OT: Terrorist attacks in Paris

[waffle]

we cannot bomb fundamentalist Islam into submission/instinction. We cannot police every spot in the world where it flares up. In their eyes, we are THE ENEMY and this is a just, predictable war and wonderful PR. In the end the solution is local and the solution is dependent on Islam coming up with a narrative that consistently points out that these jokers are NOT Islamic. At least not as Islam is practiced today.

Faith is a weird thing. You cannot bomb faith into submission.

[samwana]

But Gulf states want to deliver weapons to counter Assad and Iran.

Western countries should stop delivering them weapons to the Saudi's especially. That's a no-go for the whole weapon industry in US, France, Germany, b/c it would lose them a lot of money.

Turkey is also underhandedly aiding ISIS and buying their oil. They also want Assad out, and they fear an independent Turkish nation more than they fear ISIS.

Turkey is a very dangerous country at the moment, they are near a dictatorship.

We've been trying to get the Iraqi government to be inclusive and representative since the war officially ended.

All these places have their own national interests, and sadly, they don't see ISIS as the utmost danger to them.

It was the same problem trying to train and use 'moderate' rebels in Syria. We said, "we'll help you get ISIS." They said, "No thanks, we want to get Assad more than we want to get ISIS." Because Assad is one the responsible for 80% of the civilian casualties in Syria.

I think the US Government fully understands the above realities, and the futility that Western ground troops would be. In absence of any workable solution, it seems they may have defaulted to the lowest common denominator of, let the bad guys bleed each other out. Unfortunately, this does nothing to stem the tide of refugees.

Problem is that US even though they have their megadata to dig into, never really knows what happens in countries in the ME, and so they always try to help one group to get another group, but never really seem to grasp what the consequences of their actions are. Never really know nor care what the bad guys are. And never realize that with every bomb they drop or drone attack they carry out, there will be more people willing to take the terrorist way. Bombing is great for the weapon industry though, so it continues. (And yes I am really mad at the german Government as well, because they still sell weapons in the ME allthough it is perfectly clear that those weapons land with groups like IS)

I agree with you the US Government understands fully what they do, but as long as the oil ist still coming and as long as the money still flows and as long as it just keeps Europe busy, they don't really care that much. Bush is the one who is responsible for most of the casualties in this era.

And on the other side is IS/Daesh who would love nothing more than ground war on their territory where they could kill as much Americans and other ground troups as possible. And it seems like we are heading that way pretty quickly.

I live in Germany and I am scared to death that we are heading towards WWIII with high speed. Turkey shooting a russian plane out of the air is not helping at all. All the french talk about revenge and going at IS is not really helping either. All the terrorists in Paris were french btw, no one of those guys was from the ME. But yeah sure we must bomb Syria, because some french guys went crazy in Paris.

I'm scared because I'm pretty sure my kids will not live in peace like we do now. I'm scared of all the weaponry that's been handed out to countries in the ME. It's nothing new it happens for a long time already, but there always seemed to be a common ground where you could live and let live. But ever since the ME got destabilized thoroughly in the last few years it is coming closer and closer.

And somewhere the whole weapon industry is laughing and looking forward to a real big fat war.

And somewhere in the middle are a lot of people like you and me who don't really know what we can do against this craziness. We would be much much more people just wanting to live in peace and harmony, in Europe, in America, in the ME, in Afrika, Asia, Australia everywhere, but what can we do to achieve that?
Those in power wouldn't have that much money and not much power anymore if we would all live in peace and they won't let that happen. So we are heading to the next big WWIII.

[Rerisen]

But Gulf states want to deliver weapons to counter Assad and Iran.

Western countries should stop delivering them weapons to the Saudi's especially. That's a no-go for the whole weapon industry in US, France, Germany, b/c it would lose them a lot of money.

Turkey is also underhandedly aiding ISIS and buying their oil. They also want Assad out, and they fear an independent Turkish nation more than they fear ISIS.

Turkey is a very dangerous country at the moment, they are near a dictatorship.

We've been trying to get the Iraqi government to be inclusive and representative since the war officially ended.

All these places have their own national interests, and sadly, they don't see ISIS as the utmost danger to them.

It was the same problem trying to train and use 'moderate' rebels in Syria. We said, "we'll help you get ISIS." They said, "No thanks, we want to get Assad more than we want to get ISIS." Because Assad is one the responsible for 80% of the civilian casualties in Syria.

