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XMNN posted:Saddam, Gaddafi and Assad were all vile murdering torturing animals, but the hundreds of thousands dead and the countries laid to waste make it difficult to say getting rid of them was unequivocally a good thing. Think of it from Pissflaps's point of view XMNN, they were brown people.
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Nov 30, 2015 23:51
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Tesseraction posted:So are you basing foreign policy over its domestic response or on its foreign achievements? I was responding to a post asking how politicians might respond to the lessons learned from 2003 in the vote on Wednesday. I don't decide on foreign policy. I'm not voting on Wednesday. I'm not sure why you're finding this such a struggle. Maybe you should focus less on personal attacks and more on the issues.
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Nov 30, 2015 23:52
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XMNN posted:Saddam, Gaddafi and Assad were all vile murdering torturing animals, but the hundreds of thousands dead and the countries laid to waste make it difficult to say getting rid of them was unequivocally a good thing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0WDCYcUJ4o
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Nov 30, 2015 23:52
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Tesseraction posted:I just said I wouldn't enable you; I did read the post. Then you might have understood that the post you were putting up for ridicule and derision was not a shot at inaction, but that wondering MP's had 'learnt their lesson from iraq' was a bit misguided considering this is not a vote to launch a groundwar, but a vote for air strikes. Just like libya. I mean I understood that, and I apparently have severe learning difficulties. I would have assumed someone with such a great and broad intellect as yourselves would have got it to but here we are.
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Nov 30, 2015 23:52
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XMNN posted:Saddam, Gaddafi and Assad were all vile murdering torturing animals, but the hundreds of thousands dead and the countries laid to waste make it difficult to say getting rid of them was unequivocally a good thing. Baghdadi, surely? We're de facto backing Assad (even if Cameron would never admit it).
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Nov 30, 2015 23:53
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Pissflaps posted:At what political cost to Westminster politicians. Even rhetorical questions are meant to have question marks at the end of the sentence 'Flaps. And the answer is that now an ISIL affiliate controls an area around Sirte, Libya is a regular departure point for many refugees from Africa, & ISIL agents could easily be infiltrating Europe that way. I'd say that would have some political cost.
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Nov 30, 2015 23:53
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I didn't realise our intervention in Libya was against an actively hostile group who are committed to responding with terrorist attacks in our countries, and who are incredibly successful at using propaganda to recruit people to their cause. In that case this probably is totally the same
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Nov 30, 2015 23:54
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forkboy84 posted:Even rhetorical questions are meant to have question marks at the end of the sentence 'Flaps. And I'd say it doesn't. Libya hardly gets a mention just four years on. Iraq, on the other hand, is on everybody's lips when talking about possible intervention in Syria.
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Nov 30, 2015 23:55
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forkboy84 posted:Even rhetorical questions are meant to have question marks at the end of the sentence 'Flaps. We're almost certainly going to approve air strikes, and the next step up that ladder is of course the tried and tested special forces, then full soldiers on the ground. The only reason I can forsee that we don't reach the boots on the ground state is that Russia get to it first so the US and UK have to stay the gently caress out.
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Nov 30, 2015 23:55
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serious gaylord posted:This just in, WMD's are in Syria!!! Yes, but we're NOT trying to destroy them this time because
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Nov 30, 2015 23:57
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Pissflaps posted:I was responding to a post asking how politicians might respond to the lessons learned from 2003 in the vote on Wednesday. I don't decide on foreign policy. I'm not voting on Wednesday. So you mention, how many people who voted for the Iraq invasion have been voted out of office versus those who voted for and haven't been voted out of office? Perhaps it's just me, but I'd have thought the 'lesson' to learn was how (in)effective intervention is. The politician's vote does not directly affect them, it affects the people they sent across to die or be wounded, as well as those who saw their comrades die or be wounded. Just to remind you, I'm reading but not enabling.
