Obliterating Islamic State (ISIS)

lljadw said:
No,NO,and again NO : the only thing that matters is to win,and if being humane means we do not win (=we are losing) ,we must throw away this humanity.

We do know what ISIS is doing where it is the master and we should do EVERYTHING to prevent this to happen in Europe,US,.......EVERYTHING .And if we had not handled ISIS with kid gloves, the situation would be different : we would be winning and not losing.
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So the ends justify the means?
 
lljadw said:
No,NO,and again NO : the only thing that matters is to win,and if being humane means we do not win (=we are losing) ,we must throw away this humanity.

We do know what ISIS is doing where it is the master and we should do EVERYTHING to prevent this to happen in Europe,US,.......EVERYTHING .And if we had not handled ISIS with kid gloves, the situation would be different : we would be winning and not losing.
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I agree with you all that we have to prevent everything what ISIS is doing, no doubt about it, but how? The methods that you or the law enforcement agencies are proposing doesn't seem to work. Following article is a testament to why we have to be "humane" to prevent the growth of ISIS.

FBI tactics to unearth ISIS recruits: effective or entrapment?

ISIS IN AMERICA:A seven-part series

“In many instances, these people have espoused these opinions for a long time without ever actually taking action beyond just speaking about them,” says John Robbins, executive director of the Massachusetts chapter of the Council of American-Islamic Relations.

Research by his organization shows that when the suspect is a Muslim, authorities tend to downplay potential contributing factors such as mental illness, he says.

“The FBI is really good at catching its own terrorists,” says Yasir Qadhi, a leading Islamic scholar in the US and a professor at Rhodes College in Memphis.

Professor Qadhi says sting operations have further alienated large segments of an American Muslim population already reeling from widespread discrimination, surveillance, and racial profiling by US authorities since the 911 attacks.

Among Muslims, Qadhi says, each new sting operation is not seen as an effort to protect people from violence. Instead, it is viewed as further evidence of government hostility toward Muslims.

“When you set up a 17-year-old kid and you go and you wire your informants and you rile him up and then you catch him in the act, you’ve lost the trust of an entire community with that one stupid act,” he says.

In one respect, what the undercover agents are doing is finishing the work of the IS recruiters who were methodically grooming and radicalizing their targets, experts say.

In essence, the FBI takes up where the radical recruiters left off, further pushing young Americans over the line toward violent extremism, not to benefit the IS group or its fledgling caliphate, but for the sake of winning a criminal conviction in federal court.

To those in the target’s family or his or her community who see this process up close, it is frightening and counterproductive, analysts say.

Family as 'early-warning system'

Friends and family members could be a natural early-warning system to identify signs of radicalization, says John Horgan, a psychologist and terrorism expert at Georgia State University.

“From the research I’ve done, we are finding that those kinds of issues don’t get reported because people are afraid of the consequences,” he says.

Years of suspicion, surveillance, and tough law-enforcement tactics in the war on terror have undercut any sense of trust between the Muslim community and the government.

“This is basic stuff,” Professor Horgan says. “It is community policing, it is outreach, it is building trust and figuring out what are the safe mechanisms through which people can report suspicions or call up an agency to say, ‘Hey, I think my child might be in danger of radicalization. What do I do?’ ”

The professor adds: “We haven’t seen that kind of thinking, we haven’t seen those kinds of resources being developed here [in the US].”

“Parents are placed in an untenable situation,” he adds. “Our strategy is devoid of early off ramps for diverting this kind of activity and that feeds a vicious cycle of mistrust, which we see in greater numbers of arrests,” he says. “It feeds the assumption that there is no real interest in stemming the tide of radicalization.”

There are a few innovative approaches under way in the US.

The US State Department runs a Twitter account called “Think AgainTurn Away” that tries to confront and dispute radical tweeters with counter tweets. There are pilot programs in Boston, Minneapolis, and Los Angeles aimed at fostering greater cooperation and trust between law enforcement and the Muslim community. But many Muslims reject those programs as a veiled attempt to improve government surveillance.

