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VitalSigns posted:So all we have to do to defeat terrorism is pick a suitable country to bomb, accomplish Regime Change, then sit back and enjoy the flowers the locals shower upon us while we watch a tide of Jeffersonian democracy sweep through the Middle East. Pretty easy to willfully misinterpret and beat up strawmen when it's not your family getting barrel bombed as we speak.
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Sep 22, 2014 18:20
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It's not going to be perfect, but at least we will have killed a bunch of people. If you've got a better plan I'm all ears (as long as the plan involves killing a bunch of people)
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Sep 22, 2014 18:20
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VitalSigns posted:So all we have to do to defeat terrorism is pick a suitable country to bomb, accomplish Regime Change, then sit back and enjoy the flowers the locals shower upon us while we watch a tide of Jeffersonian democracy sweep through the Middle East. Nonono, you don't get it. I read many histories and making any decision whether to act or not act causes blowback or may set the stage for future catastrophe. Clearly the only correct answer is to not play the game. Sorry people getting murdered, we are taking the only true altruistic path of being paralyzed into autarky by straw man arguments.
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Sep 22, 2014 18:23
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I don't see much wrong bombing isolated ISIS columns. I think some of you guys are still stuck thinking this is Iraq War 2.
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Sep 22, 2014 18:24
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Imapanda posted:I think some of you guys are still stuck thinking this is Iraq War 2 It's still Iraq War 1.
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Sep 22, 2014 18:24
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Volkerball posted:Pretty easy to willfully misinterpret and beat up strawmen when it's not your family getting barrel bombed as we speak. "Pretty easy to oppose regime change in Iraq when Saddam isn't feeding your family into shredders." Torpor posted:Whoa get back in line buddy. The US can't do anything because doing things may cause problems. But don't question the merits of any plan or ask me to explain how it will make anything better, or even give reasonable assurance that it won't make things worse just like every single other time we ever listened to neocons.
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Sep 22, 2014 18:25
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Volkerball posted:Pretty easy to willfully misinterpret and beat up strawmen when it's not your family getting barrel bombed as we speak. Of course, switching to mk 84s is a-ok because American Bombs Don't Kill Civilians.
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Sep 22, 2014 18:27
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Imapanda posted:I don't see much wrong bombing isolated ISIS columns. Hold your horses cowboy that is how other quagmires started in the past. And don't you know IS was started by the USs invasion of Iraq? We just have to let the chips fall where they may. Edit: by chips I mean other peoples bodies.
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Sep 22, 2014 18:28
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Torpor posted:Hold your horses cowboy that is how other quagmires started in the past. And don't you know IS was started by the USs invasion of Iraq? We just have to let the chips fall where they may. Okay, God, we get it, you have no plan beyond dropping bombs to feel good about doing something, and you don't care to think about the consequences, fine, that's cool. You've got plenty of company among neocon think tanks.
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Sep 22, 2014 18:30
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Volkerball posted:It's really not comparable. It's not like he was saying you should have to be in the military to vote or to have an opinion. But if your opinion is based around calling for military action about poo poo, not having any understanding of what that entails for the people who actually have to put themselves in danger, it can certainly be seen as naive. It's not necessarily just military members who deal with that though. People who've had family deploy or anything like that also don't take those decisions lightly. And some people don't even have any firsthand exposure, yet still sound rational. It just depends. I think the point is that idiots are stupid. Niave? He called them cowards contemptible sniveling cowards. Don't white wash his opinion. He's clearly presenting the opinion that unless you've served your opinions aren't worth poo poo. Of course he probably doesn't actually believe that he's just using it as an excuse to gate the people who are allowed to have opinions which could disagree with him. gently caress him and his fascist argument.
