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Please guys, stay on topic.
This thread is about the situation in Iraq and Syria. |
On February 23 2015 10:05 puerk wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2015 08:41 xDaunt wrote:On February 22 2015 20:55 puerk wrote:On February 22 2015 14:56 xDaunt wrote:On February 22 2015 14:44 KwarK wrote:On February 22 2015 14:41 Incognoto wrote:On February 22 2015 14:39 KwarK wrote:On February 16 2015 05:26 xDaunt wrote:
ISIS isn't the root problem. Radical Islam is. Getting rid of that would probably require something very close to the commission of war crimes. I recently overheard a colleague in the US saying that "the US should glass the entire Middle East and that includes anyone wearing a turban in America". This was considered sufficiently non controversial to be work appropriate. So I guess radical islam isn't the problem as much as just being an idiot in the first place. Certainly I feel that if xDaunt wishes to solve conflicts by killing the people stupid enough to initiate them then America has an awful lot of cleaning up to do at home. So you are not in favor of proactively dealing with a genocidal entity? And let us not pretend that ISIS is just a small, extremist faction. Extrapolating from polls asking levels of support for ISIS among Muslims, it is very clear that more than a hundred million Muslims (and possibly a lot more) support ISIS globally. I am all ears when it comes to proposals for dealing with that problem. I just happen to think that any such solution is inevitably going to be bloody. Oh please, those numbers are totally not representative. It is a stupid thing to say you support ISIS, but to actually assume that support in a poll for a genocidal entitiy is the same as being an extremist commiting those attrocities is equaly dumb. You seem to ignore everything we know about psychology and actual genocidal regimes: the perpetrators are a small extremist minority covered for by a larger support group, that dissociates/ignores/doesnt know the actual acts. Do you really not see that when allied soldiers forced german citizens to actually visit and look at the concentration camps that they did not scream heil hitler and gave their live to continue the cause? It was armchair extremism, incited by populism. As soon as they were forced to face what they actually supported they couldn't believe it. Nothing in the world suggests that those 100m you love to parade around everywhere are anywhere close to being dangerous people. They are misslead, incited, armchair extremists. Voicing support for entities they have no intimate knowledge about, and no sense of perspective for the actual acts commited, be it through cognitive dissonance or plain ignorance. They would drop their support of isis the same way citizens of Weimar dropped their support for the third reich in Buchenwald. You don't have to kill Mitläufer to stop the bandwagon. The act of trying to do that usually even converts them from passive supporters in word only, to actual supporters in action, as they now have an actual beef in the game, where they before where only loudmouths. Here's the big difference between ISIS and Nazi Germany: ISIS does what it does in fulfillment of its religious beliefs. This isn't a situation like in Nazi Germany where an elite few are able to take control of a country and engage in genocidal acts that are both in furtherance of their racist beliefs and kept secret from the public at large. Everyone knows what ISIS is doing, and the "citizens" of ISIS and many other Muslims around the world support it. If you "support" ISIS in one of these polls, you aren't expressing your support in absence of critical information. ISIS is broadcasting, repeatedly, and for the whole world to see, exactly what it is and what it intends to do. It is unequivocally evil. Unfortunately, what ISIS is doing is also unequivocally supported by fundamentalist interpretations of Islam, and is exactly the same as what Muslims did during their conquests back in the 7th and 8th Centuries (the big difference is that ISIS also wants to "purify" Islam in addition to spreading it). So apologize for ISIS and its evil all you want, but let's not pretend that the people who support ISIS are ignorant of what ISIS is and what it is doing. Nevertheless, it is good to see that spirit of Neville Chamberlain is alive and well. What the actual fuck is wrong with you? I never apologized for ISIS and that claim that i did is actually insulting. I told you that there is a difference between ISIS and the 100m muslims that you parade around as ISIS supporters because they from the comfort of their home said in a poll yes to some form of question asking about their support for ISIS. No, such a poll is never indicative of the actual in situ action/support/whatever. A person under no duress can talk shit all he wants, and will do so, and it is usually not an acurate description of their true conviction. As you routinly ignore: humans are more complicated than perfect rational actors with infinite time and full absolute information. I did not say that they have no information about what ISIS is doing, i said the information that they have does not matter enough, because it is no firsthand experience. How can any sane person ever see the comparison of attrocities of ISIS to the holocaust as a defence of ISIS, are you actually a guy who thinks the holocaust was kind of ok? - because that is the only possibility you could see it as a defence. For me both are indefensible attrocities, but i still don't think every german and every muslim has to be killed in a bloody genocide like you paint as the only solution to stop them. I have chosen the example of germany because there it was actually tried to kill huge amounts of supporting civilians with the reasoning you are using, and if i remember right (please correct me on that) you have already explicitly advocated bombings in germany targeting civilians in some thread before. But we have pretty good insights in what it actually achived: nothing. Germanys resolve wasn't broken by bombing the civilians, the holocaust lost none of its momentum, nothing was gained from the approach, except a feeling of "doing something". The war and with that the holocaust was only determined to end by the military victory of the allies, which happened to the largest degree on the eastern front. So if you had actually read and understood my example, you would have seen that i was advocating exactly that: a military action against ISIS determined to win on the field. Not killing every Muslim in the world, like you always hint at, with the small defensive statement that you don't like that option but see it as the only viable one.