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Nov 30, 2015 23:57
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Tesseraction posted:I think I need to make it clear, I'm going to reply to this post now but from here on in I'll not reply to you because I don't like enabling people with severe learning disabilities. lmao christ you're a oval office
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Nov 30, 2015 23:57
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forkboy84 posted:Yeah, he was. But getting rid of him & then just washing our hands left us with a total mess. Frankly the only time to get involved in Syria is after we have a plan for what the gently caress to do in the peace. Getting rid of Gaddafi & doing nothing didn't work. Getting rid of Hussein & placing a really weak government didn't work. So if getting rid of Assad is even an option (& I doubt it is considering Russian's position on him) we'd need some sort of idea of how to build a strong Syrian state that's more than just an empty puppet of the west. Probably need to spend a gently caress ton of money helping Syria to recover too. Yeah, I agree. Basically if we're going to war to depose a dictator we need to go Full Marshall Program* and treat every country we liberate the poo poo out of like a newborn baby, and prepare to be there for 20 years nurturing it as it grows and flowers into a beautiful, democratic, stable socialist paradise. But we're not going to do that. At best we're going to flog a shitload of cheap rebuilding contracts to western multinationals, wait for them to make their buck, pull out and watch everything turn to poo poo within 10 years and - oh look - Iraq needs to pay Halliburton another few billion to rebuild it all again.  *by which I mean specifically the commitment to rebuilding, not the horrendous imposition of free market ideology. communism bitch fucked around with this message at 00:00 on Dec 1, 2015 |
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Nov 30, 2015 23:57
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thespaceinvader posted:Yes, but we're NOT trying to destroy them this time because Did they ever find out just which side made the gas attacks or is it going to forever be lost in a murky he said she said argument?
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Nov 30, 2015 23:58
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serious gaylord posted:Did they ever find out just which side made the gas attacks or is it going to forever be lost in a murky he said she said argument? I think it was saddam, but fairly certain he bought the gas from the west and the CIA gave him the co-ordinates of the Iranians and satellite images so he could attack them properly.
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Nov 30, 2015 23:58
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serious gaylord posted:We're almost certainly going to approve air strikes, and the next step up that ladder is of course the tried and tested special forces, then full soldiers on the ground. The only reason I can forsee that we don't reach the boots on the ground state is that Russia get to it first so the US and UK have to stay the gently caress out. Boots on the ground would at least be a sincere attempt to stop ISIL, something that a bombing campaign on its own won't achieve. But it'd have to be a proper international peace keeping force (albeit something with more tooth than the Yugoslav wars where troops stayed in there base & did nothing while genocide went on. Eh, saying there's no easy answers is becoming a cliché but it's absolutely true. I oppose the airstrikes on the principle that I don't see what they are going to achieve, nothing more or less. If I thought airstrikes would stop ISIL I'd be on board despite generally being anti-war.
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Nov 30, 2015 23:58
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Pissflaps posted:Libya hardly gets a mention I suppose this is true if you read the British newspapers as your sole source of information on foreign policy. It seems that people who use Sonic the Hedgehog's serialised comic book as their sole regular reading material don't seem as informed on the intricacies of the Myanmar governmental power handover as the average fopo nerd, but I wouldn't say this is a weakness of anthropomorphic hedgehogs.
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Dec 1, 2015 00:01
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JFairfax posted:I think it was saddam, but fairly certain he bought the gas from the west and the CIA gave him the co-ordinates of the Iranians and satellite images so he could attack them properly. Think he means the gas attacks that happened in Syria, at Ghouta. The Joint Intelligence Committee came to the conclusion that it was "highly likely" the attacks were by the Syrian government rather than a false flag attack & according to the US government, they lack irrefutable evidence but "common-sense test" implicates Assad. So yeah, we don't really know with any certainty.
