What to do about ISIS/ISIL

[Adama]

The question:

 

What should the international community do about ISIS, should we do anything at all? if so, what and how? If ISIS is our fault, is it our mess to clean up?

[Fox Fire]

Well I only see one possible option.

More war.

[Ayayay]

Well considering the fact that the Wahhabi movement could be severely weakened by removing them from power in Saudi Arabia and we still haven't done anything about it in the past few decades, yes, we are at fault.

 

ISIS want's us to put boots on the ground to gain the support of the moderate Sunni. Needless to say we shouldn't. We should however try to get local powers to intervene. Supporting the Kurds is a risky maneuver since it could hurt our ally Turkey in a few years.

[Shellhound]

Us putting boots on the ground is a bad idea, not because of it hurting us financially or people are tired of war or some shit like that. I'll take national security over financial security just about any day. What we have to do is help these people fight for themselves, ISIS isn't just gunning for America, they're looking to take over an entire country; this means killing a lot of the inhabitants of said country. As long as we go in trying to fight off every terrorist group that tries to gain influence in these countries we will never win, there will always be some other shitheads coming in trying to kill us and their own people. Once the people themselves learn to fight back and resist these groups is when we'll actually start to see some progress, when it comes to these groups the key factor is public support. We saw this in Vietnam in the 60's and 70's and we're seeing it again today with terrorist organizations, in the end the only thing that will ever make a difference is having a nation of people who are willing and capable of protecting their own homes.

[RagnarBuliwyf]

Drop some special forces in and take out any VIP's(This is likely happening without us knowing anyway). Failing that.Place their leaders onto a deck of 52 and they'll end up getting killed or captured. 

 

There is no "winning" situation with ISIS.  No matter what the US/UK/Nato do, we'll end up the bad guys. 

[Jerry LeRow]

Not sure whether America even should inntervene militarily. Imo there are many arab countries (Egypt, UAE, Algeria, ...) who want to fight ISIS too. And let's face it: the problem with terrorists is that they're like weed... if you got weed in your garden and just run over it with a lawnmover, it will grow again. You gotta rip it out of the soil, that's the only sustainable way, but much harder one.

 

America should, for sure (and because of the large military-industrial complex ) sell weapons to those arab countries who wanna fight ISIS. Atm, some of those would prefer to "rent" american military power and pay them for their operations... But that'd only make America look like a !@#$... an again, military power won't help much. Once you kill one terrorist, two others will show up.

 

 

It'd requrie strategic, slow, hidden warfare to undermine ISIS and destroy it. Cut off their supplies (-> saudis), wreck their infrastructure and communication (--> EMP), cut off their water supply to turn the citizens against them (--> via Turkey (NATO)), infiltrate them with spies to e.g. split their leadership / separate the group into smaller, less powerful and less organized groups, and finally crate chaos witin their caliphate and let spies spread bad rumours among the citizens.

 

This is a war you can barely win with conventional weapons. The more you kill, the more the hate will grow and the more newbies will follow their ideology.

[Hereno]

 

[Odin]

First, we should support Bashar al-Assad in Syria, and the idea of a free Kurdistan.

The idea to bring democracy to down there was just plain stupid to begin with.

Let closed cultures do what they wan't and have their states and don't push for old british-french borders from the colonial times!

 

Hussein, Assad, Mubarak etc. were all dictators who together killed a lesser amount of people then the ISIS freaks in the short time of their march.

They didn't support the minorities, but neither they hunted them, now you got your !@#$ing arab spring.

You must have a good-natured secularized dictator down there, if you give them the freedom to vote, they vote for islamist partys, and the !@#$ repeats.

To begin with there isn't a single -real- democratic muslim state in this world... so islam and democracy combinations are bound to fail.

 

America really should't do warfare this time, everytime they do it gets far worse afterwards -.-

Every single comment here already has just military content,....

 

...how about America just takes the refugees and just does welfare this time, additionally to weapons/equipment/medicine/food exports. And just wait till the people, who live there, create the land in a way how they want to, not how murica wants it.

 

The thing I hate most, are those !@#$ing refugees, who don't care about their home, just fleeing to millions... wait MILLIONS ? Lazy egoist bums, weapons everywhere and no ones gonna fight, at best trying to get asylum in europe. If they had fought them of at start of their movement, nah well thats to late of course. If the moslems in Germany would plan to create Germanistan, I wouldn't even think about running to dunno.. France?  -.-

 

Supporting the Kurds is a risky maneuver since it could hurt our ally Turkey in a few years.

lol , and?

Edited September 3, 2014 by Wilhelm II

[Adama]

To begin with a lot of the support for ISIS in Iraq is coming from the fact the Shiite government refused to support the Sunni majority in the North of the country, driving a lot of them to join ISIS. I don't think this can be remedy'd through a united Iraq. Iraq is an artificial country and needs to be split back up on ethnic grounds, with the Kurds in the north, the Sunni's in the East and the Shiites in the south. This solution of course posses just as many problems but I think they become more manageable.

