and Iraq and its achieved what exactly?
apart from create IS and motivate them lads from bradford/leeds and blow themselves up on the tube?
weve just spent the last 15 years brining to bear our 'military hard power' on Afghanistan and Iraq and its achieved what exactly?
Afghanistan hasn't been that great a disaster, Iraq was and that is because we dismantled the entire freaking country and left early.
It was a lesson in not chickening out early and now that the entire region has gone to shit, mostly because we left early, we're happy to watch and do nothing. More washing of hands.
Tom_W1987 - Member
Why would they develop expeditionary capability if they never intend to use it? They could sit back, line their coast with anti-ship missiles and SAMs and carry on as usual. They aren't though.
I think we will see a more agressive China develop, but the point still stands in relation to yours that lack of miltary action hasn't held them back. Could be argued that their friendly approach to the world has helped them immeasurably.
I think we will see a more agressive China develop, but the point still stands in relation to yours that lack of miltary action hasn't held them back. Could be argued that their friendly approach to the world has helped them immeasurably.
Ask anyone from an ASEAN country about China's friendliness and you will get a curt response.
Maybe so, but have they bombed he shit out of any of their continental neighbours recently?Tom_W1987 - Member
I think we will see a more agressive China develop, but the point still stands in relation to yours that lack of miltary action hasn't held them back. Could be argued that their friendly approach to the world has helped them immeasurably.
Ask anyone from an ASEAN country about China's friendliness and you will get a curt response.
and many that have utterly failed.Tom_W1987 - Member
They never were going to via the armalite and the bomb, they've known that for a long time.
That's a small digression, my point still stands that there have been plenty of counterinsurgencies that have worked for a variety of reasons.
it's a 50:50 proposition, which is a shit investment.
The alternative seasoamh, is that Syria and Iraq are replaced with "Here be Dragons" on world maps - a region on the border of Europe that becomes a haven for sex slavery, terrorism aimed at Europe and one that has the right conditions for the complete annihilation of groups likes the Kurds.
Now if that isn't a justifiable war, then I'm not sure what is.
We could make it work, if we were really willing to commit and we actually involved local players more.
it's a 50:50 proposition, which is a shit investment.
Tell me, how the hell could we make it worse, right now? I'm not sure that is possible.
Afghanistan hasn't been that great a disaster, Iraq was and that is because we dismantled the entire freaking country and left early.
and the spillover http://****stanbodycount.org/
It was a lesson in not chickening out early and now that the entire region has gone to shit, mostly because we left early, we're happy to watch and do nothing. More washing of hands.
up to a million dead people, most of them civillians, not enough for you?
You're out by about a factor of 10 kimbers.
You don't think that Saddam would have ended up killing that many people by engaging in another on of his bloody wars with Iran? I mean...if we extrapolated Saddams body count over the years it wouldn't be much different... who knows. Saddam managed to kill at least 500,000 people between 1979 and 2003 when you factor in the repressions and Iran war.
And I never said I agreed with Gulf War 2, just that we didn't stay long enough to get the job done and justify the loss of life.
Our problems with our military interventions have nothing to do with the actual military intervention - they were extremely successful. Iraqi's were thankful initially of us ridding them of Saddam and welcomed the coalition forces. The wider region was thankful. The problems came from pulling out too early and not supporting the countries once we purged them from the Taliban, al-Quaida or whatever dictator was in charge etc. We simply have not accepted the fact that the solution here is gong to be generations long in the support we need to provide these countries after the end of any military action - helping them building infrastructure, economies, training police forces and their own military services - something you can't do in a couple of years; it took us hundreds of years. Instead we just declare victory, pull out and leave them to it, ill prepared.
Exactly the same thing has happened in Libya, we rid them of Gadaffi (a good thing) and left them at the mercy of IS, and it will happen in Syria if we are to start intervening. The arab spring demonstrated that the people of the middle east want democracy, but they lack the ability to achieve it.
It's a proper catch 22. If we do nothing we will be attacked by IS and have to deal with the tens of millions of refugees and watch as IS grabs more territory and impose their brand of evil wherever they can. If we intervene we do so without a really coherent plan for the aftermath of the initial intervention. It's a properly screwed up situation.
Better to have left the dictators in place and turned a blind eye than to dislodge them and turn a blind eye to the aftermath. At least the dictators played by a consistent set of rules the population could understand and live a relatively normal life under them.
Maybe we've all got it wrong and turning a blind eye is a cunning ploy by our politicians. Let IS take whatever territory they want, displace the refugees to other countries and leave IS to build their caliphate. Then once they are all sat around in their 'Islamic' state smoking their shish-as and raping women and after they've thrown all the homosexuals off tall buildings, nuke them from existence.
The here be dragon signs are already up. They already cut the head off the last dragon and this one popped up in it's place, it can get much worse.Tom_W1987 - Member
The alternative seasoamh, is that Syria and Iraq are replaced with "Here be Dragons" on world maps - a region on the border of Europe that becomes a haven for sex slavery, terrorism aimed at Europe and one that has the right conditions for the complete annihilation of groups likes the Kurds.Now if that isn't a justifiable war, then I'm not sure what is.
We could make it work, if we were really willing to commit and we actually involved local players more.
it's a 50:50 proposition, which is a shit investment.
Tell me, how the hell could we make it worse, right now? I'm not sure that is possible.