Indeed, the primary thrust of the US government’s anti-radicalization effort continues be surveillance, arrests, and imprisonment.

This is not exclusively a Muslim-American problem, but that is the one community most affected by it and it is the one community that is pushing back.

Salam Al-Marayati is president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council. His organization is developing a community-based intervention program called the Safe Spaces Initiative. The group is seeking to set up pilot projects in 12 US cities.

“Safe Spaces is an alternative to heavy-handed law enforcement tactics,” Mr. Al-Marayati says. Rather than seeking to imprison them for 10 or 20 years, Safe Spaces attempts to rehabilitate young Americans – to pull them back from brink of radicalization – before they violate any criminal statutes.

“What [IS] is doing, what they are telling our kids is that America is at war with Islam and you as a Muslim will never be respected in America,” Al-Marayati says. “That’s the lure.”

US law-enforcement tactics have tended to reinforce that message.

What’s necessary, Al-Marayati says, is to take action to foster a strong American-Muslim identity, a sense of pride and dignity and purpose robust enough to withstand Islamic State propaganda.

Offering families an alternative to ISIS or prison

In addition, he says, Safe Spaces is designed to create a safe zone for intervention to help save American children not just from recruiters with the IS group, but also from the US criminal justice system.

“Instead of calling the FBI, you can call a mental health expert or a social services worker, or a religious counselor,” Al-Marayati says. “In other words, we provide resources to the father or the mother or the sister or the friend or the mentor and they would know who to turn to for help so that you can try to rehabilitate the person.”

Although there are a few isolated intervention projects operating in the US, there is no systematic and comprehensive program

“It can’t just be a law enforcement answer,” says Seamus Hughes, deputy director of the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, and a former official with the US government’s National Counterterrorism Center.

“If you are a parent you are left with a very difficult choice,” Professor Hughes says. “Do you watch your kid radicalize to violence and hope it is just a phase that they grow out of, but then you risk that they jump on a plane [to Turkey and Syria]? Or do you call the FBI?”

“That is not an acceptable answer for loved ones of those who are radicalizing to violence,” Hughes says.
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NO :Muslims have respect only for force and the willingness to use it .

Carter failed to answer when Iran occupied the US embassy and US lost a lot of credit

When Kadaffi became insolent,Reagan fired some missiles and the US regained respect .


immediately after 9/11,the Muslims condemned the act of terror,because they feared the US answer,but when US was delaying its reply and the reply was less than weak, they all despised the US

And what Obama is doing makes a laughing stock of the US .

And the Soviets also had respect for the US : why did they not invade Western Europe ? Mainly because they knew that the US would nuke them .

If in 1953 Obama was president, we would have WWIII.
 
lljadw said:
NO :Muslims have respect only for force and the willingness to use it .

Carter failed to answer when Iran occupied the US embassy and US lost a lot of credit

When Kadaffi became insolent,Reagan fired some missiles and the US regained respect .


immediately after 9/11,the Muslims condemned the act of terror,because they feared the US answer,but when US was delaying its reply and the reply was less than weak, they all despised the US

And what Obama is doing makes a laughing stock of the US .

And the Soviets also had respect for the US : why did they not invade Western Europe ? Mainly because they knew that the US would nuke them .

If in 1953 Obama was president, we would have WWIII.
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Russia has no geostrategic reason to invade Western Europe like it did so in the Crimean Peninsula region and its proximities where Russia’s only warm water naval base Sevastopol is, or Crimea for that matter, which serves as a ‘choke point’ to and from the Sea of Azov.

If Western allies threatened Russia’s supremacy or sovereignty in its own backyard just like during the Cuban missile crisis, where erstwhile USSR docked and aimed its missiles at US; either one of them will try to push back, won’t they?

