The latest analysis I saw (was a couple of weeks back, cant remember the website sorry!) suggested that it was our lack of involvement in Syria that allowed ISIS the room they needed to grow. Not saying we should have got involved in Syria but it isn't always our fault, that area of the world is perfectly capable of stuffing things up without our help.
ISIL, ISIS, Daesh discussion thread.
- Thread starter RoboCod
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The latest analysis I saw (was a couple of weeks back, cant remember the website sorry!) suggested that it was our lack of involvement in Syria that allowed ISIS the room they needed to grow. Not saying we should have got involved in Syria but it isn't always our fault, that area of the world is perfectly capable of stuffing things up without our help.
Associate
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As I recall it was all very clandestine, but reports began trickling in of western backing a few months into Assad's brutal crackdown.
Flash forward half a year or a year from there and suddenly you were hearing about "swathes" of land being taken over by a new group called the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. Like they suddenly had sprouted from the very earth itself.
No point in getting into armchair-analysis mode on this one, clearly someone enabled these people and it rapidly went out of control. And all the confusion and to be frank, the utterly turgid and simplified reporting of the MSM in the West, regarding just exactly who and how this so-called "State" works...I didn't think I would witness such bs and spin in quantities larger than the lead-up to the Iraq war. Still, I have been unpleasantly surprised in that regard too.
Caporegime
Nevertheless, it's a massive victory for the jihadis in the UK.
So not that clandestine that a bunch of CT nut bloggers managed to find out about it?
That's not really the case though is it, the rise of ISIS is reasonably well documented, they didn't suddenly sprout from the earth.
I thought it was Assad, in that he concentrated his forces against the more moderate Syrian opposition and just let the jihadis do what they wanted to do? A tactic that worked reasonably well as ISIS didn't really like the more moderate Syrian opposition either. It also allowed Assad to stay in power as his opposition was fractured.
"It is the Wests fault" is just too simplistic and an easy throw away line, geopolitics is always going to be more complicated than that. We are damned regardless, we interfere and its all our fault, we let them get on with killing each other and it is all our fault.
Not really, all it means is that prisons have to follow the rules. Personally I think that is a good thing rather than prison wardens being effective dictators. The fact that they lost the human rights side of the case is actually really good. Though I suppose there is nothing stopping them from appealing to ECHR.
Caporegime
Yes really as it means those rules can't effectively stop bullying and intimidation by jihadi inmates.
Well they can, they just need to apply to the home secretary for longer than 72 hours. Or you can try and change the rules, just ignoring them though isn't an ideal way of going about things.
Caporegime
Which makes segregating these type of prisoners incredibly difficult.
So change the rules. Don't just break them, especially if you are part of the criminal justice system. Though I am not sure how applying for an extension from the home secretary is "incredibly difficult"?
Caporegime
That's fine if the rules are clear, something tells me if it ended up in court that they aren't that clear.
How would you feel if the rules said you or your head had to get permission from the Secretary of State for Education if you wanted to suspend a naughty pupil for more than 72 hours?
I would find it hilariously funny and then I would ask for the rules to be changed? But then suspending a child from school for more than three days is somewhat less serious than locking someone up in solitary confinement for over three days.
If the rules are unclear (though the decision from the UK Supreme Court was unanimous so they probably weren't that unclear) then isn't it a good thing that they have been clarified and changes identified?
Caporegime
Which is fine, except the way it's been handled makes it seem like the jihadis have scored a victory over the UK. I bet the taxpayer funded their case as well, which no doubt went to some dubious human rights lawyer like Phil Shiner.
What about the Shia government in power at the time in Baghdad when isil started rearing their ugly heads on a larger scale, yet the Shias just shrugged them off as not really a concern... Until they got within 50 miles of Baghdad and thought they actually ought to sort their own problem out. Oh look, they were too late.
Let's continue self deprecation though because that's edgy and cool.
Soldato
Not a messiah, but a very well traveled and informed journalist who destroys just about anyone and everyone in any argument.
But he was also very very wrong on a great number of things especially this one. I admire some of his oration don't get me wrong but people slate Blair for his involvement in the precursors of all this mess but seem to ignore one of the the greatest evangelists for the action was Hitch and yet they say nothing on that. I just find it ironic.
