The Beheading

[StrangeSox]

Yeah but public speeches by the President aren't detailed security and military assessments and strategies. If the administration isn't bothering to gather intel and analysis on what ISIL's goals, strategies, motivations etc. are that's pretty incompetent, but I don't think you can assume that based on certain interpretations of public statements.

[Balta1701]

Acting like these guys are performing random acts against random people IS pretending a problem doesn't exist, whether you drop bombs on them or not.

And you're acting like there's no potential reason behind it and discarding the most obvious potential reason because you don't like it. One might even say you're burying your head in the ground regarding their recruiting techniques and successes.

[Jenksismyhero]

And you're acting like there's no potential reason behind it and discarding the most obvious potential reason because you don't like it. One might even say you're burying your head in the ground regarding their recruiting techniques and successes.

 

 

I can totally understand being sensitive about calling these guys Muslims or Islamic followers or whatever without qualifying it to add that they are an extreme subset that should be differentiated from the hundreds of millions of Muslims out there that don't follow the nonsense they follow. I get that. I get that we should be careful about referring to Muslims generally.

 

But this strategy logically doesn't work to that end. Not being factual and purposefully muddling the facts in an attempt to prevent that sort of viewpoint is irresponsible, just like the opposite - claiming something is a hate crime/racist based on the fact that the victims were brown and the murderer was white - is also irresponsible.

 

 

No, i've pretty thoroughly explained my position here. I just find the strategy pretty nonsensical. I have yet to hear how being truthful about deliberate attacks and not random acts of violence will lead to more Muslims joining ISIS' cause. There's also the double standard in his responses that I find troubling.

Edited February 19, 2015 by Jenksismybitch

[StrangeSox]

Well apparently the original outrage was over the White House's initial statement that just referred to them as "egyptian citizens," but Obama has since published an editorial in the LA Times referring to them as Egyptian Christians so I think we're good now.

[Soxbadger]

Aren't you just arguing semantics?

 

Any attack is "deliberate" in the sense that they meant to hurt someone, but at the same time the place/targets/etc is seemingly "random".

 

When I read these type of things I feel like there is some suggestion that Obama is anti-christian, which just seems kind of odd. And the main thing is, I really dont care. The US isn't secretly supporting ISIS.

[StrangeSox]

this is disheartening:

 

 

You'd think "never get involved in a land war in the Middle East" would be pretty much common sense by now...

[Soxbadger]

Actually for all of the bad, you can make a pretty legitimate argument that by getting involved in "small scale" conflicts the US has avoided there being a "large scale" conflict.

 

Id love to imagine a world with no military conflict, but, historically speaking, peace is the outlier.

[StrangeSox]

back-to-back-to-back-to-back failures costing trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives over about 13 years doesn't seem all that small scale, and Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and now Syria were never going to develop into a legitimate "large scale" threats to the United States.

[Soxbadger]

back-to-back-to-back-to-back failures costing trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives over about 13 years doesn't seem all that small scale, and Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and now Syria were never going to develop into a legitimate "large scale" threats to the United States.

 

Austria-Hungary was never going to be a legitimate threat to the United States, but it certainly played a role in starting World War I, which resulted in a pretty catastrophic path.

 

You can count the legitimate threats to the US on one hand. So if that is the threshold, the US should never get involved anywhere, because it really doesnt concern us.

[Jenksismyhero]

back-to-back-to-back-to-back failures costing trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives over about 13 years doesn't seem all that small scale, and Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and now Syria were never going to develop into a legitimate "large scale" threats to the United States.

 

Americans were killed by the people we were going after/may go after in those countries, or at least some of them, no? Isn't that enough?

[Jenksismyhero]

ISIS also appears to be a completely different animal than the others. They make Al Qaeda look like a street gang.

[Texsox]

I'd like an argument for how saying "these ISIS terrorists deliberately targeted non-Muslims, in this case [Christians/Jews]" will incite these f***ing crazy assholes to hate us more than just saying these are "random" attacks.

 

For the third time, i'll bring up my analogy that no one has responded to: White cops are targeting black teens and killing them. They admit that's what they're doing. The President doesn't bring up hate crimes or racism, he says it was just random acts of violence for fear of pissing off police/making people distrust the police more. Your response is, oh well, that's fine. Right? No, not a chance. And I wouldn't like that either.