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Dec 1, 2015 00:02
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David Cameron’s plan for joining the war in Syria is a worrying document, full of wishful thinking about the political and military situation on the ground. It is a recipe for repeating past failures in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, by misjudging the strength of potential enemies and allies alike. Mr Cameron presents a picture of what is happening in Syria and Iraq that reflects what the Government would like to be happening. If he and those responsible for carrying out British policy truly believe these views, then we are in for some nasty surprises It is important to know if Isis is getting stronger or weaker in Iraq under the impact of more than 5,432 air strikes, 360 of them by British aircraft, carried out by the US-led coalition. The RAF has launched 1,600 missions, showing how difficult it is to target a guerrilla force from the air and it will face the same problem in Syria. Mr Cameron says that with coalition air support, Iraqi forces have halted Isis’s advance and “recovered 30 per cent of Iraqi territory”. In reality, the situation is much worse. Isis captured Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, in May, routing the Iraqi army despite strong air support from the US. The territory it has lost is peripheral to its core areas in Mosul and along the Euphrates. The strongest anti-Isis forces in Iraq are the Shia militias backed by Iran, which the coalition does not support with air power. In Syria, allies on the ground are going to be the armed opposition who are supposedly fighting both Isis and Bashar al-Assad. These forces are dominated by the al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham, a Sunni hard-line group allied to Nusra. The one place where the “moderates” had some strength was in the south where they launched a much-heralded offensive called “Southern Storm” this summer, but were defeated. Mr Cameron’s explanation of his strategy is peppered with references to “moderates” whom he wisely does not identify because their existence is shadowy at best. It would, indeed, be very convenient if such a powerful group existed, but unfortunately it does not. Mr Cameron’s Government does not seem to have taken on board that it is intervening in a civil war of great complexity and extreme savagery. There is a supposition that, if Assad were to depart, there could be a transitional Syrian government acceptable to all Syrians. A more likely scenario is that the departure of Assad would lead to a collapse of the state and the triumph of Isis and the self-declared caliphate. Britain may only be contributing minimal forces to the war against Isis, but it should not be fighting such a dangerous antagonist without a better knowledge of the battlefield. Patrick Cockburn is the author of The Rise of Islamic State: ISIS and the New Sunni Revolution.
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Dec 1, 2015 00:03
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Tesseraction posted:I suppose this is true if you read the British newspapers as your sole source of information on foreign policy. It seems that people who use Sonic the Hedgehog's serialised comic book as their sole regular reading material don't seem as informed on the intricacies of the Myanmar governmental power handover as the average fopo nerd, but I wouldn't say this is a weakness of anthropomorphic hedgehogs. Which, incredibly, accounts for the vast majority of the British public. You're so close. So close.
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Dec 1, 2015 00:03
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forkboy84 posted:Boots on the ground would at least be a sincere attempt to stop ISIL, something that a bombing campaign on its own won't achieve. But it'd have to be a proper international peace keeping force (albeit something with more tooth than the Yugoslav wars where troops stayed in there base & did nothing while genocide went on. Eh, saying there's no easy answers is becoming a cliché but it's absolutely true. I oppose the airstrikes on the principle that I don't see what they are going to achieve, nothing more or less. If I thought airstrikes would stop ISIL I'd be on board despite generally being anti-war. I would agree with you on pretty much every point. I fundamentally do not see the point in dropping bombs and doing nothing else as it won't achieve anything but back patting from politicians about what a great job they've done to save lives and stop those gosh darn terrorists. On the subject of a multi national UN force, do you think countries have the stomach for it? Its going to be nasty, there will be countless IED's, suicide attacks and genuinely horrible poo poo that a lot of countries wont want to deal with. You can't have it be just one nation then it becomes a defacto occupation but I honestly can't see Spain/Hungary or whatever sending people in to get blown up either. Frankly i'm at a complete loss to what to do with Syria. I guess thats why I'm not anywhere near being in charge of it.
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Dec 1, 2015 00:04
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Pissflaps posted:Which, incredibly, accounts for the vast majority of the British public. Are you under the impression I give a poo poo what the British populace think about bombing brown people?
