Gathering Storm in the Mideast

[jordan179]

As many may now be aware, a radical Islamofascist organization, ISIS, which had been fighting in the Syrian Civil War, has now invaded Iraq.  With amazing speed, they have vanquished one Iraqi military formation after another, and are wreaking dreadful atrocities on the helpless civilian population.  Mosul and Tikrit have fallen.  Advancing ISIS

Comments

[skarman]

In case you've missed it, in that part of the world, heavy dying as you call it, has been going on for centuries. If it isn't clan against clan, it's tribe against tribe, Sunni against Shiite against Coptic, Arab against everybody else ad infinitum. Like I wrote earlier, the only time in recent memory that things were rather calm, was under the rule of guys like Saddam, Muammar, Hosni and the Assads.

Another thing you seem to conveniently forget, is that most of these people? They don't like the West. Sure, some of them will work with us, but only because, at the time, it's the only game in town. The Iraqis have been the ones on the other end of the US and Coalition forces' guns twice in a row. The Iranians held US embassy personnel hostage for months. Palestinian terrorists LOVED shooting, throwing overboard and generally being not very nice towards US citizens, especially if they were service members or were Jewish. The Saudis love our money, toys and females but gladly finance numerous terrorist groups and hold their oil supply over our heads. The Pakistanis? They love our money, our aid, both financial, military and other types but they finance our enemies, hid Bin Laden and would love to see us under their heels.

The US are the the "Great Satan" while the United Kingdom is the "Little Satan".

And just to refresh your memory, about half of the US population, you know, the ones who voted the current Golfer-in-Chief into the White House TWICE!!!! have always been of the opinion that we should "talk" and "negotiate" with these poor, misunderstood people. Do you really see them grow a spine and start pushing for action? Do you really think they will welcome a new war, just because THU WON!!!! is the one pushing for it? I don't know what is scarier, that or Obama actually ordering troops to move in. With the way he's gutted the military, his administrations actions against them, gutting the US military leadership into a bunch of "Yes Men". It'll be a repeat of Vietnam or Lebanon in '82. ROE will be so restrictive and schizophrenic not even an army of psychiatrists will be able to untangle it. Just watch the scene in Robocop II where the load so many new directives into Robo's brain it hampers his ability to do his job.

I remember where I was on September 11. I remember watching the second aircraft fly into the WTC. I remember the bombings in Madrid and the fact that, to this day, nobody knows what became of a female colleague who was supposedly on one of the trains, on her way to work. We kicked their asses for that. Our soldiers didn't get to finish the job because the GiC didn't want them to.

We live in a world filled with followers of Neville Chamberlain. Remember him? He who appeased Hitler, an icon to many of these nutjobs in the ME. These neo-Chamberlain's will excuse anything, give up anything just as long as they can buy themselves another second. They'll #hashtag everything, attack their own family if they don't hold the same views as they themselves do. It would take another attack on the level of 9/11 or larger to even have a glimmer of hope of making them change their stance.

Sealing off your borders isn't easy but you also should not leave them wide open like the US have been doing. How hard is it to deny entry to anyone originating from certain places? How hard is it to deny any aircraft from certain places entry into your airspace? Sure, businesses wouldn't like it but if you really want to do business with someone from the Mid-East, hop a plane and go to South America and meet them there. Or, you know, use video-conferencing, email and scanners to sign documents. Better yet, don't do business with them. Starve their economies. They want a return to the Dark Ages? Fine, we'll help them. No more buying their oil and no more selling them our products.

[skarman]

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

We've become complacent because we've not been under the threat of the gun. We have zealots, religious and political trying to enforce their will on us. The latter is the bigger threat for they are the ones willing to bend our necks towards the former. I say we deal with the latter ones first. Hopefully, before the former manage to perpetrate more 9/11 style attacks, though maybe those need to happen to open people's eyes.

Personally, I'd have turned the whole area into glass already, notwithstanding that not everybody there is part of the evil permeating that region of the world. I'm that fed up with these people. THAT is my idea of "flattening them".

[ford_prefect42]

Disclaimer: The following is a nit. I am compelled, by mental forces beyond my control, to pick those.

"glassing" significant portions of the world is not feasible, nor was it ever. When we invaded Afghanistan, I ran some math, using the nuclear arsenal at the time, and this
http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/gmap/hydesim.html

I determined that the entire US arsenal would be capable of putting 1/3 of the land mass of Afghanistan within the 2PSI ring (severe damage to residential structures).

Nit ends.