ISIL, ISIS, Daesh discussion thread.

Why is it the wests problem?

Because we went in and destroyed the Iraq military and killed sadam paving the way for a weak government to get toppled by these scum.

Because we went in a destroyed the Libyan military and killed gadafi, now Libya has 2 factions of 'government' battling to take control meanwhile Isis setup in Libya.

Because we armed the Rebels battling Assad, most of which were the people that are now fighting for isis.

We never had a problem 'risking our peoples lives' on these stupid political decisions.

The Middle East has a lot to answer for, you are correct and countries like Saudi should play a bigger part, but fact is, it is 100% our fault that this situation is happening right now.

I appreciate it wouldn't be easy to eradicate them fully but the wests military power could put an end to this in a fortnight if they wanted to.

Oh yawn this vitriol again! It is absolutely not 100% the west's fault. Read back and see why.
 
So how do you define people that regularly burn others alive, throw people to their deaths for potentially being homosexual, use rape as punishment?

Are they just misunderstood?

:rolleyes:

Ill-educated.

The sooner the modernisation of society in the ME the better. Once the people realise there is more beyond scripture on paper about make-believe fairy tales the sooner they will cease to believe it is acceptable to hack someones head off just because they hold a different viewpoint to themselves.

A violent oppressive dictator is not a solution to progression. To simply label them as savages who need a firm hand in unjust. We are all people and all people can change, develop and grow, as can their civilisations.

this wouldn't have happened as it has without western foreign policy, end of. You have your opinion I'll have mine.

As the old saying goes, you're allowed your own opinions, but you're not allowed your own facts. So I'm afraid it isn't "end of", because you're simply wrong.

Let us not ignore the facts. The "big-bad-West" comment is short sighted and incredibly ignorant of events that occurred in the ME either much longer ago than modern history, or if more recently, then nothing to do with the West at all. I'll lay the facts out for you in case you missed any thing, because you seem so matter of fact about the whole situation I feel you might have missed quite a bit. Like anything that happened before you came of age, or read a bias left wing nut web page perhaps...

I can forgive people for thinking it's all the wests fault, after all, if they're not willing to dig out a book and instead rely solely on the rhetoric that is churned up on the web then what chance do they have of understanding the situation anyway?

First we must acknowledge that Islamism is as much (if not more) a response to the failure of Arab leaders to deliver meaningful outcomes to their people, than it is to any Western intervention (Lima, this happened before any Western intervention) Further, Arab people often lacked opportunities for political participation. Arab citizens therefore turn to mosques as public spaces for political discussion. As a result religion became the language of politics and of political change. Islam is intertwined in their political proceeds. It's like the Catholic church domineering all things political here (Again, much of this has occurred in many Muslim countries, well before any Western involvement anywhere)

Also, post-colonialism failed Arab middle classes, as the ruling elite continued to hold power and wealth, dictatorships and oppression rules supreme (the oppressive ruler scenario that you think is a good thing? It isn't). We had quick economic growth in emerging Gulf states which increased the influence of conservative Muslim governments. At the same time the expansion of the oil-based Gulf economy brought about uneven development, the response to which was growing support for Islamism as a tool of expression for internal grievances (politics - again, nothing really to do with the West).

We must also consider that the effects of cultural erosion and globalisation have resulted in what is pretty much a Muslim identity crisis (again, not a Western fault).

Add to all this civilisations that have experienced large power vacuums where tribal conflict and power struggle has crippled huge areas.. it all becomes somewhat disingenuous and naive to consider the entire situation as a simple as a "West Vs Islam" scenario. That is blinkered.
 
However bad Saddam Hussein was, his Iraq was a better place than what it is now.

The US and the UK went in to Afghanistan and Iraq removed what was a stable governing system (compared to today) and the fall out has been creating ISIS which is a far bigger threat than the Taliban and even Al Qaeda.

Again, highly subjective. I wonder what your viewpoint would be if you were Kurdish living under the fear of Saddam. Oh no that's right, the ME is a bigger issue today because us poor westerners are a target now too.
 
True. Not so good for the Kurds, but at least it was stable.

Lets not forget anyone who opposed him.

He destroyed the town of Dujail and imprisoned all its women. The men disappeared (assumed massacred).

He invaded Kuwait over oil and debt and when pushed back his forces he set fire to their oil as they retreated, burning over a billion barrels. They also opened the pipelines releasing over 10 billion barrels. All of which caused environmental disaster.

Towards the end of the Gulf war in 1991 he massacred thousands of Shiite Muslims for supporting the Shiite rebellion in Southern Iraq. These Marsh Arabs had lived in that region for thousands of years but he bulldozed their villages and built a network of water control that diverted water away from the marshes thus decimating their way of life. The marsh area is now 10% of what it was.

None of this surmounts to what I would call stability! How quickly people forget.
 
Alright princess, put your handbag away.

Demands someone opens their eyes, yet insists oppressive dictators are a good thing. Fantastic.
Try and answer with a yes or no without giving an unwanted history lesson filled with snide comments to anyone that disagrees with you.

I'm afraid it was I doing the disagreeing with your statement, and it is in fact you getting quite precious about that.

You need the history if you want to even begin to understand anything that has come to fruition there.
 
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I never 'insisted' dictators are a good thing....please try again

Not sure what your third paragraph is about... I know you are the one disagreeing (although not actually sure what you are disagreeing with exactly).