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Dec 1, 2015 00:05
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forkboy84 posted:I oppose the airstrikes on the principle that I don't see what they are going to achieve, nothing more or less. If I thought airstrikes would stop ISIL I'd be on board despite generally being anti-war. What they're probably going to achieve is provoking a response for once, which means terrorist threats/attacks here and on British people abroad - which will be pretty easy to carry out and low-impact, but of course it'll have massive repercussions that affect our entire society and government policy, and strengthen the right wing. Calls for ARE BOYS to intervene on the ground will reach fever pitch, and we'll end up drawn into another ground war, except this one will actually have an effect right here instead of being something that happens to another country. And Cameron will become a well-paid Middle East peace envoy
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Dec 1, 2015 00:06
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Tesseraction posted:Are you under the impression I give a poo poo what the British populace think about bombing brown people? OK, deep breaths. Remember - we're talking about how polticians might react to the lessons learned from the respective lessons of 2003 and 2011. Keep joining the dots.
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Dec 1, 2015 00:06
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Pissflaps posted:OK, deep breaths. Remember - we're talking about how polticians might react to the lessons learned from the respective lessons of 2003 and 2011. Keep joining the dots. Politicians should only make policy decisions based on whether they get into power?
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Dec 1, 2015 00:10
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baka kaba posted:I didn't realise our intervention in Libya was against an actively hostile group who are committed to responding with terrorist attacks in our countries, and who are incredibly successful at using propaganda to recruit people to their cause. In that case this probably is totally the same To be honest, ISIS is probably too doomed to successfully use this as a recruitment tool. The problem is that once they get obliterated, the guy who'll be taking over their territory (with our overt hand-wringing and covert approval) is a real charmer. Assad runs literal industrial torture-factories, has killed almost six times more people than every other Syrian faction (including ISIS) combined, and is currently replacing the crumbling remains of his army with fanatical Iraqi Shia militias who like to cook people and post the videos on the Internet. There are currently three million Sunni Arabs in Syria. There won't be once he's done with them.
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Dec 1, 2015 00:11
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Darth Walrus posted:To be honest, ISIS is probably too doomed to successfully use this as a recruitment tool. The problem is that once they get obliterated, the guy who'll be taking over their territory (with our overt hand-wringing and covert approval) is a real charmer. Assad runs literal industrial torture-factories, has killed almost six times more people than every other Syrian faction (including ISIS) combined, and is currently replacing the crumbling remains of his army with fanatical Iraqi Shia militias who like to cook people and post the videos on the Internet. There are currently three million Sunni Arabs in Syria. There won't be once he's done with them. Don't forget he killed[?] Caro. Last reported in a torture camp begging people to kill him.
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Dec 1, 2015 00:14
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Assad is reprehensible, but so is the regime in Saudi, so are the gulf slave states, the despotic dictatorships in the *Stans which we support. Blair Loved Gaddafi, our leaders generally do not care about the moral nature of our allies or enemies, merely what makes the strongest case / story / PR line for whatever their goals are at the moment.
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Dec 1, 2015 00:14
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Oberleutnant posted:Don't forget he killed[?] Caro. Wait, gently caress, did that actually happen? I've only seemed to get hearsay RE: Caro's current situation.
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Dec 1, 2015 00:16
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Tesseraction posted:Wait, gently caress, did that actually happen? I've only seemed to get hearsay RE: Caro's current situation. To the best of my knowledge, yes, he got captured in Syria and I think Brown Moses heard that somebody saw a man they believed to be him in a torture facility.
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Dec 1, 2015 00:17
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Well gently caress. That's depressing. I mean, he shouldn't have been practising medicine but no-one deserves to be tortured. Except Dick Cheney.
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Dec 1, 2015 00:18
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Found this interesting link from Buzzfeed on PREVENT Children as young as 9 identified as an extremist risk. Take a look at that questionnaire, which is, disturbingly, bordering on fascist. If I was a child and religious I'd probably say 'the wrong answer' to all of them. I find it abhorrent that if you're Muslim simply holding the wrong opinions (even in the naïvete of childhood) is enough to warrant a response from the government. I'd hate to be one of those people yelling about 1984 everytime they see a CCTV camera but this is encroaching dangerously to thoughtcrime territory. What with the whole 'Muslims are sympathetic to Syrian fighters' thing, certain feelings too are off limits. gently caress me. e: forgot link.