As long as you are creating excuses for supporters of ISIS, you are apologizing for ISIS. ISIS is nothing without the support that it receives from people both domestically and from abroad -- specifically, certain sects of Muslims.
And all of this begs the question of what has to be done to undermine the popular support for ISIS, so as to ultimately defeat it. My point is that beating ISIS isn't a function of winning the hearts and minds of the people that support it. We're dealing with religious beliefs that are not easily swayed. These are people who are expressly rejecting western, liberal life. We aren't going to change their minds. Period. The only option is to defeat them.
So when you start asking the question of what is required to defeat such a population in this modern era, the answer isn't pretty: complete subjugation of the population in question with overwhelming military power that destroys both the will and capacity for resistance. This is the true essence of modern, total warfare. This is why German and Japanese cities were bombed into dust during World War II.
Beating ISIS on the field of battle would mean nothing. At best, all we'd earn is an insurgency a la Iraq circa 2003-2007. At worst, we'd have another Vietnam on our hands. We could butcher ISIS fighters by the thousands, and it wouldn't mean dick unless we cut out the underlying support for ISIS by engaging in total warfare. Killing "every Muslim" certainly isn't necessary, but many Muslims will have to be made to suffer in ways and in scope that our Western sensibilities will no longer tolerate in order to truly win this conflict.
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Zurich15328 Posts
What a pile of horseshit. It's really the redeeming quality of the "West" that genocidal maniacs like you and ISIS are an even tinier minority than in the "Muslim world".
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XDaunt is either a mad man or the disembodied internet voice of George Patton. If the latter, I will follow him into righteous battle with the flaming sword of Sigmund.
Edit: He could also be my perennially perturbed and often drunk Vietnam vet uncle now that I think about it....
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On February 23 2015 14:45 xDaunt wrote:
So when you start asking the question of what is required to defeat such a population in this modern era, the answer isn't pretty: complete subjugation of the population in question with overwhelming military power that destroys both the will and capacity for resistance. This is the true essence of modern, total warfare. This is why German and Japanese cities were bombed into dust during World War II.
Again you are dead wrong, bombing Germany citizens achived nothing. Nobody answered "Wollt ihr den totalen Krieg?" with "Och nö, jetzt wo die uns bombardieren hab ich keine Lust mehr."
Germany still had the capacity for resistance, but they did not have the will. Why they didn't have it, is complicated and not dependent on bombing but on the dichotomy of "good cop, bad cop" allies. Almost all Germans knew that the Sowjets would retaliate the same way as Germany had done to them before. They knew they shared an unreconcilable emotional divide, expecting pure blinding hate, without empathy for the involved, like the one you rutinely display. But they also knew/hoped/guessed that the western Allies would show restraint and civility. Thats why so many Germans rushed accross the Elbe to get liberated by western forces.
The "good cop" is a necessity in such a dynamic. When your only fate is total destruction by a vengeful entity it does not matter if you change, it does not matter if you drop your support. You will be crushed regardless, thats why so many middle eastern conflicts don't stop and breed insurgencies, they see no goodwill, and no familiar actor on the other side. Its all enemy.
And that is also the difference about the ISIS conflict that makes military resolution possible this time: familiar actors. Its not the western world starting the conflict, coming totally uninvited to the region and bombing everything to bits. Its a local conflict fought by local, involved and culturally related entities. A muslim fighter defeated by Jordan or Turkey will react differently than one defeated by the US, the same way a German reacted differently to the prospect of getting defeated by Americans or Sowjets.