I think the US Government fully understands the above realities, and the futility that Western ground troops would be. In absence of any workable solution, it seems they may have defaulted to the lowest common denominator of, let the bad guys bleed each other out. Unfortunately, this does nothing to stem the tide of refugees.

Problem is that US even though they have their megadata to dig into, never really knows what happens in countries in the ME, and so they always try to help one group to get another group, but never really seem to grasp what the consequences of their actions are. Never really know nor care what the bad guys are. And never realize that with every bomb they drop or drone attack they carry out, there will be more people willing to take the terrorist way. Bombing is great for the weapon industry though, so it continues. (And yes I am really mad at the german Government as well, because they still sell weapons in the ME allthough it is perfectly clear that those weapons land with groups like IS)

I agree with you the US Government understands fully what they do, but as long as the oil ist still coming and as long as the money still flows and as long as it just keeps Europe busy, they don't really care that much. Bush is the one who is responsible for most of the casualties in this era.

And on the other side is IS/Daesh who would love nothing more than ground war on their territory where they could kill as much Americans and other ground troups as possible. And it seems like we are heading that way pretty quickly.

I live in Germany and I am scared to death that we are heading towards WWIII with high speed. Turkey shooting a russian plane out of the air is not helping at all. All the french talk about revenge and going at IS is not really helping either. All the terrorists in Paris were french btw, no one of those guys was from the ME. But yeah sure we must bomb Syria, because some french guys went crazy in Paris.

I'm scared because I'm pretty sure my kids will not live in peace like we do now. I'm scared of all the weaponry that's been handed out to countries in the ME. It's nothing new it happens for a long time already, but there always seemed to be a common ground where you could live and let live. But ever since the ME got destabilized thoroughly in the last few years it is coming closer and closer.

And somewhere the whole weapon industry is laughing and looking forward to a real big fat war.

And somewhere in the middle are a lot of people like you and me who don't really know what we can do against this craziness. We would be much much more people just wanting to live in peace and harmony, in Europe, in America, in the ME, in Afrika, Asia, Australia everywhere, but what can we do to achieve that?
Those in power wouldn't have that much money and not much power anymore if we would all live in peace and they won't let that happen. So we are heading to the next big WWIII.

Sad truth is the ME has been destabilized for a long long time. The only way the lid was kept on was brutal dictators and tyrants in most of it. Yet those dictators fueled the rage and backwardness of the populations even more. Unfortunately, you remove the dictators and you get something even worse due to the level of extremism and sectarianism inherent in the world views.

Germany for 70 years has been an observer in tough foreign affairs due to the aftermath of WW2. The boon of this is in never having to make tough choices or get blamed for everything that goes wrong in the world. Arm chair quarterbacking is easy, but much harder when you are called to come up with solutions. It seems their holiday from history is ending, as France has begged Germany to do more to help combat terrorism, and they are stepping their toes back onto the scene. Link

People have to get tired of the fighting, tired of dying, and get better educated so that they have bigger goals than tribal or religious warfare. And we have to tread very very carefully, in helping them come together and find solutions, without heavy footing to the point the strengthening the chaos.

I'm not sure about the WWIII fears. It might be possible that great powers are actually coming to see they all have something to fear from terrorism (even China) and can find a way to prioritize that risk as the greater danger to them, even above other national interests, and that getting everyone at the table could be the only true path to an eventual solution here. All 5 permanent members of the UN security council signed the resolution against ISIS. This kind of agreement is not that common on contentious issues. The cost of refusing to compromise for all these nations is now much higher when blowback comes to their doorstep.

[TimRobbins]

of course it is. it's may not one that's acceptable to you, but it's an end-game. i don't think obama has any grander scheme for the middle east. and it's grander schemes that caused a lot of this

Bombing them will not achieve this goal.

Besides, limiting the discussion only to ISIS is meaningless. What is Obama's strategy for the ME beyond ISIS? Is he going to continue to engage and try to micromanage every single country in the ME like we've been doing for the past 50 years? Or does he have a different strategy? Is he going to try and force the colonial borders? ISIS is the symptom, not the disease.

you may be right about all of this. as for the part in bold, i don't think it matters. and i think obama knows that it doesn't matter. he's going to be in office for only another year. his focus is going to continue to be on managing the ISIS situation with limited risk to american personnel

So you seem agree that Obama doesn't have a ME strategy, other than ineffective airstrikes on ISIS (which is a tactic, not a strategy).

