Who is helping ISIS "win"?

[fredtoast]

It has becoem clear that ISIS can not establish a Caliphate based just on military power. Over the last year and a half they have lost 30% of the area they once controlled and are losing more each week. They do not have an economy to continue to support their war effort.

However ISIS has a second strategy. ISIS has admitted that their terror attacks on the West are only partly aimed at punishing countries that oppose them. They claim that their strategy is to eliminate what the call "gray zones" societies where Muslims and non-Muslims coexist. The more countries they can turn against Islam the more support they can get from Muslims around the world.

French journalist Nicolas Henin, who was an ISIS hostage, wrote that when Germany opened it doors to Syrian refugees it hurt the jihadi extremist. Their response was to post a video urging refugees to turn around and return to the Islamic State.

So who is ISIS looking to for help in this area? Radical right-wing extremists in Europe, and politicians like Donald Trump from the United States.

Al-queda has already released a recruitment video that uses Trump to prove how the Americans are turning against Muslims. http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/02/middleeast/al-shabaab-video-trump/ Then after the belgium attack ISIS did the same thing http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/03/donald-trump-isis-recruitment-video. And the right wing conservatives in Europe are as bad or worse than Trump.

The conflict in the Middle east is a total shitstorm. I wish we were not even involved. We have reached the point where we are fighting a hydra. The more violent we are against them the more support they receive. We can't win this battle by nuking the middle east or killing the families of terrorists like Trump suggests. If we are going to remain engaged we will have to form a world-wide coalition and isolate them instead of resorting to genocide. But it seems impossible to form a effective coalition because other members of the coalition are actually at war with each other.

[Rotobeast]

fredtoast ' Wrote: If we are going to remain engaged we will have to form a world-wide coalition and isolate them instead of resorting to genocide.

Does this mean you're in favor of heavily restricting immigration?

[fredtoast]

(04-05-2016, 12:57 PM)Rotobeast Wrote: Does this mean you're in favor of heavily restricting immigration?

Not at all.  I meant isolate the extremists.  We continue to accept the Muslim refugees fleeing the extremist.

[Rotobeast]

(04-05-2016, 01:10 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Not at all.  I meant isolate the extremists.  We continue to accept the Muslim refugees fleeing the extremist.

The language that preceded my previous quoting of you "We can't win this battle by nuking the middle east or killing the families of terrorists like Trump suggests" would indicate that you were speaking of the entire middle east and not just ISIS being isolated.
In order to isolate, one would think an entity would nearly cut off immigration.

*edit* got it. You must have edited as I was answering the "???".

[Benton]

It's not a new problem, or a new solution.

Muslim sects have been killing each other there since before there were Muslim sects. The fighting isn't just about being Muslim (or the wrong Muslim) it's about culture, too. Geography. Society. All of it. This isn't anything new. Societies have been killing each other since one guy had more rocks than another guy. The problem is people usually don't interfere with that. When a group of people really wants to kill another group, most of the world used to stand back and let the two go at it.

But for the last century you've had a lot of outside intervention stepping in, trying to sort things out. We try to get them to get along or — more often — help one side fight another side.

The only way to resolve it is to let it run its course, get out of the Middle East. If the groups involved want to fight each other, they're going to. We've made ourselves one of those groups. So has Russia and a handful of countries. They don't see it as a Muslim problem, they see it as an ongoing conflict. We, on the other hand, keep labeling it an problem with extremist Muslims. We need to stop doing that. It's the same problem we had with North Vietnam. We labeled it a problem with Communists, but that's not how they saw it. We tried to make it about political extremism. It wasn't. It was the end of several hundred years worth of rule and smaller conflict resolutions. We just stepped into it trying to play referee and instead made it last longer and added to the body count.

It was the same thing that led to the founding of this country. It wasn't some war against the English for freedom of religion. It wasn't even just about taxes. It was several hundred years worth of disagreement by people with the monarchy, that led to a bigger, final conflict. But at the time, there wasn't a government that was going to intercede and tell the two factions (the colonies and England) to resolve it peacefully or else they'd kill more people.

tl;dr Only way to fix it is to get out, let them fix it themselves.

[fredtoast]

(04-05-2016, 01:38 PM)Benton Wrote: It's not a new problem, or a new solution.

Muslim sects have been killing each other there since before there were Muslim sects. The fighting isn't just about being Muslim (or the wrong Muslim) it's about culture, too. Geography. Society. All of it. This isn't anything new. Societies have been killing each other since one guy had more rocks than another guy. The problem is people usually don't interfere with that. When a group of people really wants to kill another group, most of the world used to stand back and let the two go at it.