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Sep 22, 2014 18:36
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Torpor posted:Hold your horses cowboy that is how other quagmires started in the past. And don't you know IS was started by the USs invasion of Iraq? We just have to let the chips fall where they may. Nice seeing people use the walking dead as poker chips for their argument towards bombing the exact same geography under some sort of moral guise. It's so nice to know that our bombs ask the people they're falling on first before deciding it's the proper time to blow up. There's never any sort of explanation about what to do after the bombs or how it's going to be any better and not worse. Sorry but something tells me civilian life is not at the foremost of the US military's thoughts as much as getting the bad guys that seem to just keep springing up all over.
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Sep 22, 2014 18:44
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farraday posted:Niave? He called them cowards contemptible sniveling cowards. Don't white wash his opinion. He's clearly presenting the opinion that unless you've served your opinions aren't worth poo poo. The neocon chickenhawks like Cheney and Rumsfeld who are duping you with their poo poo arguments are contemptible cowards in addition to having terrible ideas. They shouldn't be listened to because they are wrong, and saying that people who want war should be willing to bear the costs of it is not the Service Gauarantees Citizenship bullshit you're trying so hard to make it out to be. Nobody is saying military service should be required to vote, you idiot, just that people who don't know what they are talking about shouldn't be listened to. Do you want to see the results of a half-assed war run with a priority on not disturbing the comfortable lives of voters in any way rather than accomplishing the objectives? Well, it's called Gulf War 2, and we got four thousand dead out of it, an overloaded and underfunded system of military hospitals, the transfer of billions of dollars in wealth to well-connected contractors, and oh yeah a completely failed nation-building adventure that resulted in the creation of an explicit terrorist state. But sure let's take advice from Cheney again; if you don't listen to neocons, you're a fascist!
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Sep 22, 2014 18:48
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VitalSigns posted:The neocon chickenhawks like Cheney and Rumsfeld who are duping you with their poo poo arguments are contemptible cowards in addition to having terrible ideas. They shouldn't be listened to because they are wrong, and saying that people who want war should be willing to bear the costs of it is not the Service Gauarantees Citizenship bullshit you're trying so hard to make it out to be. Nobody is saying military service should be required to vote, you idiot, just that people who don't know what they are talking about shouldn't be listened to. People who haven't served in the military are contemptible sniveling cowards is a fascist argument regardless of if you're using it to argue for or against war you idiot.
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Sep 22, 2014 18:50
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It's not just "people who weren't in the military," it's "people who avoided the draft while advocating for war." It's a very specific thing and Cheney, Wolfowitz, Dubya etc. all did it. For real though, where is the loving plan? You can see Obama's sheepishness as he says "degrade and ultimately destroy." He doesn't even believe himself, why do you believe him?
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Sep 22, 2014 18:51
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VitalSigns posted:The neocon chickenhawks like Cheney and Rumsfeld who are duping you with their poo poo arguments are contemptible cowards in addition to having terrible ideas. They shouldn't be listened to because they are wrong, and saying that people who want war should be willing to bear the costs of it is not the Service Gauarantees Citizenship bullshit you're trying so hard to make it out to be. Nobody is saying military service should be required to vote, you idiot, just that people who don't know what they are talking about shouldn't be listened to. Why is it that when one holds opinions to which you disagree, they've been duped? Isn't it possible to reach those opinions without aligning oneself with neoconservative groups? Here are the results I want to see: ISIS degraded and destroyed. ISIS loyalists dead. Assad replaced by an American-aligned group. Iranian influence either checked or brought into American order. Turkish elites to play by American rules and quit their support of ISIS. Are those so hard to achieve? No. They take time. My Imaginary GF fucked around with this message at 18:55 on Sep 22, 2014 |
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Sep 22, 2014 18:53
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farraday posted:People who haven't served in the military are contemptible sniveling cowards is a fascist argument regardless of if you're using it to argue for or against war you idiot. I don't think that's the argument!
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Sep 22, 2014 18:54
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farraday posted:People who haven't served in the military are contemptible sniveling cowards is a fascist argument regardless of if you're using it to argue for or against war you idiot. Noted fascist propaganda: Dulce Et Decorum Est posted:...
