At war, again

Is there another batch of munitions with their use by date approaching?  I presume it must be very expensive to have to decommission them - much simpler to just use them up and blow the sh*t out of some terrorists and many innocent civilians who have nothing to do with them or their cause.

It's spineless immoral action by the western powers.  I sympathize with the frustrations but this cannot be the answer.

Peter

I don't agree with your lack of support, but I can understand your frustration.

However, until you, or somebody comes up with a decent alternative, the outcome (without any sort of intervention) will simply be the spread of a brutal, vicsious organisation that won't be half as decent as Nigel Farage when they (that's ISIS)  oust our pathetic government without bothering about any election.

Now, in 1972/73 I played an insignificant role in helping to sort out an insurgence in souhern Oman. It took thousans of other people and about six years hard fighting, together with winning hearts and minds, but doing nothing would have left Oman in a pretty sorry state.

In other words, my experience is different to that f many others. But a short-term bombing campaig isn't, by itself, a solution. We also need to integrate and support the local popoulation, assuming that they want rid of ISIS. That part has been mentioned, but I don't see any subsequent action yet. Perhaps the current bombing is just a holding position until local ground forces and infrastructure support teams can be mobilised ?

I probably wont gain any friends with this post.....oh well so be it !!

MY view on things is this....We are a tin pot country that  is up to its neck in debt,yet every time there is trouble anywhere in the world we have to stick our bloody nose in and get involved. Wars etc are bloody expensive,so why keep being involved. IF we are going to get involved i feel every other country should share the burden,not just GB plc.

Mista H

We are an Ex-Empire, but we still pretend to the power that was from Empire.

It is time for GB to grow up like the Germans have done in exemplary fashion since 1945.

Our time as top nation or even number two is sixty years gone - possible even eighty plus.

When we grow up and forget the Empire attitude then we can care for the Elderly in correct fashion for a mature liberal democracy, like Norway does. And get educational of all correct, like Norway ...

ATB from George

What does this have to do with going to war with ISIS?

I think it makes the point that radical and terrorist organisations thrive on the propaganda of attacks on their civilian population.

good post Bruce. Some people on this M/B are always quick to have a moan !!

Mista H

Excellent post Bruce, agree but …….. ????.

IS will, left to do whatever it is they are trying to do, will probably kill many thousands, millions even,  of people with  whatever it is they don’t like & set up some form of totalitarian Islamic state.  They will follow some carefully selected snippets of the Quran & other teachings & probably end up with something far far away from real Islam.  Eventually once Syria, Iraq & then Lebanon & possibly Jordon are taken over, Israel will be under serious threat & that will quickly end up with a full frontal war & that believe me will get very very messy. No matter what US & UK & the others are doing now, it will be all out boots & the ground with the whole region involved & US fully behind Israel making even more enemies & giving more reasons to move Islam to be even more radical. 

I see the dilemma in leaving them to do their will ending in that scenario. 

The problem to me is if the “west” don’t do something, then who will?  The Saudi’s seem to be incapable of anything.  They have the biggest air force in the region,  bigger than most European countries in fact, not sure what they need it for but seem to be quite content to let IS rampage over the region ‘cause it’s not their back yard. Maybe they will get involved once IS move into Jordon.

Turkey have the largest land army, but again seem to be reluctant to join in, maybe allying with Kurds is a move they do not wish to make. 

In my mind, unless Saudi & Turkey & even Iran can get fully involved politically first & foremost & lead a united Arab dialogue with IS & backed up with a united military behind the diplomacy,  then & only then should the “west” get involved with its military on an assistance basis. 

Yes I know its Utopia,  & I guess in the meantime we will kill more civilians put in harm’s way with human shields, targeting errors & so called collateral damage.   

Lots I agree with Mike

The non -engagement of the Saudis surprises me. I don't understand their politics.

I guess why should Saudi/Turkey/other moderate Arab states take this full on-and expose themselves to risk of strife etc if Western powers are prepared to push into the front of the offensive.

This apparent role of the UK as some sort of global policeman also makes me very, very uncomfy. I don't think we have the mandate, the public support or indeed the finances to do that.

Bruce

ISIS has made a large show of beheading 3 foreigners, and the West is (rightly) outraged.

In August alone, Saudi Arabia, through its government "justice" system, performed 19 beheadings...and has performed 46 this year.  A number of these were for such heinous non-violent crimes as sorcery, or drug trafficking.

But our free, open, and transparent media doesn't trumpet that, does it?

We in the West seem very selective in our playing of the "human rights" card...our position on such things seems to be affected by a few billion rea$on$.

When you look at the mess in the Middle east, the West's (mainly US, and now as proxies the UK) have their fingerprints all over everything.  And continue to exacerbate the mess.  We've created a situation that is so convoluted and messy that as Brice points out it's difficult to even know what would be a prudent course of action.  And there is something distinctly rotten about the whole Saudi thing in the region.

But I don't think training a fire hose with gasoline on the fire is the answer.   Eventually it will lead to a major war that extends far beyond the region.  And with the human animal's lack of judgment it is only a matter of time before nuclear options get used.