[TimRobbins]

I live in Germany and I am scared to death that we are heading towards WWIII with high speed. Turkey shooting a russian plane out of the air is not helping at all. All the french talk about revenge and going at IS is not really helping either. All the terrorists in Paris were french btw, no one of those guys was from the ME. But yeah sure we must bomb Syria, because some french guys went crazy in Paris.

I can understand why you would fear sporadic terrorist attacks, such as the ones we've seen in Paris, but I really can't understand your fears of a "world war"? What military do you see that would attack Germany? I think you can relax, there will be no WWIII. The days of global conventional wars is over.

Germany will continue to live in peace for the foreseeable future.

[dice]

Bombing them will not achieve this goal.

Besides, limiting the discussion only to ISIS is meaningless. What is Obama's strategy for the ME beyond ISIS? Is he going to continue to engage and try to micromanage every single country in the ME like we've been doing for the past 50 years? Or does he have a different strategy? Is he going to try and force the colonial borders? ISIS is the symptom, not the disease.

you may be right about all of this. as for the part in bold, i don't think it matters. and i think obama knows that it doesn't matter. he's going to be in office for only another year. his focus is going to continue to be on managing the ISIS situation with limited risk to american personnel

So you seem agree that Obama doesn't have a ME strategy, other than ineffective airstrikes on ISIS (which is a tactic, not a strategy).

i think he has a strategy of limited engagement because he knows that there's nothing much we can do

[TimRobbins]

i think he has a strategy of limited engagement because he knows that there's nothing much we can do

A strategy of no or limited engagement would be perfectly reasonable, but he hasn't articulated that strategy even once, so we really don't know.

[dice]

i think he has a strategy of limited engagement because he knows that there's nothing much we can do

A strategy of no or limited engagement would be perfectly reasonable, but he hasn't articulated that strategy even once, so we really don't know.

no politician would dare articulate that strategy

[musiqsoulchild]

i think he has a strategy of limited engagement because he knows that there's nothing much we can do

A strategy of no or limited engagement would be perfectly reasonable, but he hasn't articulated that strategy even once, so we really don't know.

no politician would dare articulate that strategy

Yep....not only can you not articulate that.

You also want to ask yourself if that has succeeded anywhere in the world.

[TimRobbins]

i think he has a strategy of limited engagement because he knows that there's nothing much we can do

A strategy of no or limited engagement would be perfectly reasonable, but he hasn't articulated that strategy even once, so we really don't know.

no politician would dare articulate that strategy

So basically we're guessing? He's done so many contradictory things over his tenure that we have absolutely no idea what his strategy is, or even if he has one.

[dice]

A strategy of no or limited engagement would be perfectly reasonable, but he hasn't articulated that strategy even once, so we really don't know.

no politician would dare articulate that strategy

So basically we're guessing? He's done so many contradictory things over his tenure that we have absolutely no idea what his strategy is, or even if he has one.

he's pretty consistently been about pulling out troops at a responsible rate while using drones and overt bombing to do the dirty work, no? so it's pretty clear that he simply doesn't feel that whatever there is to be gained or prevented in the middle east has been worth substantial troop commitment. not even a more stable iraq. does he want ISIS gone? of course. does he really think it's achievable, particularly without a lot of ground troops? who knows

[TimRobbins]

he's pretty consistently been about pulling out troops at a responsible rate while using drones and overt bombing to do the dirty work, no? so it's pretty clear that he simply doesn't feel that whatever there is to be gained or prevented in the middle east has been worth substantial troop commitment. not even a more stable iraq. does he want ISIS gone? of course. does he really think it's achievable, particularly without a lot of ground troops? who knows

"Wanting ISIS gone" is great, but unless he has a magic wand, you need some sort of political strategy for the ME beyond just airstrikes (and really beyond just a military strategy)? Does Obama believe the political solution for Syria and Iraq is to continue to force reunification on them? Does he think they should be split up? Does he think it's non of our business?

This is what I mean by "strategy"? What is the US political role in the ME? Are we going to pull out (politically)? and if not, what is the political solution he wants to achieve?