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Sep 22, 2014 18:55
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Isn't VitalSigns a veteran of Iraq himself? Someone explain to me without snark Volkerball's position. Are we arming the FSA and other moderate groups (and hoping those weapons don't end up in places they shouldn't)? Should we try to build a coalition of moderate anti-Assad forces and just provide support sort of like what I believe to be the plan against IS? And if/when Assad goes, how do you rebuild and who does the rebuilding? And GF, why do you seem to think Iran and Turkey will be happy aligning with American interests?  I feel like this proxy war bullshit is part of the problem (and why Assad is still around).
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Sep 22, 2014 19:00
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VitalSigns posted:Okay, God, we get it, you have no plan beyond dropping bombs to feel good about doing something, and you don't care to think about the consequences, fine, that's cool. You've got plenty of company among neocon think tanks. I literally just last page suggested taking economic measures to limit IS's impact. You are fixating on bombing even though it does not appear that anyone is terribly excited about doing that. I don't think that I have really ever advocated bombing IS.
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Sep 22, 2014 19:05
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My Imaginary GF posted:Why is it that when one holds opinions to which you disagree, they've been duped? Isn't it possible to reach those opinions without aligning oneself with neoconservative groups? And yet, despite all of those things being so ostensibly not hard to achieve, the last decade of intervention has left us with thousands of dead and a stronger enemy than ever. Why is it any time in the past decade interventionists are pressed for details about how their latest invasion will work, instead of getting an answer we just get back accusations of cowardice and furious handwaving about how at least interventionists are doing something and that's got to be better than nothing. Torpor posted:I literally just last page suggested taking economic measures to limit IS's impact. You are fixating on bombing even though it does not appear that anyone is terribly excited about doing that. I don't think that I have really ever advocated bombing IS.  Then I don't understand the post of yours that I replied to because no one has criticized the idea of limiting ISIS' funds or said the US should do absolutely nothing ever.
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Sep 22, 2014 19:07
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VitalSigns posted:And yet, despite all of those things being so ostensibly not hard to achieve, the last decade of intervention has left us with thousands of dead and a stronger enemy than ever. Except your brilliant analysis does not really help anyone deal with IS right now. Intervening does not necessarily equate to bombing and invading.
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Sep 22, 2014 19:11
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MIGF, an American-aligned group in control of Syria? Do you have any idea how brutal such a regime would have to be? Jesus, these are the guys who get taken seriously, too. Ever wonder why we keep setting ourselves up for this poo poo? There you go
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Sep 22, 2014 19:12
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Torpor posted:Except your brilliant analysis does not really help anyone deal with IS right now. Intervening does not necessarily equate to bombing and invading. You are correct. I was specifically objecting to the sort of misdirected, fruitless military interventions of the past decade, which have worked so well as recruitment tools for ISIS, sorry about being unclear.
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Sep 22, 2014 19:18
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Torpor posted:Except your brilliant analysis does not really help anyone deal with IS right now. Intervening does not necessarily equate to bombing and invading. Deal with ISIS right now: 1. Bomb any organized pushes by ISIS against US interests 2. Arm and train Peshmerge, Iraqi, and FSA forces 3. Force ISIS to attack SAA in order to decrease Assad's capacity I have no qualms about how many will die in the pursuit of these strategies. I do have qualms about regional partners undermining the success of these strategies. SedanChair posted:MIGF, an American-aligned group in control of Syria? Do you have any idea how brutal such a regime would have to be? A brute under American control is better than a thousand little brutes punching at air and threatening USG interests and homeland security.