But for the last century you've had a lot of outside intervention stepping in, trying to sort things out. We try to get them to get along or — more often — help one side fight another side.

The only way to resolve it is to let it run its course, get out of the Middle East. If the groups involved want to fight each other, they're going to. We've made ourselves one of those groups. So has Russia and a handful of countries. They don't see it as a Muslim problem, they see it as an ongoing conflict. We, on the other hand, keep labeling it an problem with extremist Muslims. We need to stop doing that. It's the same problem we had with North Vietnam. We labeled it a problem with Communists, but that's not how they saw it. We tried to make it about political extremism. It wasn't. It was the end of several hundred years worth of rule and smaller conflict resolutions. We just stepped into it trying to play referee and instead made it last longer and added to the body count.

It was the same thing that led to the founding of this country. It wasn't some war against the English for freedom of religion. It wasn't even just about taxes. It was several hundred years worth of disagreement by people with the monarchy, that led to a bigger, final conflict. But at the time, there wasn't a government that was going to intercede and tell the two factions (the colonies and England) to resolve it peacefully or else they'd kill more people.

tl;dr Only way to fix it is to get out, let them fix it themselves.

I agree.  We ignore conflicts in Africa, but because of oil and Israel we are balls deep into the most unfixable conflict on the planet.

Because we now live in a world-wide economy we have a certain level of interest in maintaining stable markets for our goods and access to natural resources we require, but we need to lust pull out of this mess.

[Benton]

(04-05-2016, 02:11 PM)fredtoast Wrote: I agree.  We ignore conflicts in Africa, but because of oil and Israel we are balls deep into the most unfixable conflict on the planet.

Because we now live in a world-wide economy we have a certain level of interest in maintaining stable markets for our goods and access to natural resources we need, but we need to lust pull out of this mess.

The dollar and how it reacts to oil instability plays into it, but that should be further proof of why we need an alternate energy source. Stocks shouldn't fall every time some idiot with 500 friends decides he's got the balls and guns to go blow up some other idiot with 500 other friends who occupies a better spot of dirt.

[*wildcats forever*]

(04-05-2016, 02:24 PM)Benton Wrote: The dollar and how it reacts to oil instability plays into it, but that should be further proof of why we need an alternate energy source. Stocks shouldn't fall every time some idiot with 500 friends decides he's got the balls and guns to go blow up some other idiot with 500 other friends who occupies a better spot of dirt.

Where there's confusion, there's money to be made. I used to think our boys were after the oil, but no so much since Cheney and Rumsfeld pulled their shenanigans. Those pricks saw opportunity written all over destabilization, and hindsight has proven it. 

I totally agree with the summation of your previous post. Leave and watch the show. US policy has created the monster, and the longer we remain the more reason we give them. My main concern is if nuclear weaponry enters the picture . Nobody on the planet escapes that crapfest. 

[*wildcats forever*]

(04-05-2016, 04:28 PM)wildcats forever Wrote: Where there's confusion, there's money to be made. I used to think our boys were after the oil, but no so much since Cheney and Rumsfeld pulled their shenanigans. Those pricks saw opportunity written all over destabilization, and hindsight has proven it. 

I totally agree with the summation of your previous post. Leave and watch the show. US policy has created the monster, and the longer we remain the more reason we give them. My main concern is if nuclear weaponry enters the picture . Nobody on the planet escapes that crapfest. 

It rips at me that I have come to the conclusion I wrote above. Our policy made a bad situation worse, and to just leave it seems to be another terrible mistake. But as Fred astutely pointed out, it's looking like we'll never develop a successful, peaceful way out of this. Getting the "coalition" together that's needed is like herding cats, unless some sort of divine intervention occurs. And my faith just isn't that strong. So I guess it's a rationalization to say "just leave and stop making it worse". At least fall back and regroup, and hope that yields some sort of positive thought process.

[Benton]

(04-05-2016, 04:41 PM)wildcats forever Wrote: It rips at me that I have come to the conclusion I wrote above. Our policy made a bad situation worse, and to just leave it seems to be another terrible mistake. But as Fred astutely pointed out, it's looking like we'll never develop a successful, peaceful way out of this. Getting the "coalition" together that's needed is like herding cats, unless some sort of divine intervention occurs. And my faith just isn't that strong. So I guess it's a rationalization to say "just leave and stop making it worse". At least fall back and regroup, and hope that yields some sort of positive thought process.