The US/UK miltary ability for the forseeable will be limited to special forces and drones/air power, and throwing more arms in to the mix. Under those circumstances they are just stirring up a hornets nest that will continue to get worse.
seosamh77 - MemberTom_W1987 - Member
I think we will see a more agressive China develop, but the point still stands in relation to yours that lack of miltary action hasn't held them back. Could be argued that their friendly approach to the world has helped them immeasurably.
Ask anyone from an ASEAN country about China's friendliness and you will get a curt response.Maybe so, but have they bombed he shit out of any of their continental neighbours recently?
Traditionally China don't care less about anyone even if you are near dying in front of them.
The current refugees ... ya, what is that? A tiny drop in the vast Chinese ocean ... How many people died during Cultural Revolution? (not counting WWII etc) Ya, the number would be much more then entire population of Syria ... easy!
China have enough of their own internal problems (feeding the people) then to care about anything beyond China.
China usually use their influence regionally but never invade others unless you are landlocked like Tibet and with a strategic importance.
Openly you will Not see Chinese army fighting with foreign forces but look carefully you will see that they do support their neighbours like N.Korea or Vietnam (because they asked for help from China)... you can shoot until you run out of ammunition but they will keep coming ... As Merica and alliance found out ...
China is all about generating wealth ethically or unethically. It is in their blood. They are much more capitalist then the west ... the only time they slow down for being capitalist is due to the Marxist influence on them that turn them into a communist state (bloody stoopid foreign ideology) but that does not mean they loss their roots in trading/business/wealth generation etc ...
China is better off being communist but this is just a temporary stop gap between their corrupted capitalist past and their current situation. Anyway, time is changing so their capitalist past is making a slow return ... nothing last for ever even for the communist.
China does not have to fight a war coz they can just buy you up without even using a bullet.
In Borneo the bloody corrupted politicians practically sold the entire forest to China ... You may say that money cannot buy your soul but don't be too cocky about that coz everything is for sale.
Say £1Billion to buy your soul? Hmmm ...? You want? Good money! You good at making money ya?
The reasons why other Asian/S.E.Asian nations hate China because of their competitiveness and their domination of the market ... Not because of their military strength coz we know that they will not invade us. Even if they do invade us there is hardly anything much we can do to prevent them ... they would just suck up all the natural resources to feed themselves.
You want refugee from China? I am pretty sure they will gladly let you have them ... how many do you want? 100 million? 200 million? 300 million? ...
😛
@kimbers - million dead ? Iraq is around 250,000 most of these indeed civilians killed by other civilians (militia) in sectarian violence. Similar numbers in the Syrian civil war mostly civilians killed by the Syrian Army but with a high number of military, FSA and ISIS casualties.
I've recommended this book a few times but for a real insight into Iraq Emma Sky's book "The Unravelling" is a must read. The big errors where made under Obama in his haste to withdraw
You are priceless jamby....
The big errors where made under [s]Obama[/s] Bush in his haste to [s]withdraw[/s] invade
Doesn't absolve the west of it's responsibility to see the job finished though, does it?
We made a booboo, Britains polls indicated that 51 percent supported the war, as a nation - what is happening is on our hands. Yet we don't want to take hundreds of thousands of migrants and nor do we want to expend money and lives on cleaning up our own mess.
Nice.
.
Whilst I accept your point - millions of our chickens have come home to roost and we have a moral duty to house them all - those 51pc were all under the impression we were 45 minutes away from nuclear Armageddon and the there was further secret intelligence that made an invasion necessary. I'd assume several MPs were voting on the same basis.
[quote=outofbreath said]Whilst I accept your point - millions of our chickens have come home to roost and we have a moral duty to house them all - those 51pc were all under the impression we were 45 minutes away from nuclear Armageddon and the there was further secret intelligence that made an invasion necessary. I'd assume several MPs were voting on the same basis.
+1
The "dossier" and it's influence seems to have been forgotten.
Kind of OT
Wonder what sort of cluster **** a disintegrating Kingdom would look like? Not exactly a shining example of a state as it is.
Why does this always become about "us"? It's "our" responsibility or "our" fault/guilt, "our" mission to sort out, the impact on us etc.
That's BS. It's not about us at all. We are not players in this and that is how it should remain. There is a new cold war going on between two not-traditional players who are rarely identified and every more rarely understood. The old players remain on the sidelines with messy attempts at intervening compromised by the lack of understanding. This hidden cold war erupts into occasional hot spots with Syria being one of the two most pressing current examples.
We should avoid getting involved in things we do not understand and where objectives are unclear. Noone wins from that. Restrict ourselves to providing humanitarian support and leave it there. The world will be a better place for it.
Now what type of lube today....
@ piemonster
Its a pariah we just tolerate it because it obeys the two golden rules
1. It has oil
2. Its friendly to the west
Obey those and you can do what the **** you like to your citizens and you can even be the central part of the philosophy behind the vast majority of the terrorist movements. Hell you can even fund them and provide their shining lights and we will turn a blind eye.
Oh, I get all that.
I was more trying to imagine how the region would look [i]if[/i] they went bankrupt.
Whilst I accept your point - millions of our chickens have come home to roost and we have a moral duty to house them all - those 51pc were all under the impression we were 45 minutes away from nuclear Armageddon and the there was further secret intelligence that made an invasion necessary. I'd assume several MPs were voting on the same basis.
I remember it being widely known or at least suspected that the evidence was shakey before it all kicked off. At the end of the day we have historically voted for successive governments that have felt the need to poke their noses into things - so it's not like the dossier removed responsibility from the British voter.