[Rerisen]

He's probably kicking the can and dumping it on the next POTUS. Obama never seemed inspired by foreign affairs.

[dice]

He's probably kicking the can and dumping it on the next POTUS. Obama never seemed inspired by foreign affairs.

inspired as in war-hungry?

[Rerisen]

He's probably kicking the can and dumping it on the next POTUS. Obama never seemed inspired by foreign affairs.

inspired as in war-hungry?

As in the definition of the word.

[dice]

He's probably kicking the can and dumping it on the next POTUS. Obama never seemed inspired by foreign affairs.

inspired as in war-hungry?

As in the definition of the word.

would you consider the last president to have been "inspired" by foreign affairs?

[Rerisen]

inspired as in war-hungry?

As in the definition of the word.

would you consider the last president to have been "inspired" by foreign affairs?

More so. But being inspired doesn't connote a positive or negative pursuit of that inspiration. One can be inspired to do something and do the wrong thing. Nor does it connote purely military engagement. This crisis has no military only solution. But to the extent it has a solution, the level of diplomatic and political engagement and effort will need to be vast.

[dice]

As in the definition of the word.

would you consider the last president to have been "inspired" by foreign affairs?

More so. But being inspired doesn't connote a positive or negative pursuit of that inspiration. One can be inspired to do something and do the wrong thing. Nor does it connote purely military engagement. This crisis has no military only solution. But to the extent it has a solution, the level of diplomatic and political engagement and effort will need to be vast.

i think it's widely acknowledged that the previous president was heavily reliant on the advice of others when it came to foreign affairs. in fact, it was reported that he was woefully lacking in foreign affairs knowledge when running for president and had to get a crash course from advisers. and this was a guy who's father was not only president but head of the CIA! the current president, on the other hand, is thoroughly knowledgeable about foreign affairs. he prominently called the invasion of iraq a mistake as it was happening. and would a president uninspired by foreign affairs be the first in generations to establish a formal diplomatic relationship with cuba? wouldn't he just punt on that one?

[Rerisen]

i think it's widely acknowledged that the previous president was heavily reliant on the advice of others when it came to foreign affairs. in fact, it was reported that he was woefully lacking in foreign affairs knowledge when running for president and had to get a crash course from advisers. and this was a guy who's father was not only president but head of the CIA! the current president, on the other hand, is thoroughly knowledgeable about foreign affairs. he prominently called the invasion of iraq a mistake as it was happening. and would a president uninspired by foreign affairs be the first in generations to establish a formal diplomatic relationship with cuba? wouldn't he just punt on that one?

I don't find what animates politicians to be really a left/right issue. You can usually tell what they prioritize while running for the job, and even what they speak passionately about while in the job.

I don't see that Hillary has any higher desire for ground troops than Obama, but she nonetheless said the Syria policy, "Has not worked" and is a failure. She wanted higher engagement in organizing and supporting rebel opposition. She also is interested in a no fly zone.

Whether this is a humanitarian themed plan aimed at creating a path for diplomacy, or whether it is dangerous escalation, well that depends on one's perspective.

[dice]

i think it's widely acknowledged that the previous president was heavily reliant on the advice of others when it came to foreign affairs. in fact, it was reported that he was woefully lacking in foreign affairs knowledge when running for president and had to get a crash course from advisers. and this was a guy who's father was not only president but head of the CIA! the current president, on the other hand, is thoroughly knowledgeable about foreign affairs. he prominently called the invasion of iraq a mistake as it was happening. and would a president uninspired by foreign affairs be the first in generations to establish a formal diplomatic relationship with cuba? wouldn't he just punt on that one?

I don't find what animates politicians to be really a left/right issue. You can usually tell what they prioritize while running for the job, and even what they speak passionately about while in the job.

I don't see that Hillary has any higher desire for ground troops than Obama, but she nonetheless said the Syria policy, "Has not worked" and is a failure. She wanted higher engagement in organizing and supporting rebel opposition. She also is interested in a no fly zone.

Whether this is a humanitarian themed plan aimed at creating a path for diplomacy, or whether it is dangerous escalation, well that depends on one's perspective.

i'm not sure what any of that has to do with what i said. all i'm saying is that obama is very engaged when it comes to foreign policy. and that would be evident in any substantive foreign policy interview you could find