 

ISIS would still need to be eradicated otherwise we would just be handing them their own Sunni territory. And there is no guarantee the Shiite south would be any better, though I would like to think so with support from Iran and a more moderate Shiite opinion. The Kurds in the north do need real, defined boundary lines so it won't cause problems for Turkey.

 

Iraq will not survive as a state because it was an artificial country to begin with. The Iraqi army at Mosul did not run because they were scared, they ran because they weren't going to give their lives for a country they don't believe in. The Shiites don't want to fight for Sunni's, and the Sunni's don't want to fight for Shiites. The country can not survive as a democracy because there is no democracy to be had.

 

On top of that, we really need to reach out to potential enemies of ISIS, including Iran and Kurdistan to deal with ISIS. We should not put mass scale boots on the ground, instead we should hand that mantle of Middle East stability over to someone who, lives in the Middle East. I know, shocking concept. A coalition of the willing is our best bet I think.

[Fox Fire]

First, we should support Bashar al-Assad in Syria, and the idea of a free Kurdistan.

The idea to bring democracy to down there was just plain stupid to begin with.

Let closed cultures do what they wan't and have their states and don't push for old british-french borders from the colonial times!

 

Hussein, Assad, Mubarak etc. were all dictators who together killed a lesser amount of people then the ISIS freaks in the short time of their march.

They didn't support the minorities, but neither they hunted them, now you got your !@#$ing arab spring.

You must have a good-natured secularized dictator down there, if you give them the freedom to vote, they vote for islamist partys, and the !@#$ repeats.

To begin with there isn't a single -real- democratic muslim state in this world... so islam and democracy combinations are bound to fail.

 

America really should't do warfare this time, everytime they do it gets far worse afterwards -.-

Every single comment here already has just military content,....

 

...how about America just takes the refugees and just does welfare this time, additionally to weapons/equipment/medicine/food exports. And just wait till the people, who live there, create the land in a way how they want to, not how murica wants it.

 

The thing I hate most, are those !@#$ing refugees, who don't care about their home, just fleeing to millions... wait MILLIONS ? Lazy egoist bums, weapons everywhere and no ones gonna fight, at best trying to get asylum in europe. If they had fought them of at start of their movement, nah well thats to late of course. If the moslems in Germany would plan to create Germanistan, I wouldn't even think about running to dunno.. France?  -.-

 

 

lol , and?

Mr. Bashar Al-Assad is a dead man walking. There's absolutely no way he is going to survive this.

[Fox Fire]

Unless maybe he flees the country while he still can.

[Shellhound]

To begin with a lot of the support for ISIS in Iraq is coming from the fact the Shiite government refused to support the Sunni majority in the North of the country, driving a lot of them to join ISIS. I don't think this can be remedy'd through a united Iraq. Iraq is an artificial country and needs to be split back up on ethnic grounds, with the Kurds in the north, the Sunni's in the East and the Shiites in the south. This solution of course posses just as many problems but I think they become more manageable.

 

ISIS would still need to be eradicated otherwise we would just be handing them their own Sunni territory. And there is no guarantee the Shiite south would be any better, though I would like to think so with support from Iran and a more moderate Shiite opinion. The Kurds in the north do need real, defined boundary lines so it won't cause problems for Turkey.

 

Iraq will not survive as a state because it was an artificial country to begin with. The Iraqi army at Mosul did not run because they were scared, they ran because they weren't going to give their lives for a country they don't believe in. The Shiites don't want to fight for Sunni's, and the Sunni's don't want to fight for Shiites. The country can not survive as a democracy because there is no democracy to be had.

 

On top of that, we really need to reach out to potential enemies of ISIS, including Iran and Kurdistan to deal with ISIS. We should not put mass scale boots on the ground, instead we should hand that mantle of Middle East stability over to someone who, lives in the Middle East. I know, shocking concept. A coalition of the willing is our best bet I think.

Basically all of this, get people to fight in a war who actually have something to lose.

[WISD0MTREE]

The least we should do is secure airports in that area. It will be 13 years in 6 days (at the time of me posting this). 

[Nobeard]

Do you think the West is to blame for the existence of ISIS and the rise of Modern Wahhabi Islam?

 

The first part yes, the second part no. ISIS is not a Wahabbist group.

 

Edit: and to clarify, Wahhabbism is not Islamism. It is a puritanical strain of Islam. The difference being that Wahabbists are a religious sect believing in strict interpretation of Islamic laws, while Islamists are arguing that the State should be overthrown in order to re-establish a caliphate and the rule of Islamic law.

 

Islamists can be Wahabbists and vice versa, but the two are not identical in aims.

 

Also, the West is not really to blame for the rise of Wahabbism, which has its roots in the original Saudi state in the 19th century. Islamism does not have its roots in the Soviet war in Afghanistan either, but in the colonization of Egypt, other former Ottoman provinces, and India by Britain.

Edited September 5, 2014 by Mr House

[Emmad]

I don't think we caused it, but I think we should have at least some part in destroying it. Anyone with at least some sense of humanity would agree they need to go.

[Dolphman]

Lets arm the moderate ebola viruses to defeat these terrorists

[John Henry Holliday]

Posted 05 September 2014 - 04:52 PM

 

I'll just add my two cents since I didn't resurrect this.