 

So you believe white cops should be compared to ISIS?

[Texsox]

Acting like these guys are performing random acts against random people IS pretending a problem doesn't exist, whether you drop bombs on them or not.

 

What exactly is the problem? I believe the problem is people are being murdered. What problem are we pretending doesn't exist? You are arguing how to define the word random. Attacking and killing John Lennon was not a random act. The person singled him out. Someone who starts shooting inside a school is killing random people. But you are rejecting that definition of random. Does it really make a difference?

[illinilaw08]

ISIS also appears to be a completely different animal than the others. They make Al Qaeda look like a street gang.

 

Based on the Atlantic article about ISIS, however, it appears part of the reason ISIS is a different animal is their aims are regional - ie, building a caliphate in the Middle East. So based on that, one could argue that they are less of a threat to the US than Al Qaida ever was.

 

Unlike Al Qaida, ISIS is a threat that the regional powers in the Middle East (Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, even Iran) have to take seriously.

 

[Texsox]

ISIS also appears to be a completely different animal than the others. They make Al Qaeda look like a street gang.

 

9/11 with thousands of dead on US soil versus horrific attacks on dozens soon hundreds on foreign soil. Both are terrible. I think you are underestimating what Al Qaeda has done. Adults at the time were afraid to go to work in America.

[illinilaw08]

Austria-Hungary was never going to be a legitimate threat to the United States, but it certainly played a role in starting World War I, which resulted in a pretty catastrophic path.

 

You can count the legitimate threats to the US on one hand. So if that is the threshold, the US should never get involved anywhere, because it really doesnt concern us.

 

A war that started over an assassination and entangling alliances isn't really an apt comparison.

 

And if the US is going to go to war every time there's a despot committing mass atrocities, we'll be in a constant state of war all over the world...

[StrangeSox]

Americans were killed by the people we were going after/may go after in those countries, or at least some of them, no? Isn't that enough?

No, I don't think that's enough. Creating failed states throughout the region is a pretty terrible idea anyway.

 

Striking Al Qaeda in Afghanistan was justifiable for sure, but the 10+ years of occupation afterwards not so much. Iraq, lol no terrible unjustified objectively dumb idea start to finish, and look what it's left us. Ghaddafi did worse to the US in the past, and Libya is now a failed state with a burgeoning ISIS group. Yemen's currently a failed state, and while I don't think it's as directly the result of US military and/or covert intervention as the rest of them, our drone strikes don't really seem to be helping.

 

Will a functional, Western-friendly state suddenly emerge in Iraq and then Syria if we send a bunch of troops there? I don't think history is on the side of yet another land war here.

[StrangeSox]

9/11 with thousands of dead on US soil versus horrific attacks on dozens soon hundreds on foreign soil. Both are terrible. I think you are underestimating what Al Qaeda has done. Adults at the time were afraid to go to work in America.

I have to imagine that with the years-long military campaign in Syria and then their actions in Iraq last year, ISIS's death count is into the thousands if not tens of thousands by now.

[StrangeSox]

A war that started over an assassination and entangling alliances isn't really an apt comparison.

 

And if the US is going to go to war every time there's a despot committing mass atrocities, we'll be in a constant state of war all over the world...

It's not even so much about isolationism and "it doesn't concern us" as it's about the actual record of how much good/harm our interventions in comparable situations end up doing.

[Soxbadger]

Based on the Atlantic article about ISIS, however, it appears part of the reason ISIS is a different animal is their aims are regional - ie, building a caliphate in the Middle East. So based on that, one could argue that they are less of a threat to the US than Al Qaida ever was.

 

 

A war that started over an assassination and entangling alliances isn't really an apt comparison.

 

Its actually a great comparison. The reason why ISIS is a different threat is that they could destabilize the region. The reason I pointed to WWI is because the region where the assassination occurred, the Balkans, was considered the "powder keg of Europe." If you look at the Middle East with a variety of different countries backed by different proxy powers, you could have a similar result where ISIS destabilization leads to a much larger war where countries such as Israel, Iran, US and Russia are eventually dragged in to support their regional allies.