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Sep 22, 2014 19:19
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Volkerball posted:I'm reading them more than you are, evidently. If I had a dollar for every time I've posted a proposed solution in this thread. You didn't answer my question. How, exactly, will replacing Assad accomplish anything positive? Positive means better than what would happen if we did nothing. This isn't (or shouldn't be) a difficult question, and if you can't answer it don't complain about people dismissing your opinions as poo poo
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Sep 22, 2014 19:22
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I pointed out the flaws in the current plan, and said Iran are no better than Assad or ISIS. That's all. Regime change early in the war would have given the opposition their concession for negotiations with the regime by getting rid of Assad, and, while that was never going to be an easy process, now ISIS is there looming, so the weakened state after Assad goes could be fatal to the country. Which is fantastic, because Syria will never be peaceful under Assad ever again, so he absolutely will 100% guaranteed go at some point, whether we like it or not. Since this strategy enhances ISIS if anything, and the regime and the FSA will not stop fighting until Assad is gone, the longer this drags on, the more prepared ISIS is going to be to take over the country. It's not an easy situation, but it's not an easy situation specifically because we spent 3 years shoving Syria under the carpet, pretending that it wouldn't degrade to this point. Turns out "Don't do stupid poo poo" as a basis for foreign policy is stupid poo poo
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My Imaginary GF posted:3. Force ISIS to attack SAA in order to decrease Assad's capacity If you're talking about using ISIS against SAA, that means crucifying civilians as well. Let's be crystal clear about it. quote:A brute under American control is better than a thousand little brutes punching at air and threatening USG interests and homeland security. Is blowback just something you don't see, or what?
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Sep 22, 2014 19:22
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AUTOTUNED TOILET posted:I don't think that's the argument! Yes it is. Vital signs keeps refering to Cheney to disguise the fact he's calling anyone who supports intervention contemptible sniveling cowards if they haven't served. It is the exact same words sold by those condemning draft dodgers, but of course in Vital's hand's it's a truth unassailable because his cause is just. even if someone were to think that Failure to serve in the military makes you a sniveling coward and failure to serve in the military while arguing for using the military makes you a sniveling coward were distinct enough to warrant consideration, the underlying assumption here is that the only acceptable measure of someone's belief is their willingness to kill or be killed for it. The argument is fascistic through and through, stop defending it just because you don't want intervention.
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Sep 22, 2014 19:24
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Let's play a fun game, called "how many changes would ISIS have to make before My Imaginary GF accepted them as legitimate, American-aligned rulers of Iraq and Syria": -let Americans in -leave American interests alone
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Sep 22, 2014 19:25
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Mecca-Benghazi posted:Isn't VitalSigns a veteran of Iraq himself?
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Sep 22, 2014 19:25
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SedanChair posted:If you're talking about using ISIS against SAA, that means crucifying civilians as well. Let's be crystal clear about it. Blowback is a potential future threat. ISIS are an actual current threat. We can reduce potential future threats by being selective with the groups we arm and train. See also: US/Turkish disagreements on which groups are which. Let me be clear: I am talking about reducing ISIS' capacity for offensive operations against FSA, ISF, and Peshmerga. If the direction of their advance happens to be limited to SAA, well, what an unpleasant coincidence. SedanChair posted:Let's play a fun game, called "how many changes would ISIS have to make before My Imaginary GF accepted them as legitimate, American-aligned rulers of Iraq and Syria": -recognize fully and without condition the right of Israel to exist Assuming ISIS was capable of all those policy changes. They are not. They will not. Their MO is that they never will and are directly opposed to all those policy changes. That is how they recruit, and the means through which they are a threat that must be degraded and destroyed. My Imaginary GF fucked around with this message at 19:28 on Sep 22, 2014 |
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Sep 22, 2014 19:25
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My Imaginary GF posted:If the direction of their advance happens to be limited to SAA, well, what an unpleasant coincidence. *line of civilians kneeling to be executed by pistol* "Tee hee what an unpleasant coincidence"
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Sep 22, 2014 19:27
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My Imaginary GF posted:A brute under American control is better than a thousand little brutes punching at air and threatening USG interests and homeland security. And that's why our national security demands we fund Saddam's war against Iran's threat to USG interests, and we need to make sure to shield his chemical weapons programs from international scrutiny so he can deploy them against the enemy.