A lot of people feel the same. To me, I'd rather stop spending the money trying to get them to nicely kill each other, I'd rather rebuild our infrastructure and build business support networks
So we can at least be an alternative for those who can get out of that cycle.

[Bengalzona]

(04-05-2016, 11:51 AM)fredtoast Wrote: It has becoem clear that ISIS can not establish a Caliphate based just on military power.  Over the last year and a half they have lost 30% of the area they once controlled and are losing more each week.  They do not have an economy to continue to support their war effort.

However ISIS has a second strategy.  ISIS has admitted that their terror attacks on the West are only partly aimed at punishing countries that oppose them.  They claim that their strategy is to eliminate what the call "gray zones" societies where Muslims and non-Muslims coexist.  The more countries they can turn against Islam the more support they can get from Muslims around the world.

French journalist Nicolas Henin, who was an ISIS hostage, wrote that when Germany opened it doors to Syrian refugees it hurt the jihadi extremist.  Their response was to post a video urging refugees to turn around and return to the Islamic State.

So who is ISIS looking to for help in this area?  Radical right-wing extremists in Europe, and politicians like Donald Trump from the United States.

Al-queda has already released a recruitment video that uses Trump to prove how the Americans are turning against Muslims. http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/02/middleeast/al-shabaab-video-trump/  Then after the belgium attack ISIS did the same thing http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/03/donald-trump-isis-recruitment-video.  And the right wing conservatives in Europe are as bad or worse than Trump.

The conflict in the Middle east is a total shitstorm.  I wish we were not even involved.  We have reached the point where we are fighting a hydra.  The more violent we are against them the more support they receive.  We can't win this battle by nuking the middle east or killing the families of terrorists like Trump suggests.  If we are going to remain engaged we will have to form a world-wide coalition and isolate them instead of resorting to genocide.  But it seems impossible to form a effective coalition because other members of the coalition are actually at war with each other.

Back in Vietnam, this was labelled as "the battle to win the hearts and minds". We didn't "win" that battle then because we got tired of the cost. It is the same reason we almost never win that battle: you can't "win" it. At least not the way we try to "fight" the battle.

Picture the U.S. as a dysfunctional parent and the people we are trying to win over as our teenage child who is acting out. Our strategy has been to win them over with gifts while complaining about the teen's "bad egg" friends. Does that strategy work for parents? No. Why? Because the teenager has witnessed the hypocrisy of the parent. They'll be glad to take the gifts, but they ain't buying the message anymore. It is at this point that a wise parent might consider a 'tough love' strategy such as leaving the teenager alone to fall on their face.

[Aquapod770]

(04-05-2016, 11:51 AM)fredtoast Wrote: So who is ISIS looking to for help in this area?  Radical right-wing extremists in Europe, and politicians like Donald Trump from the United States.

Al-queda has already released a recruitment video that uses Trump to prove how the Americans are turning against Muslims. http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/02/middleeast/al-shabaab-video-trump/  Then after the belgium attack ISIS did the same thing http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/03/donald-trump-isis-recruitment-video.  And the right wing conservatives in Europe are as bad or worse than Trump.

These types of statements always make me laugh. 

Hypothetical situation: The KKK goes and, idk, bombs an airport killing innocent people. Then a prominent black figure (lets say Obama, Sharpton, Oprah, whoever) gets up and publicly says, "the KKK are terrorists and we need to wipe them off the planet." Then the KKK brings me a video of them saying that and says, "see they hate us!!! Join us so we can fight them!!!" I'm pretty sure I'd be asking why bombing an airport full of innocent people was a good idea instead of joining their club. Personal responsibility and critical thinking is pretty important. I bet a lot of these people joining ISIS would do so anyway, no matter what "right wing conservatives" say. 

[Benton]

(04-09-2016, 12:16 PM)Aquapod770 Wrote: These types of statements always make me laugh. 

Hypothetical situation: The KKK goes and, idk, bombs an airport killing innocent people. Then a prominent black figure (lets say Obama, Sharpton, Oprah, whoever) gets up and publicly says, "the KKK are terrorists and we need to wipe them off the planet." Then the KKK brings me a video of them saying that and says, "see they hate us!!! Join us so we can fight them!!!" I'm pretty sure I'd be asking why bombing an airport full of innocent people was a good idea instead of joining their club. Personal responsibility and critical thinking is pretty important. I bet a lot of these people joining ISIS would do so anyway, no matter what "right wing conservatives" say. 