 

There is a point where one politician screwed up in a simple speech, and that helped the cause for religious extremism. The problem is actually the language barrier. Who remembers President Bush using the word "crusade" in one of his speeches? Admittedly, this could be blamed on his speech writer David Frum, but neither of them knew the connotations behind the word. Americans use the word as "fighting for a cause" or "a just fight" in an attempt to mimic the prose in Eisenhower's speech to the Allied Expeditionary Force on the eve of the invasion of Europe. We use the word with ease and don't remember where it came from. To Europe and the Middle East, the word has a different poignancy. Crusade stems from the Latin crux for cross, and the French croisade meaning a war for the cross or to mark with a cross. When Bush mentioned the word, he probably wasn't intending to send soldiers to Acre and massacre everyone inside the city, but it gave extremists ammunition for their propaganda machine. They drew parallels from history to United States government, and they pointed at all the atrocities committed in the name of God a millennium ago.

 

As the war in Iraq and Afghanistan drew out into an occupation, there was more fuel for the fires. Our withdrawal from the area seemed like a victory for them.

 

Do I think we created the idea? No. Did we play directly into propagandists hands? Yes.

 

Since there's no point dwelling in the past, I might as well say I agree with Adama's analysis of the current situation. Unfortunately, the only way I can see this ending is a little weird.  ISIS/ISIL wants to be a recognized state. If it gains that recognition, then they would have to have a government they respect. Assuming they respect this government, they can accept defeat. Without recognition or respect for a central authority, they will fight like dogs until they're beaten, broken, and then rise again. There are two ways to defeat an enemy powered by belief, conviction, and hatred: slaughter or dignity. Slaughter refers to wholesale massacre of every man, woman, and child who could rise up in rebellion again. Dignity refers to signing a peace treaty which trades total destruction of an enemy for control. There is no room in the modern world for either of these solutions; slaughter breeds hatred and dignity requires honor.

 

So, how do we deal with ISIS/ISIL? There is no "quick fix" that the public demands. Recognizing the state now wouldn't mean we could defeat it in battle the next day. Nuclear weapons would be opening Pandora's box for a second time. Perhaps the most telling part of the fiasco is that Iran is fighting the same enemy as the United States. The United States has fought its wars with proxies for far too long. Actually committing an army to the region, defining the action as a war instead of a conflict, and urging other allies to do the same seems like the only option. Another diplomatic option I like is starting a war in the Crimea with Russia, then have ISIS/ISIL go out of control and spread, so Russia and NATO agree on a white peace to face a common threat.

 

None of that will happen though.

Edited November 10, 2014 by John Henry Holliday

[Wiliam]

Too much war, resources and democracy has been poured to the middle east over the last decades. Democracy and Islam don't mix well.

[Fox Fire]

The first part yes, the second part no. ISIS is not a Wahabbist group.

 

Edit: and to clarify, Wahhabbism is not Islamism. It is a puritanical strain of Islam. The difference being that Wahabbists are a religious sect believing in strict interpretation of Islamic laws, while Islamists are arguing that the State should be overthrown in order to re-establish a caliphate and the rule of Islamic law.

 

Islamists can be Wahabbists and vice versa, but the two are not identical in aims.

 

Also, the West is not really to blame for the rise of Wahabbism, which has its roots in the original Saudi state in the 19th century. Islamism does not have its roots in the Soviet war in Afghanistan either, but in the colonization of Egypt, other former Ottoman provinces, and India by Britain.

The Islamic State describe themselves as Salafists, which is essentially the same exact thing as Wahabbism. The only real differences are very minor. Salafism is a a hybrid of Wahabbism and IS themselves refer to themselves as Salafist because they consider the term Wahabbi to be derogatory.

 

Wahabbism was created in the 1700s, but it didnt become popular until the 1950's and 60s in opposition to the west and western interventionism in the muslim world. During this time, it started becoming less agressive toward muslims and started focusing on opposition to the west. (The polar opposite of what Islamic State has been doing).

 

Now that being said, the Islamic State is not Wahabbi nor are they Salafist. This is a masquerade, a mask. In reality, as described by numerous Sunni scholars, and being rather obvious to anyone who knows of the Kuwarij, the Islamic State is a movement of Kuwarij heretics masquarading under the guise of a Sunni Salafist movement to gain support (because Kuwarij are a very unpopular heretic sect of Islam).

 

Yes, the west is in fact to blame for the rise of Wahabbism/Salafism, but no, IS is not Salafist. They pretend to be, but they are just an unpopular sect in Iraq that nobody likes. Should they announce this revelation to the world, every real Sunni in the world would drop their support for them.

Edited November 11, 2014 by Fox Fire

[Aisha Greyjoy]

I'll take national security over financial security just about any day. 

Financial security is what creates national security.

 

 

"The sinews of war are infinite money.

Marcus Tullius Cicero"

[elsuper]

Financial security is what creates national security.

 

I don't quite know about that; financial security enables national security; it is a necessary but insufficient condition of national security.

Edited November 20, 2014 by elsuper