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Sep 22, 2014 19:27
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SedanChair posted:*line of civilians kneeling to be executed by pistol* "Tee hee what an unpleasant coincidence" If the civilians do not want to face ISIS justice, I would recommend they align themselves with US interests. We may be willing to reach an accomodation to make funds available, should they meet our particular criteria.
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Sep 22, 2014 19:29
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SedanChair posted:*line of civilians kneeling to be executed by pistol* "Tee hee what an unpleasant coincidence" I'd really love to see some proof that the FSA is actually capable of this magical feat of destroying ISIS and Assad once they only get some training and weapons, honest. Because a lot of times they are mentioned in this thread they are some sort of a mythical solution. Aren't they actually pretty fragmented in reality?
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Sep 22, 2014 19:32
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Serious question: can they even be stopped by conventional means? ISIS is a fluid organization with no permanent headquarters and an obfuscated and largely autonomous chain of command, it is also extremely well funded and has full control over critical resource supply chains. There is evidence that it is being supplied and supported under the table, not just by the usual suspects of the gulf states, but by a NATO member nation. ISIS operates in a region where arbitrary borders were drawn up by absentee powers a century ago, and largely ignored by the groups living in them. Nationalism is completely overpowered by cultural and religious identity. Vast swathes of these groups have been radicalized against western powers thanks to being stuck in a warzone for over a decade. I honestly do not see how modern military doctrine can adequately address ISIS, outside of actions which would be considered war crimes. They are not some rag-tag terrorist group, and they make precursors such as the Taliban look like thugs in Compton in comparison. As lovely as it is, I find closer analogues in the insurgencies of North Vietnam, the PLA, or the Bolsheviks. Quite frankly, unless they burn themselves out due to internal ideological strife and fracture, or we commit to a WW2 level of engagement, ISIS is getting their caliphate. Rime fucked around with this message at 19:39 on Sep 22, 2014 |
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Sep 22, 2014 19:36
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My Imaginary GF posted:Deal with ISIS right now: All of these have pretty large tail end risk. The Peshmerga are ethnic nationalists for instance, the Iraqi army at the moment is almost a shia militia if my understanding is correct. About the only other strategy would be to limit the impact of IS long enough for people to become disillusioned. That has actually happened to an extent, as there are militants returning to Europe who are cooperating with authorities. Other than that there are the Sunni groups in Iraq to attempt to align against IS. Also borders and bank accounts to seal off. I am not entirely sure whether I prefer targeted bombing or arming and training local forces. The obvious problem with arming and training local forces is that once you turn them loose god knows who they will ultimately fight for and where those weapons will ultimately end up. The US should probably do something counter-intuitive and arm local forces with the most expensive, complicated, large items imaginable. At the very least there would be a good chance the things would break down into uselessness if they go against US interests. Counterpoint to that is Iran  . Comedy option, arm Iraq, the Kurds, and the FSA with F-35s as they will have to continually rely on US support to make the things work.Say what you will about bombing people as a lovely strategy, one of the few things you can say about it is that it leaves the locus of control in the US's hands rather than god knows where. However, it is difficult to assess the value of bombing because they clearly produce negative results, but if it stops any bad guys from doing anything you cannot really quantify Things Not Happening. The track record of only bombing things does not look good if we look at Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. There do not appear to be any fantastic political solutions on the immediate horizon. Turkey appears incapable of controlling its border with Syria and Iraq is a basket case. Unfortunately the Coalition of the Willing has already kind of fallen apart. Edit: that is kind of why I mentioned taking economic action against IS, because that is one of the few things that are achievable with the partners on the ground in the ME. Edit2: I have bad language skills. Torpor fucked around with this message at 19:51 on Sep 22, 2014 |
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Sep 22, 2014 19:42
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My Imaginary GF posted:If the civilians do not want to face ISIS justice, I would recommend they align themselves with US interests. It seems ISIS is the ultimate boogeyman, but until they're exterminated they have their uses as well. How agile!