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Muslims escape Shariah law and then end up wanting it... I don't get this crap
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That pew study was already discussed widely all around the forum. And if you read it indepth you know that "favor sharia law" means totally different things for different participants in the poll. Some claim to want all the bad stuff, that comes with it, and some are like christians saying they want a law based on the 10 commandments, without actually wanting to stone people for picking up firewood on the sabbath. The point is: there are secularized muslim communities with softened stances, exactly like there are non radical jews and non radical christians, that no longer want to exterminate heretics.
Regarding the 15% Jordanians, you have to take the flexibility of the human mind into account, and a 4 fold drop in approval is hugely significant. From absolute majority to small but recognizable minority. How can you not see that as a change akin to the one i described?
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Way to twist reality dude. 15% support suicide bombings even after 60 people where killed inside their own capital. 15% is a lot. The sad truth is that most muslims support, or at least dont mind radicals. Majority is fine either way, they are fine with sharia, and fine with democracy as long as they can live their lives.
In my opinion west can only rely on MINORITY of muslims that are liberal. The so called modarate muslims which are majority are not in support of western values, they are far more likely to support radicals than western "Crusaders". This missconception, that majority of muslims want democracy and western way of life is root of many problems and failures of western policy towards middleeast. Modarate muslim is a radical by western standards. Simple as that. Christian priest preaching same values as moderate muslims want would be called a fundamentalist.
Still its no reason to turn to xDaunt "solutions".
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I think all increased military prowess in the middle east would do is kill a few thousand radical muslims, and turn another few hundred million people into ISIS supporters. What ISIS wants is us hating and fearing and mistrusting the non-radical muslims and us spreading more hatred in the middle east; and the larger rift it creates between us as the Western world and them as muslims (radical or otherwise).
And lol, if there's anything dictatorships and military regimes in the past have proven, xDaunt, is that the last thing they accomplish is "destroying the will and capacity for resistance". It will just ignite that will in far more people than have that will right now.
Let's not pretend that this situation is occurring for any other reason than us Westerners meddling in the middle east, and the last thing that will solve it is more meddling in the middle east.
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On February 23 2015 18:52 puerk wrote:
And that is also the difference about the ISIS conflict that makes military resolution possible this time: familiar actors. Its not the western world starting the conflict, coming totally uninvited to the region and bombing everything to bits. Its a local conflict fought by local, involved and culturally related entities. A muslim fighter defeated by Jordan or Turkey will react differently than one defeated by the US, the same way a German reacted differently to the prospect of getting defeated by Americans or Sowjets.
This is incorrect. You can't presume that Muslims are one big monolithic group. The global population of 1.6 billion Muslims is fractured by sects and divided further by tribes. This is why Iraq is only a nation in name. The Sunni there (those who support ISIS) will not accept Shia rule. Conversely, the Shia are highly suspicious of the Sunnis, which is why the central government has been hesitant to support and arm any Sunni tribe that might resist ISIS. So no, I would not not expect a Muslim army to be accepted in a meaningfully better way than an American army.
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On February 23 2015 17:21 zatic wrote:
What a pile of horseshit. It's really the redeeming quality of the "West" that genocidal maniacs like you and ISIS are an even tinier minority than in the "Muslim world".
Yeah? And how do you think that Western, liberal thought assumed its current predominant place in the world? It's built on the bones of a lot of other peoples. I'm just honest enough to admit it. It's not like there's much mystery and ambiguity in the historical record.
I see a lot of complaining about, and dismissing of, what I am saying, but I don't see much in the way of alternative ideas for dealing with ISIS and radical Islam. To be honest, I do not even like the idea of sending mass ground troops to fight a total war against ISIS at present. I'd rather we continue to bleed it dry by fueling the proxy war against it. The only problem with that approach is that we're merely kicking the can down the road. Even if ISIS disappears, all of the elements will be present for some version of it to reappear again in the future.
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Zurich15328 Posts
I see someone who is lusting for a "solution" that is comprised of making millions of people die and suffer for the religious believes they happen to share with a bunch of crazies.
Sounds awfully alike to ISIS to me.
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On February 24 2015 00:00 zatic wrote:
I see someone who is lusting for a "solution" that is comprised of making millions of people die and suffer for the religious believes they happen to share with a bunch of crazies.
Sounds awfully alike to ISIS to me.
I'm not "lusting" for anything. I'm just pointing out what's probably needed to "win." This is deadly serious business that shouldn't be discussed from misplaced moral high-horses such as your own. Western culture may be in a predominant position today, but it won't be forever. And the reason why it will fail is because we'll forget how we got to where we were in the first place. Say what we want about ISIS and its barbarism, but they definitely understand the nature of the game better than we do.