And that makes sense when you reduce it down to a specific, pocket event. Now expand that to several million people over a thousand years and spread that across thousands of miles. Remove the video and newspaper stories, the only account of any event comes from what someone tells you as a story that gets passed down for decades.

Stuff gets a lot more complicated than just A event led to B response.

[GMDino]

(04-09-2016, 12:16 PM)Aquapod770 Wrote: These types of statements always make me laugh. 

Hypothetical situation: The KKK goes and, idk, bombs an airport killing innocent people. Then a prominent black figure (lets say Obama, Sharpton, Oprah, whoever) gets up and publicly says, "the KKK are terrorists and we need to wipe them off the planet." Then the KKK brings me a video of them saying that and says, "see they hate us!!! Join us so we can fight them!!!" I'm pretty sure I'd be asking why bombing an airport full of innocent people was a good idea instead of joining their club. Personal responsibility and critical thinking is pretty important. I bet a lot of these people joining ISIS would do so anyway, no matter what "right wing conservatives" say. 

Except in this instance instead of saying "the KKK are terrorists and we need to wipe them off the planet" we started bombing and killing anyone in the general area of where we know there are KKK members.  So we get some of them and some innocent people.  Then we have someone else saying we need to kill the KKK member's families to make a point.

[*bfine32*]

(04-05-2016, 11:51 AM)fredtoast Wrote: It has becoem clear that ISIS can not establish a Caliphate based just on military power. Over the last year and a half they have lost 30% of the area they once controlled and are losing more each week. They do not have an economy to continue to support their war effort.

However ISIS has a second strategy. ISIS has admitted that their terror attacks on the West are only partly aimed at punishing countries that oppose them. They claim that their strategy is to eliminate what the call "gray zones" societies where Muslims and non-Muslims coexist. The more countries they can turn against Islam the more support they can get from Muslims around the world.

French journalist Nicolas Henin, who was an ISIS hostage, wrote that when Germany opened it doors to Syrian refugees it hurt the jihadi extremist. Their response was to post a video urging refugees to turn around and return to the Islamic State.

So who is ISIS looking to for help in this area? Radical right-wing extremists in Europe, and politicians like Donald Trump from the United States.

Al-queda has already released a recruitment video that uses Trump to prove how the Americans are turning against Muslims. http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/02/middleeast/al-shabaab-video-trump/ Then after the belgium attack ISIS did the same thing http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/03/donald-trump-isis-recruitment-video. And the right wing conservatives in Europe are as bad or worse than Trump.

The conflict in the Middle east is a total shitstorm. I wish we were not even involved. We have reached the point where we are fighting a hydra. The more violent we are against them the more support they receive. We can't win this battle by nuking the middle east or killing the families of terrorists like Trump suggests. If we are going to remain engaged we will have to form a world-wide coalition and isolate them instead of resorting to genocide. But it seems impossible to form a effective coalition because other members of the coalition are actually at war with each other.

Does that link say Mother Jones?

[GMDino]

(04-09-2016, 12:54 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Does that link say Mother Jones?

One of them.

Here ya go!

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/03/24/latest-isis-video-includes-trump-clip-brussels-boast-new-threats-against-west.html

The  extra ten seconds of research is on me! 

[Benton]

(04-09-2016, 12:47 PM)GMDino Wrote: Except in this instance instead of saying "the KKK are terrorists and we need to wipe them off the planet" we started bombing and killing anyone in the general area of where we know there are KKK members.  So we get some of them and some innocent people.  Then we have someone else saying we need to kill the KKK member's families to make a point.

Another good point. Whenever a klan member does something, no one threatens to carpet bomb Alabama.

[Rotobeast]

B-52's sent to combat ISIS.
Something makes me uneasy about that.


http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/04/09/us-air-force-deploys-b-52-bombers-in-middle-east-to-combat-islamic-state.html?intcmp=hpbt1

[Aquapod770]

(04-09-2016, 12:47 PM)GMDino Wrote: Except in this instance instead of saying "the KKK are terrorists and we need to wipe them off the planet" we started bombing and killing anyone in the general area of where we know there are KKK members.  So we get some of them and some innocent people.  Then we have someone else saying we need to kill the KKK member's families to make a point.

So then you can't really blame it all on right wing conservatives? Obama and his drone strikes are doing just as fine a recruitment job as Trumps comments 

[*bfine32*]

Are the KKK still even relevant? I don't think I've heard mention of them outside this forum in about 20 years or more.

Why do so many in this forum want to live in the 60s?