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Sep 22, 2014 19:42
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VitalSigns posted:"Pretty easy to oppose regime change in Iraq when Saddam isn't feeding your family into shredders." This isn't about you opposing regime change, dumbass. You aren't even addressing anything I'm saying because you're so sucked into the neocon/liberal narrative of the world that you aren't even slightly aware of how out of touch you are. Rwanda, Iraq, Vietnam, Srebrenica. Every one of these disasters were attributable to the same exact thing. Foreign policy that put the US first, and didn't give two shits about what happened to the civilians. Whether it's bombing critical infrastructure to try and send a message that what America says goes, or watching 800,000 people get hacked to death with farm tools in 4 months because it's real complicated and facts on the ground. Selfish policy that the majority of Americans supported because they were more concerned with American lives, tax dollars, or Kony 2012 levels of detached, feel good anti-war protesting. That is exactly what happened, yet again, in Syria. What the victims wanted never came into the equation. Liberals had to stop those loving neocons from marching to war by having Very Serious conversations about casus belli's and narratives and oil. 4 years later and we're still waiting for those impending strikes on Damascus that President McCain is going to begin any day. It's almost like you guys were all completely wrong, and just bumped over to the next enemy, ISIS, without missing a beat. Never noticing any sort of flaws in the way you approached the conflict at any point in the process.  If you gave the least bit of a poo poo about the innocent people caught up in all of this, you'd know an obscene amount are and have been flipping out at "anti-imperialists" like you, who make up stupid bullshit theories about oil, false flag chemical weapons attacks, whatever it takes to take their own agency out of the reality of the war, so they don't have to think about the consequences of their own actions. It's so much easier to deal with the response to literal concentration camps in the year of our lord 2014 if the US is a monolithic entity that isn't representative of anyone but Halliburton, who's only objective is more hegemony for the hegemony god. Then you don't even have to do research, or really know anything at all aside from a couple of little factoids! You just have to fight the US doing anything anywhere, and you're right! You saved the world from global imperialism! If history is so unanimously biased towards your "oppose the US on all fronts" nonsense, to the point that the merits of it aren't even worth seriously discussing because it's that loving obvious, why are there so many Syrians demanding to know how the world can sit by and watch them be slaughtered? Why are they asking for help from a country that is so objectively, clearly wrong at everything in your eyes? They are the ones who would have to deal with the consequences, and they know better than you what happened in Iraq. Why don't you ever talk about those neocons? Maybe victim blame them for their situation some more, because if the US shows them token support, there's clearly something sinister about them. I swear, half of you are happy we invaded Iraq and it went the way it did, just so you have something to feel smug and superior about.
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Sep 22, 2014 19:44
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farraday posted:Yes it is. Vital signs keeps refering to Cheney to disguise the fact he's calling anyone who supports intervention contemptible sniveling cowards if they haven't served. It is the exact same words sold by those condemning draft dodgers, but of course in Vital's hand's it's a truth unassailable because his cause is just. There is a huge difference between calling a 20-year-old kid who doesn't want to be drafted to fight a war he doesn't believe in a coward, and calling the heads of conservative think tanks or the vice president awarding no-bid contracts to his friends, who want to force that kid to fight on their behalf cowards. But anyway, that's not my argument. My argument is that the neocons are disastrously, catastrophically wrong. Mocking their cowardice and war profiteering is merely a bonus, and trying to conflate that with people who were literally locking up young men for refusing to carry on colonialism abroad is loving bizarre. What is so objectionable to you about the idea that people who are pro-war ought, morally, to be willing to enlist in wartime? Why should we ask the same families to withstand deployment after deployment, why should the burden of fighting fall mainly on those for whom the military is one of the few economic options open to them, why should we have to put in a back-door draft and force soldiers to stay in uniform after their contracts expire because not enough of those voting for war are joining up to fight it?
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Sep 22, 2014 19:44
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Hey Brown Moses or anyone else following this closely: Is there a primer list for twitter or youtube floating around? I feel like im just trowing poo poo at the wall trying to follow this conflict.
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Sep 22, 2014 19:45
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