Another similar analogy is that India has long feared China's role in building outposts around its periphery. In a recent essay, an Indian commentator wrote that the fusion of China's economic and military interests "risk turning Sri Lanka into India's Cuba" -- a reference to how the Soviet Union courted Fidel Castro's Cuba right on the United States' doorstep.

Having said that, I agree with your point about Obama’s laughable foreign policy because he has many cards but he doesn’t play them well, whereas Putin has only few cards and he plays them very well.
 
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How can the mess in Syria possibly be worse?
Almost have of Syrians are displaced and about half of those are wandering around Europe, ISIS are not showing signs of weakening and the "friendly" rebels are not showing signs of winning.

How much longer do you think we as in the West could just go around bombing random targets and hoping something positive was going to come of it?

I don't like Assad but he is there and has a functioning government, military and is slightly less distastful than ISIS so if destroying ISIS means leaving Assad there then so be it.

As Churchill once said
If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.
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MontyB;69765 How much longer do you think we as in the West could just go around bombing random targets and hoping something positive was going to come of it?[/QUOTE said:
What's this nonsense about the west bombing random targets? The trouble is the west uses a very limited bombing campaign against ISIS as such can only produce limited damages.
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MontyB said:
How can the mess in Syria possibly be worse?
Almost have of Syrians are displaced and about half of those are wandering around Europe, ISIS are not showing signs of weakening and the "friendly" rebels are not showing signs of winning.

How much longer do you think we as in the West could just go around bombing random targets and hoping something positive was going to come of it?

I don't like Assad but he is there and has a functioning government, military and is slightly less distastful than ISIS so if destroying ISIS means leaving Assad there then so be it.

As Churchill once said
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I have been thinking in lines like this as well. Assad is the best option to get stability in Syria. The major problem is ISIS and similar groups and they need to go without creating a power vacuum and a failed state a la Somalia.

The first priority is the get rid off ISIS, and it doesn't matter who does it.

Assad might be dealt with later, maybe in the similar way as what happened to the military and political leadership after the wars and ethnic cleansing in the Balkans.
 
I wish Turkey (supposed NATO Ally) would support an all out air war on ISIS instead of a few limited US attacks from carriers in the Gulf. Which coast the US a fortune. They have the major air bases on the border. I believe Obama is a bit weak here as well. I've expressed this viewpoint many times on the forum. This could destroy ISIS's heavy equipment and AFV's as well as decimating them when they assembled to attack. Planes like the Warthog could do a lot of damage. This would not be enough to completely destroy ISIS but would cripple their stand up fighting ability. I'm a Christian and ISIS basically wipes out the Christians in areas that they take over.
 
I3BrigPvSk said:
I have been thinking in lines like this as well. Assad is the best option to get stability in Syria. The major problem is ISIS and similar groups and they need to go without creating a power vacuum and a failed state a la Somalia.

The first priority is the get rid off ISIS, and it doesn't matter who does it.

Assad might be dealt with later, maybe in the similar way as what happened to the military and political leadership after the wars and ethnic cleansing in the Balkans.
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Indeed, it does not matter who takes power in Syria the other side is going to suffer so support Assad and rebel supporters live in fear or support the rebels and Assad supporters get the short end of the stick.

I think the Russians are doing the right thing in picking a single group to win this thing rather than backing loosely affiliated groups who like Libya will fall apart and be shooting at each other the second Assad is out of the picture.
 
Some observers, including Sen. John McCain, have described the ongoing escalation as a "proxy war" between the United States and Russia since the end of Cold War, however , IMO, the so called "cold war" had never ended, rather it was diminished to some extent...apparently it is still very "hot war" ;)

U.S., Russia escalate involvement in Syria
 
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Tuan said:
Some observers, including Sen. John McCain, have described the ongoing escalation as a "proxy war" between the United States and Russia since the end of Cold War, however , IMO, the so called "cold war" had never ended, rather it was diminished to some extent...apparently it is still very "hot war" ;)

U.S., Russia escalate involvement in Syria
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I am not sure McCain can be described as an observer as much like Victoria Nuland every where they go seems to erupt into civil war a few weeks later.
 