 

Going to war with ISIS isnt about beheading people, its about protecting borders of allies, most specifically Iraq/Saudi Arabia, but partially Israel as well. There is a reason why the US is extremely involved in the Middle East and not so much in areas dealing with Boko Haram. It isnt about body counts, its about the potential long term impact of ISIS on the Middle East, and what the fall out could be if they were successful.

 

Again, they dont just want to stop where they are at, they want to take Saudi Arabia and other areas too.

 

Strange Sox,

 

Thats just opinion. In my opinion there is no way that letting ISIS succeed in the Middle East will ever result in "good" for the US.

Edited February 19, 2015 by Soxbadger

[illinilaw08]

Its actually a great comparison. The reason why ISIS is a different threat is that they could destabilize the region. The reason I pointed to WWI is because the region where the assassination occurred, the Balkans, was considered the "powder keg of Europe." If you look at the Middle East with a variety of different countries backed by different proxy powers, you could have a similar result where ISIS destabilization leads to a much larger war where countries such as Israel, Iran, US and Russia are eventually dragged in to support their regional allies.

 

Going to war with ISIS isnt about beheading people, its about protecting borders of allies, most specifically Iraq/Saudi Arabia, but partially Israel as well. There is a reason why the US is extremely involved in the Middle East and not so much in areas dealing with Boko Haram. It isnt about body counts, its about the potential long term impact of ISIS on the Middle East, and what the fall out could be if they were successful.

 

Again, they dont just want to stop where they are at, they want to take Saudi Arabia and other areas too.

 

Strange Sox,

 

Thats just opinion. In my opinion there is no way that letting ISIS succeed in the Middle East will ever result in "good" for the US.

 

They want to take over the entire Arab world with an interpretation of Islam that is inconsistent with that of even the most fundamentalist countries in that region. No established state in the Middle East, from Iran to Turkey, is supporting ISIS. This isn't a situation where there are entangling alliances that can force WWIII (ie, Iran on one side, Israel on another).

 

Further, "letting ISIS succeed in the Middle East" is not effective policy. But again - ISIS is a regional threat to every single established state in the region and we're seeing military intervention against ISIS from a number of those states.

[StrangeSox]

There's a big excluded middle between "letting ISIS succeed" and re-invading Iraq and invading Syria with ground forces. Hell, invading Iraq and creating a failed state there is what gave ISIL the room to grow and the training grounds in the first place.

 

As far as dragging in regional powers, ISIL is Sunni and there have been allegations that our good ally Saudi Arabia is one of their funders. Iran and Syria, both backed by Russia, openly fight ISIL. There's not really a threat of ISIL being able to drag the major regional powers and the three major international powers into a war opposing each other.

[Jenksismyhero]

This is all sort of moot anyway since Obama did put boots on the ground. Or, erm, "security analysts" or whatever he called them.

[Jenksismyhero]

So you believe white cops should be compared to ISIS?

 

Come on man, you're better than this. Read.

[Jenksismyhero]

What exactly is the problem? I believe the problem is people are being murdered. What problem are we pretending doesn't exist? You are arguing how to define the word random. Attacking and killing John Lennon was not a random act. The person singled him out. Someone who starts shooting inside a school is killing random people. But you are rejecting that definition of random. Does it really make a difference?

 

Again, read. It's not a complex thought.

 

Obama refuses to state that ISIS is killing people because of their religious beliefs. His admn has a whole policy on that because of a fear of offending other Muslims and perpetuating an anti-Muslim sentiment.

 

At home, that "policy" is ignored when it involves domestic race/religious issues. He's more than happy to call black victims of white crime victims of racism/hate. He'll conclude that a white person that kills 3 brown people did it because of racism/religious intolerance with no evidence supporting it. Clearly he's not afraid of offending anyone or perpetuating the "white people hate blacks/muslims" myth here at home.

 

It's broad v. specific. It's taking a stand versus not taking a stand. It's a double standard. If there was some legitimate reason for doing so, maybe i'd be ok with it. But I don't see an issue with calling a spade a spade. ISIS killed people based on their religious beliefs. The victims may have been random, but the targeted group was not. Why is it harmful to point that out?

Edited February 19, 2015 by Jenksismybitch