I have a 79 year old friend from Cuba (so his perspective on life is not that of a typical westerner) and he correctly points out that Islamic culture is one of huge extended families.  Every time we bomb or drone innocent civilians, we are creating 50 lifetime sworn enemies of the USA.  And to posit that it is not being done in the name of the monied and corporate interests is just Pollyanna thinking.  There is nothing altruistic in anything of our foreign policy.

To Bruce's point: when & how does it end in a proper fashion?

One problem I unforgivably omitted in my 1st post is that both IS & Sudi are sunni. Maybe one reason why they are reluctant,  maybe an impasse that keeps them out of the conflict and also something that means their existing IS support continues. The US/UK/Saudi air coalition is probably worthless in reality if/when the Saudi's are required to go into action. 

To keep things in perspective, the UK has joined a co-alition of some 40 nations, who at the request of Iraq (and with the support of the UN) have agreed to take action agains a group of terrorists occupying large tracts of Iraq.

The UK involment at present amounts to 6 Tornados.

Just because we can't solve ALL the world's problems or change ALL the world's governments to open democracies free of Capital punishment etc etc, doesn't mean we are disenfranchised to assist others who are dealing with a widespread group of terrorists.

What's gonna happen when Russia starts oil exploration in the Canadian Arctic..............

the West should keep well out of this latest Middle East situation and let the Middle East states fight for themselves.

The West can then negotiate with the winners or wage a proper war if the winners threaten our borders.

Good post.....gets my vote.

Mista h

Dear Don,

I did make a reply to your response to me.

I deleted it. Not because my reply was wrong, but because your combative style is not worth my effort to try to make a reasonable and polite debate with you.

Everyone else is making sensible and reasonable points, but you revert to plain rudeness. I therefore take your contribution [and reply to me] with a pinch of salt ...

George

The problem with a "movement" like IS is that - regardless of the outcome of the current conflict - it already threatens our "borders", because many of its supporters already live here (or in the US, Australia, etc).

Since the movement has already stated that it wants to establish what it calls "a worldwide caliphate" (or what others, me included, would describe as a fascistic and brutal theocracy), it seems reasonable to think they actually do pose a threat right now.

Mike, I wonder whether the one country that needs to be involved in all this, and which could possibly do most to solve/eliminate the problem, is Iran.

I do find it a bit odd that the West is willing to get involved with nasty regimes like Saudi Arabia [many of whose most prominent citizens are probably bankrolling IS] but not the Iranians.

That is so true. Which is why none of these problems will ever be solved until the Palestinians attain some sort of sovereignty and peace. Every time a Palestinian mother weeps for her dead child, or another young Arab in Gaza is killed by an Israeli soldier, the Islamist extremists gain another five, 10 or 20 potential foot soldiers.

That is your perogative, but your post needed to be corrected on a number of points. My style was plain and robust.

My post was a reasonable perspective, and your response was ignorant of basic grace.

It is time for the West to butt-out of Middle Eastern Government. We did not save these people from the Ottoman Empire in the last five generations to be permanently responsible for all Politics in the Middle East ...

Germany was rescued from Nazi Tyranny three generations ago and by now even the most oppressed have got over it.

Time for us to let Arab fight Arab without intervention [they will get tired of it eventually] - this is not Bosnia which was a European problem after all [and was certainly our cultural domain] - but now defend our own borders from the madmen, rather than create 150 Islamists for every perfectly innocent collateral death in Arabia caused by British or US bombs.

Time to stop behaving in the "gun-boat" diplomacy-style of the "top-nation" in the World as pre-1918.

I am fairly sure that the British Security Services know who really need watching in the UK.

Perhaps we need to accept some surveillance of the UK population to prevent bombings in London, Birmingham or Manchester, but we don't have to cross the bridge and tell which Arab need kill which other Arab ... with the risk to British Military personal as well an ever enhanced threat of radicalised  home grown population directly as a result. There is no such thing as clean War or surgical attacks. It is all dirty, and the cost needs weighing against the heritage that lasts generations. After all we should have deposed Mugabe long before ever getting into Afghanistan or Iraq with the USA. Twice we tried in Af, and failed [in the 19th. C.], and so we should have learned out lesson and stop meddling ...

George

I guess we will all be pondering all the possibilities for some time maybe more than our own lifetimes I fear Kevin.  Frankly I don't see an end to it anytime soon, but a lot of grief in the meantime. 

I see IS as challenging the world of sunni Islam & that includes challenging the Saudi position above all,  Saudi is the keeper of the faith & the holy sites in the eyes of most Muslims.    

The rest of the non-sunni Islamic world seem to be IS targets for extermination or conversion or whatever.  With Iran in the mix (Iran is I believe the worlds largest shia population, it could lead to an all out sunni/shia war. Saudi v Iran & various follows on whatever side. Then that is liable to spreads in to Pakistan with more or less even mix of both.  It really does not bear thinking about.  

I get the feeling that if the west just left them to sort it out causing (eventually) the whole region to get into diplomacy,  then I can foresee land being made available for an IS state to be set up & to to enable the more extreme sectors of the sunni schism to be free to practice whatever it is that sharia law is.  Then with some years of that it will all change again I am sure.

But like I said,  many of us will probably be long gone before this is all over.  

They don't.