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On February 23 2015 23:32 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2015 18:52 puerk wrote:
And that is also the difference about the ISIS conflict that makes military resolution possible this time: familiar actors. Its not the western world starting the conflict, coming totally uninvited to the region and bombing everything to bits. Its a local conflict fought by local, involved and culturally related entities. A muslim fighter defeated by Jordan or Turkey will react differently than one defeated by the US, the same way a German reacted differently to the prospect of getting defeated by Americans or Sowjets. This is incorrect. You can't presume that Muslims are one big monolithic group. The global population of 1.6 billion Muslims is fractured by sects and divided further by tribes. This is why Iraq is only a nation in name. The Sunni there (those who support ISIS) will not accept Shia rule. Conversely, the Shia are highly suspicious of the Sunnis, which is why the central government has been hesitant to support and arm any Sunni tribe that might resist ISIS. So no, I would not not expect a Muslim army to be accepted in a meaningfully better way than an American army.
You're joking, right? Not only are you continuously misrepresenting what puerk writes, but you are the one painting Muslims with the broadest strokes and describing those who do not hold unfavorable views of ISIS as a monolothic group. With regards to the point at hand, puerk was perfectly right in saying that the enemy factions fighting can often react differently based on who is opposing them, and will engage in behind-the-scenes diplomacy more easily with some actors than with others. Anyone who has the slightest understanding of Middle-East dynamics knows this, and it has nothing to do with "[presuming] that Muslims are one big monolithic group" - it's exactly the opposite.
With regards to your laughable suggestion that the only solution to trouble in the Middle-East is the use of force, it's again the kind of answer that you'll hear from people who simply do not understand the processes of radicalization in the area. The use of force is one aspect of a short-term answer to the issue. Achieving a long-term solution notably necessitates the use of diplomacy with surrounding state actors (including Iran, contrary to your repeated skepticism bordering on opposition with respect to the negotiations going on on their nuclear program), encouraging them to progressively adopt more democratic institutions (a long-term process), helping the development of these states' civil societies (through aid programs), and - and this is key - encouraging, supporting, and working on state actors in the region to support moderate exegeses and Islamic schools of thought. Addressing these issues on the theological front is absolutely necessary for long-term solutions. This does not mean that by snapping our fingers we can achieve a retreat of salafism, for example, but the political powers in the region often do have the religious legitimacy to engineer progressive (and very slow) shifts towards more moderate readings of Islam. Among Salafists, this means starting by encouraging Purist/Quietist Salafism instead of Jihady/revolutionary Salafism. Also, anti-radicalizations programs in Muslim countries too often focus on leading individuals and groups to renounce violence but not political radicalization (or sometimes not even violence itself but rather violence at home). Reform of these anti-radicalization programs should be encouraged in order to have them address political radicalization, but this can only truly be achieved by fostering democratic (and economic) reforms as well.
I'm not going to go into more detail since you get the idea: your call to "bomb, baby, bomb" is patently ignorant of the complexities of radicalization processes in the area, is completely short-sighted, and focusing on that only serves to further mask the more difficult paths that do need to be taken in order to truly make progress.
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Not total war was the solution to Germany but the Marshall Plan and the integration in the European Union.
To see what total submission leads to, look at the treaties of Versailles.
I cant help to think that the US is a militaristic country. The way european countries were before WW1.
The US never got the experience of total war on their home soil to teach them that total war cant be a solution. Every war since WW2 has been lost for the US. War hasnt been the solution so... what about more war?
How many times can the US make the same mistake?
As many times as it takes!
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On February 24 2015 00:36 SpikeStarcraft wrote:
Not total war was the solution to Germany but the Marshall Plan and the integration in the European Union.
To see what total submission leads to, look at the treaties of Versailles.
I cant help to think that the US is a militaristic country. The way european countries were before WW1.
The US never got the experience of total war on their home soil to teach them that total war cant be a solution. Every war since WW2 has been lost for the US. War hasnt been the solution so... what about more war?
How many times can the US make the same mistake?
As many times as it takes!
US Civil War 35M population / 750,000 war dead
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On February 24 2015 00:46 RCMDVA wrote:Show nested quote +On February 24 2015 00:36 SpikeStarcraft wrote:
Not total war was the solution to Germany but the Marshall Plan and the integration in the European Union.
To see what total submission leads to, look at the treaties of Versailles.