So you couldn't give a simple yes or no to my question?....cool.

I absolutely agree with you. What the people in this violent hell hole needed was a ruthless dictator who knew how to keep them all in check. What the west has done is gone in and killed these people that knew how to keep a lid on the whole mess.

So what I can gather from all that you have said is that you're happy that these areas are ruled by a genocidal maniac who kills thousands of his own people if it means no ISIL in your News headlines?

"Keep a lid on the whole mess". Hmm, I think you have a skewed view of what that entailed for many of the people. It's easy to fall ignorant sat way back in relative safety.

I think steps forward often come from taking steps back. Removing such people is right. I wish we did it in other countries where perhaps we had lesser concern for our own interests. Alas, the real world doesn't work that way and never mind that, the capacity of our forces couldn't stretch that thin.
 
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I tend to agree to an extent. At the time the second Iraq war started, I was very much of the opinion it was a good thing. I didn't care if the WMD thing was a lie as I thought it would be good to get rid of brutal leaders. Thing is, years later and some hindsight has made me change my opinion on the subject. I would still support the war if we concluded it properly but as it stands we pulled troops out too early and it's become a huge mess. I think we should finish what we started.

Tefal your 2 quotes don't highlight contradiction. What I've been trying to get at is that whilst I don't fundamentally agree with how these dictators go about their business, I'd much rather they were still in place than have what is basically a huge cult running a muck across several countries.


Completely agree, a plan should be seen right through to the end. The problem is it's hard to delineate what the plan actually entailed. Can we even condur up a grand master plan for so many people over such a vast area, and even if we did, how can it even be put into effect.

I think we had the right intentions; remove the dictator and give the power to the people to decide. What was not envisaged was that the power vacuum would lead to so much infighting that it resulted in the most extremist element gaining a huge foothold over the region. Unfortunately the culture isn't like others, it is deep routed with triablism and a desperation so strong in people that they will follow their religious belief to the absolute. I think those extremist leadership elements have preyed on those desperate minds and exploited those religious beliefs to control people to gain power, money and influence.
 
British government executing British citizens without trial...


Discounting the ISIS side of things we weren't even doing that when the IRA were bombing the mainland (AFAIK). I'm surprised that's even legal.

Edit: just seeing the above posts, I think it's perfectly legitimate to be asking for more information when the British government target British citizens. It would be a totally different matter if they were "collateral" damage from an attack on an ISIS target IMO.

Legitimately struck under the right to self defence. Seeing as this was completely lawful there isn't actually any valid argument against the action.
 
In both situations they were in the act (or in the case of gibraltar - believed to be in the act) of carrying out an attack. There is no evidence to suggest those two were (at least that we have seen).

There is some evidence that you have already seen. There is also some we have not seen, for obvious reasons.
 
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We are a country of laws and order. Both the government and public need to abide by the laws of the land. If they don't agree with the law the government need to change it. At the moment there is no way of rescinding their citizenship (for example)....

So other than revoking their passport, what else would you suggest?
 
I can guess that Amps viewpoint is one of concern over the manner in which this strike has been carried out. It was done in secret, in what may seem a dirty underhand way and perhaps he is worried about the precedence it sets? However, my response to that is so what of the alternatives?

Boots on the ground. Much more loss of life. Or maybe even send in a team to go after him, which is incredibly difficult and highly unlikely to result in a positive outcome where he doesn't just evade and disappear forever after.

Mind you, given the amount of money spent on doing these strikes I said you could give me £1m and I'd happily walk down his Street and shoot him for old DC myself :p
 
I assumed it was fairly obvious the knife would be out with the intent on using it... Anyway, I don't care. As far as I know the government are not using self defence as an argument for this action..

In his address to the Commons, the prime minister also said:

The strike had been approved at a meeting of "the most senior members" of the National Security Council, and authorised by Defence Secretary Michael Fallon

The UK acted under the "inherent right of self-defence" contained in the Charter of the United Nations, based on evidence from intelligence agencies

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-34178998
 
Funny isn't it, probably very few of you would trust what a politician says 99% of the time, but here, all they have to say is 'they were planning attacks' and you all lap it up!

You don't need to trust the governments words, just trust the offending terrorist' words...
no proof..apart from their videos and own words


I think holding the governments actions to justifiable account is a cornerstone of our democracy and bears no relevance to ones stance against terrorism.

Agreed, but you also need to trust in your own government to maintain your safety.
 
I wonder though... if we can closely track two targets in a country we are 'officially' not involved in...why the hell cant we track targets here in the UK?

It's quite obvious, lack of operating restrictions in the ME. What you're essentially asking is why can't the government conduct mass surveillance of its own citizens. I'm sure you're against that.
 
You just explained it perfectly. They would have been arrested and tried, in a court with a judge. Since they were in a lawless region though where our government couldn't get at them they went straight to "execution by missiles" instead.

Even worse, the decision seems to have been taken by Cameron and Hammond with no other legal backing than the attorney general saying there was a "legal basis" which they've refused to share in parliament.

The BBC paraphrasing Kat Craig (Reprieve) puts it succinctly: 'the prime minister "has given himself a secret, unreviewable power" to kill anyone anywhere in the world at any time'.



Have you read 1984? This is thought-policing.

Please.
 
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