Tuan said:
Some observers, including Sen. John McCain, have described the ongoing escalation as a "proxy war" between the United States and Russia since the end of Cold War, however , IMO, the so called "cold war" had never ended, rather it was diminished to some extent...apparently it is still very "hot war" ;)

U.S., Russia escalate involvement in Syria
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The Cold War is over,Russia is only a poor shadow of the SU.Now we have WWIII= the war against Muslim extremism,and if there was any one in Washington with the brains of a bacteria,he would cooperate with Russia .
 
We're dealing with Muslim extremist - terrorist on several fronts. How can you compare this to a WW2? In WW2 perhaps 60 million died - killed in the European theater. The war created as many as 20 million European refugees. Such all out war has not been seen since and hopefully won't be again. Grant you ISIS is a band of bloody butchers however lets compare apples to apples. I meet Muslims while in the service. They were from Arabia and were respectful disciplined soldiers.
 
I'm sure they would if they could, but the can't. They are not a treat of this caliber. So why give way to this mania for exaggeration.
 
lljadw said:
The Cold War is over,Russia is only a poor shadow of the SU.Now we have WWIII= the war against Muslim extremism,and if there was any one in Washington with the brains of a bacteria,he would cooperate with Russia .
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I disagree because the present day ISIS is an offshoot of Al Qaeda; and Al Qaeda is an offshoot of Afghan Mujahedeen (and we all know whose brainchild the Afghan Mujahedeen was). Therefore what happened in 9/11 and the subsequent war on terror that began again (back to square one) in Afghanistan, Iraq invasion and such are interconnected and byproduct of cold war era protracted proxy wars, in my opinion.

According to Wikipedia, the modern phenomenon of jihadism that presents "jihad" (offensive or defensive) as the casus belli for insurgencies, guerrilla warfare and international terrorism, dates back to the 1960s and draws on early-to-mid-20th century Islamist doctrines such as Qutbism.
 
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Canada's new PM is right: Bombs won't beat ISIS
http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/23/opinions/canada-isis-trudeau/index.html

Justin Trudeau's campaign promise to end the bombing mission, while continuing to train Iraqis away from the front lines, represented a balanced approach to recognizing the complexity of the Syrian conflict and the limited options available to the West.

While counterterrorism is most often linked with the exercise of "hard power" (intelligence, law, policing, and military power), it must increasingly make use of "soft power" (political, social, and economic control, together with broader policy initiatives dealing with the environment, development, critical infrastructure, migration, and humanitarian intervention).

The Syrian conflict has its roots in a volatile mix of discriminatory practices by government, widespread corruption, chronic lack of opportunity for young people, lack of essential services, all combined to convince many that there is no alternative other than violent extremism and terrorism. A strictly military approach to such a complex situation is dangerously reductionist. As the great American psychologist, Abraham Maslow, wrote in 1966: "I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail."

The Sunni Arabs of Iraq and Syria support ISIS only because they have no other option in a divided and discriminatory environment where Shia governments favor their own, with support from Iran and Hezbollah, and Kurds enjoy the support of the U.S. and its allies (to Turkey's great chagrin).

Because ISIS is the only Sunni force capable of confronting the Shia forces in both Iraq and Syria, it receives varying degrees of support from neighboring Sunni states, particularly Saudi Arabia. The Syrian conflict is in many ways a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and threatens to become a kind of proxy Cold War between Russia and the U.S.

Political, economic, social, humanitarian, and diplomatic initiatives are urgently needed if a long-lasting solution is to be found. With Russia entering the fray on the side of Bashar al-Assad, and supposedly moderate rebels less and less capable of sustained and effective combat, as well as increasing waves of desperate refugees fleeing rapidly escalating violence, with no end in sight, a comprehensive approach is all the more imperative.

Justin Trudeau's decision to end Canada's participation in the bombing campaign against ISIS is a step in the right direction.
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