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Dec 1, 2015 00:18
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Tesseraction posted:Well gently caress. That's depressing. The story of his earlier time in Libya is funny as gently caress because he just turned up - some westerner with a shipping crate of medical supplies - and the locals just assumed he was CIA, gave him a sniper rifle, and let him go hog wild lol
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Dec 1, 2015 00:21
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Hearing some of the poo poo my muslim friends have to put up with 'you better be careful talking like that' or 'you sound like you're defending ISIS' is loving worrying.
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Dec 1, 2015 00:21
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Darth Walrus posted:To be honest, ISIS is probably too doomed to successfully use this as a recruitment tool. The problem is that once they get obliterated, the guy who'll be taking over their territory (with our overt hand-wringing and covert approval) is a real charmer. Assad runs literal industrial torture-factories, has killed almost six times more people than every other Syrian faction (including ISIS) combined, and is currently replacing the crumbling remains of his army with fanatical Iraqi Shia militias who like to cook people and post the videos on the Internet. There are currently three million Sunni Arabs in Syria. There won't be once he's done with them. Sounds like even more reason for people to go fight for the cause, no? Part of Daesh's recruitment strategy is appealing to idealism, the idea that they're creating a state where Muslims will be able to live in peace and dignity, and that the fighting and the killing is a necessary evil - there was one quote from a Muslim woman who said that the beheadings are worth it if they stop the bombs dropping and killing hundreds of civilians. Dropping more bombs is only going to strengthen that kind of sentiment, and make the allure of resistance even stronger Doomed or not, they're still a potent force - and when you're worried about terrorist attacks at home, blowback propaganda should be a real big concern, because it doesn't take a lot of effort to cause a huge impact
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Dec 1, 2015 00:22
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J_RBG posted:Found this interesting link from Buzzfeed on PREVENT Hahaha holy poo poo what a blatant and hideous excuse for racial profiling. I mean, give that to a catholic kid, they'll give most of the same answers as a muslim kid, but are they 'at risk'? gently caress, most 9 year olds won't understand half the questions. This poo poo is heinous.
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Dec 1, 2015 00:25
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serious gaylord posted:On the subject of a multi national UN force, do you think countries have the stomach for it? Its going to be nasty, there will be countless IED's, suicide attacks and genuinely horrible poo poo that a lot of countries wont want to deal with. You can't have it be just one nation then it becomes a defacto occupation but I honestly can't see Spain/Hungary or whatever sending people in to get blown up either. I dunno. I can imagine it happening down the line when the air war makes no difference & maybe ends up with another attack somewhere in western Europe. But if it does happen, considering a reasonable chance that some completely brainless fuckwit will be in the White House by January 2017, Netanyahu will still be in charge in Israel, Erdogan in Turkey, Putin in Russia, it's hard to envision it being like it'd need to be done to actually make a lasting positive impact.
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Dec 1, 2015 00:25
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XMNN posted:Saddam, Gaddafi and Assad were all vile murdering torturing animals, but the hundreds of thousands dead and the countries laid to waste make it difficult to say getting rid of them was unequivocally a good thing.
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Dec 1, 2015 00:29
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forkboy84 posted:I think it'd be really unpopular, but if it was done through proper channels it'd be more popular than the Iraq War was. Marginally. But you'd have to go into with a proper exit strategy, a proper end goal of where you want to get to before hoisting the "We did it" banner from an aircraft carrier. You'd probably need a lot of forces to be from Muslim countries to avoid pushing the idea of it being another western force only interested in exploiting mineral wealth before loving off & leaving it a disaster area. But that's dodgy as well, can you imagine Iran & Saudi Arabia working together? More change of Russian & American fighting side by side. But there could never really be a proper exit strategy with a timeline and accurate goals in this situation. It would be a constantly evolving state that would go on for at least two decades to do it properly. I don't think anyone would commit forces to the UN for that time period. It would be deeply unpopular from the get go,and as it dragged on and on would get even worse. That's long enough for several governments to be elected on the basis of bringing their troops home which would add to the recipe for disaster.
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