He was also prone to illogical arguments and verbal bullying. He was clear thinking but he was a shouty demagogue too and quite prone to a few fallacious lines in even some of his greatest moments. Especially on this topic.
Soldato
Well everyday I see wobbly liberals and conspiracy therorists, (and people in this very thread) just banging that same drum about how Tony Blair is a war criminal despite the fact hes commited none, I don't really care if 2 million people marched against the war on Iraq, I bet about 10 of those at that rally actually knew anything about Iraq and if you asked them where mesopotamia was they would probably say "I dunno is that a boy band?"
Heres a few of hitchens points, I've never heard or seen them refuted. (his debate with galloway on Iraq is a great one to watch)
A nation sacrifices its sovereignty when;
1. It invades a neighbouring state, as Iraq had done in Kuwait (in fact Hussein tried to annex and absorb Kuwait)
2. It has committed genocide, and therefore violated, the UN Genocide Convention (and the Convention by the way MANDATES immediate action be taken to either "prevent or punish" as soon as information is available) as Iraq did with the Al-Anfal genocide campaign in which at least 130,000 Kurds were gassed, some with US, UK, French, Russian and Germany weaponry, much to our shame (and is the reason we have a moral and ethical duty, obligation and responsibility to the people of Iraq)
3. It harbours internationally-wanted criminals, as Iraq had, giving safe-haven to the likes of Abu Nidal (who killed Leon Klinghoffer ) and Abu Rahman Yasin (who mixed the chemicals for the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993). 4. It tries to acquire WMD, or out-right violates the UN Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In his book, 'The Bomb In My Garden', former Iraq chief nuclear scientist Medi Abedi confessed remnants of a centrifuge were buried in his garden, and that dummy sites were manufactured to fool UN weapons inspectors.
Iraq met ALL FOUR POINTS, and therefore surrendered it's sovereignty to the international community and made the 2003 intervention and liberation legal AND moral. Only the US and UK took action because France, Russia and Germany were bribed thru the corrupted UN Oil-For-Food Programme.
Heres a real liar:
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Soldato
Who cares about these points, they are irrelevant apply them to all countries equally and you'll see endless warfare on planet earth. You'll cause more deaths then ever and there will be no rainbow at the end of it all.
There is no moral justification for the Iraq war, it was done by the powers at hand for whatever reason they thought it would benefit them.
And morality wasn't one of those reasons sunshine. Sick of this it was right because Hussain was a evil dictator, it's never that simple.
There is no moral justification for the Iraq war, it was done by the powers at hand for whatever reason they thought it would benefit them.
And morality wasn't one of those reasons sunshine. Sick of this it was right because Hussain was a evil dictator, it's never that simple.
Soldato
Justification issues aside, what I find unforgivable was the complete and utter lack of clear and concise objectives, and an exit strategy. Quite simply, the invasion of Iraq just wasn't thought through.
I recall a passage in a book written by Col. Tim Collins (IIRC), the then CO of the Irish Guards, who stated that during the planning of the invasion, the American general staff were solely fixated on how they'd defeat the Iraqi army. Questions from Britsh staff officers regarding 'then what?' were pretty much ignored. And the chaos of the insurgency, and now ISIS is what ensued.
I recall a passage in a book written by Col. Tim Collins (IIRC), the then CO of the Irish Guards, who stated that during the planning of the invasion, the American general staff were solely fixated on how they'd defeat the Iraqi army. Questions from Britsh staff officers regarding 'then what?' were pretty much ignored. And the chaos of the insurgency, and now ISIS is what ensued.
And why should we accept those criteria? I've never seen that written in international law would you care to show we where exactly in international law that is written. It is nothing other than his opinion.
By the way the USA meets those very same criteria. It has invaded far more countries than Iraq - the Iraqi build up was well signposted and yet no-one actively got them to back down, it has committed genocide of civilian populations - it left a whole city inside its own borders in anarchy with scant help from private security contractors - more Iraqis died post conflict than due to the actions of the regime per annum, it helped resettle and actively use Nazi scientists to further its own scientific endeavours and as to the last point no WMD where ever found - what you've said there is heresay - and we have even more criminals there now - woohoo good going. Now the last time I looked it's not correct to start a war based upon heresay and yet we did.
The ethical argument is clearly blown out of water when we consider the fallout of the situation and that far more harm was done than good. A moral component doesn't come into it - if you think it does you need to look at the definition of the word.