I cant help to think that the US is a militaristic country. The way european countries were before WW1.
The US never got the experience of total war on their home soil to teach them that total war cant be a solution. Every war since WW2 has been lost for the US. War hasnt been the solution so... what about more war?
How many times can the US make the same mistake?
As many times as it takes! US Civil War 35M population / 750,000 war dead
That shows a terrible understanding of what a total war relative to a country even means.
None of the big population centers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_cities_in_the_United_States_by_population_by_decade#1860 saw any fighting. Especially not in the north. How do you ever think a person in New York would have experienced the civil war as a total war, the same way as every single city in the central european stretch from southern england, parts of benelux, germany, poland, all through the western sowjet union, etc that was bombed to pile of rubble by at least one faction during the war?
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I did read it. Pay close attention to the author's conclusions.
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On February 24 2015 00:22 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2015 23:32 xDaunt wrote:On February 23 2015 18:52 puerk wrote:
And that is also the difference about the ISIS conflict that makes military resolution possible this time: familiar actors. Its not the western world starting the conflict, coming totally uninvited to the region and bombing everything to bits. Its a local conflict fought by local, involved and culturally related entities. A muslim fighter defeated by Jordan or Turkey will react differently than one defeated by the US, the same way a German reacted differently to the prospect of getting defeated by Americans or Sowjets. This is incorrect. You can't presume that Muslims are one big monolithic group. The global population of 1.6 billion Muslims is fractured by sects and divided further by tribes. This is why Iraq is only a nation in name. The Sunni there (those who support ISIS) will not accept Shia rule. Conversely, the Shia are highly suspicious of the Sunnis, which is why the central government has been hesitant to support and arm any Sunni tribe that might resist ISIS. So no, I would not not expect a Muslim army to be accepted in a meaningfully better way than an American army. You're joking, right? Not only are you continuously misrepresenting what puerk writes, but you are the one painting Muslims with the broadest strokes and describing those who do not hold unfavorable views of ISIS as a monolothic group. With regards to the point at hand, puerk was perfectly right in saying that the enemy factions fighting can often react differently based on who is opposing them, and will engage in behind-the-scenes diplomacy more easily with some actors than with others. Anyone who has the slightest understanding of Middle-East dynamics knows this, and it has nothing to do with "[presuming] that Muslims are one big monolithic group" - it's exactly the opposite. With regards to your laughable suggestion that the only solution to trouble in the Middle-East is the use of force, it's again the kind of answer that you'll hear from people who simply do not understand the processes of radicalization in the area. The use of force is one aspect of a short-term answer to the issue. Achieving a long-term solution notably necessitates the use of diplomacy with surrounding state actors (including Iran, contrary to your repeated skepticism bordering on opposition with respect to the negotiations going on on their nuclear program), encouraging them to progressively adopt more democratic institutions (a long-term process), helping the development of these states' civil societies (through aid programs), and - and this is key - encouraging, supporting, and working on state actors in the region to support moderate exegeses and Islamic schools of thought. Addressing these issues on the theological front is absolutely necessary for long-term solutions. This does not mean that by snapping our fingers we can achieve a retreat of salafism, for example, but the political powers in the region often do have the religious legitimacy to engineer progressive (and very slow) shifts towards more moderate readings of Islam. Among Salafists, this means starting by encouraging Madkhalism instead of other forms of Salafism. Also, anti-radicalizations programs in Muslim countries too often focus on leading individuals and groups to renounce violence but not political radicalization (or sometimes not even violence itself but rather violence at home). Reform of these anti-radicalization programs should be encouraged in order to have them address political radicalization, but this can only truly be achieved by fostering democratic (and economic) reforms as well. I'm not going to go into more detail since you get the idea: your call to "bomb, baby, bomb" is patently ignorant of the complexities of radicalization processes in the area, is completely short-sighted, and focusing on that only serves to further mask the more difficult paths that do need to be taken in order to truly make progress.
No, I got it right when it came to puerk's posts, and you are making the same mistake that he is. Even suggesting that we can just put Arab peoples back under the thumbs of the Turks or the Persians (Iran) and everything will be okay is just laughable in its ignorance of history and Middle Eastern dynamics. Such thought can only be born from the idea that Muslims are a monolithic entity, which is of course, absurd.
As for fighting radical Muslims on the theological/ideological front, good luck with that. I have yet to see any proof that it works as applied to Islam. Just look at all of the batshit crazy Muslim clerics living and thriving in Western European cities.
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EPT
